I have been fortunate in my life to never have been hospitalized overnight.  I have had a few bouts with stitches when my brothers and I were young when my head met the hard bricks on the fireplace in our family room.  In her short six years, Sarah has had at least three separate overnight hospital stays.  Her current one is definitely her most intense and easily the most lengthy. 

Today we got the word that Sarah's pnemonia is likely because of a MRSA infection.  Although this is a scary type of staph infection, we were happy to hear something other than "we don't know, usually in 48 hours they are better by now" in not-so-many words from various doctors.  This is the 11th day in a row that Sarah has had a fever of some type.  And lately, we aren't talking an everyday normal fever.  Yesterday her fever reached a peak of 104.9 degrees.  At one point one of the specialists said "well, if her fever goes over 101, we need to re-think our plan of action."   We knew that she was going to exceed this threshold, but we went along with the doctors plan anyway. Within 15 minutes, Deanna called in the nurse to take her temperature and it was nearly 103.  They didn't have to go far to let the doctor know his limit had been easily broken - he was still just down the hall. 

It is frustrating beyond belief to see your child endure countless tests and procedures with no end in sight and with no improvement.   Sarah has had to have her fingers pricked both before and after receiving her IV meds.  Anyone that knows Sarah knows that she is a fighter and doesn't do something she doesn't want to do without letting her opinion be known. Hopefully that will be a good trait later in life, but it definitely has added many gray hairs to my head during the last few days here!  For some reason, sometimes it is the very simple things that cause her to rebel, like pulling her shirt up for an ultrasound of her heart or taking the iburprofen that she has taken countless times before. She has uttered the phrase 'But I'm scared!!" hundreds of times in the past couple days.  It is tough to combat that but we do our best. 

We still don't know why it took so long to get the CT scan done (on our 6th day in the hospital) that seemed to give the doctors a valuable piece to the puzzle.   We advocated for that test several times, but it fell on deaf ears.  Originally there was talk of doing a bronchoscopy (where they put a tube down her throat in the operating room and take out some fluids for testing).  Why would they do that when they can do a non-invasive test first?   We may never know.  Part of the problem is that you have teams of specialists that all have different opinions.  So those can clash at times and slow down the process.  

Deanna and I have been trading off at the hospital quite a bit - both the last couple days we have both been here almost the whole day.   I slept her the first three nights and Deanna slept her last night and will tonight. It has been great that Deanna's aunt Brenda has helped out a ton and my parents have stepped in and came down to help out. It has been a tremendous relief to our family.  Having Alex is causing logistical problems because he is still breastfeeding but we don't want him to come into the hospital.  I don't think he is allowed even if we wanted to either.  So Deanna will often go down to the parking area to nurse him and then someone will drive him back home after that.  Deanna also has to run home late at night to put him to bed.  He has been a great boy through all of this and is just such a joy to have around.  Char is her usual cheerful, clown self.  She is liking all of the time she gets to spend with Grandma and Grandpa.  She is having a blast but does definitely miss Sarah.  She doesn't mind not having to compete over the Wii however.  She likes being able to pick whatever game she wants and not having to content with Sarah.

We have been overwhelmed by the support and notes of encouragement from everyone we know and even some we don't know.  That really does help and keeps us going through some really tough and scary times. We have had people provide everything from meals to balloons to stuffed animals and activities to keep Sarah busy.  We are so grateful for it all and hope that we can return the favor someday when these people need it.  Except for the times when Sarah spikes a really high fever, she is in a good mood most of the time during the day.  She has her moments, but who wouldn't?  I guess in her mind, laying in bed watching shows and playing PlayStation II isn't all that bad compared to being in school and being told what to do all day!  But she would probably trade back when she sees the lab cart once again signaling the need to take more of her blood for tests. 

It sounds like we are going to be in here another week more than likely.  Hopefully the next week is more uneventful than the first.  Maybe Sarah will go into the medical profession after this experience, or have nothing to do with it whatsoever!