Two LONG weeks of hospitalization!

We spent the evening with Cater & Claire (Dan & Sarah's older kids yesterday) so for the first time they were able to have a dinner out to themselves & attend the temple.  They said they were able to receive comfort & help in preparing themselves for whatever the Lord has in store for them & baby William....it's hard for me to hear that sometimes, but we all realize we need to be prepared for whatever is coming.  Hopefully it is just the long months of recovery we will all be dealing with.

I spent a little over an hour with William as well, and while there it was physically and emotionally draining. A few things went wrong with his breathing machine, so when I walked in, I found my mom and 12 other nurses and doctors in his tiny room, I felt panic pang my soul!  They got him stabilized, but it was hard to see him looking very swollen, fighting for breath, and in a lot of pain. I told my mom & Sarah that night I could NEVER be a nurse, my mom confirmed that!

Most of the pain he was in was from his procedure yesterday, where they were attempting to drain some of the infection in his stomach.  The fluid was slightly bloody and not clearly infectious., and they did not find as much fluid as they had hoped..so it's still unknown exactly what's going on inside him. So, the cultures will take 48 hours to grow so we will see the results in a few days.

I was probably so annoying to the nurses, but I figurered since I was the aunt I could be annoying since I am not always there. So I just kept asking LOTS of questions, and asking if he was OK (we had a few scares while I was there).  I found out that his urine output is still not where near what it needs to be (she told me the amount he should have per hour, which I forgot because it is way to many numbers for me) but he still is getting output urine which is wonderful no matter the amount, because it does mean his kidneys have some function in them.  Also his white count is trending down. He's very itchy which is likely due to all the fluid he's retaining while off dialysis.  He also looks very swollen and white (which the white is pretty usual for this kid, we always teased that he is almost see through) but the swelling was hard for me to see because it made him look so different from his usual self.

So apparently they are going to do the hemo-dialysis (normal, fast flow) just to help with all the above mentioned symptoms, but not too long because he is urinating and to much dialysis will pull the blood away from the kidneys, which is not good. But it is very obvious he is still retaining too much fluid.  So our goal for now is NO DIALYSIS on MONDAY! 

One nurse told me she read him stories, talked with him, and sang with him to music because he really seemed to enjoy that. Again he is NOT in a comma (many people have asked that) but he is heavily sedated, almost continually so he is not typically very aware. But yesterday as I was talking to him I mentioned Carter & Claire were with Uncle Ned and he really opened his eye's wide open and looked around the room.  He was looking for them.  The nurses and doctors have all said this kid is such a busy body, they can tell because they give him the strongest drugs they have, and he fights through the sedation and wakes up in pain (which apparently shouldn't be happening). They also say he likes to be entertained, which is so true.  So our little Willy is still there, still fighting, and STILL BUSY!!! Go Will!

Also I have had a number of people contact me regarding the use of pictures of William for their blog or FB. Danny has released permission to use these photos and those on the blog for that use.