Oct 12

We get to take our princess home today!! We are so excited! Well to be honest, we were really excited at first. But as we've been waiting for all the discharge instructions, we've been reading over a book they gave us about giving subcutaneous shots. My mood kinda changed a bit after reading how/when/where we have to give Claire shots: TWICE a day for up to THREE MONTHS, in the abdomen, at 5:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. What?!?

The clot unfortunately hasn't improved. In fact, it has extended a bit closer to the tummy area. So it goes from the upper part of her right thigh to just below and to the right of her belly button. They not super worried about it yet, but it still definitely needs to be treated with heparin every day. The worry is that the clot could continue to extend and even go into her heart, which could then be a matter of life of death. Giving her a dose of heparin every 12 hours should keep the clot from extending or growing bigger. The hope is that the body will then do it's job and dissolve the clot on it's own.

As if the princess doesn't already have enough trauma with medical intervention! Now we have to be the bad ones in causing some amount of pain. sigh. I already warned Jared that I would help him, but I most likely won't be giving her any shots myself.

They are going to do another ultrasound on Monday to see where she's at.

So YES, we are soooooooo excited to ALL be home in our beds tonight! I know she will improve so much faster in the comfort of her own home! We just have to be EXTRA careful of any falls, cuts, or anything that could cause internal/external bleeding. Since we're thinning her blood out so the clot in her leg won't continue to clot, we have to be careful that she doesn't have any trauma that would cause her body to bleed and not be able to stop.

Benson gets the prize of being the first one to make Claire laugh! Not much surprise there. That was one of the best sounds we've heard for a long time! I'll post the darling video of that when we get home later tonight!