Day +53

Today Claire was moved out of PICU and back to ICS. We are hoping to bust out of here in a few days. She had a low fever last night, but no other fevers. Her blood pressure is stable. Her platelets have dropped and her white blood cells have soared, both expected when the body is fighting an infection, even though her cultures haven't grown any specific bacteria. She has been quiet, but as awake and alert as she usually is. I was thinking about what happens when a normal person gets sick and has a fever. For me, I usually just go to bed. I might take medicine to manage the symptoms, but I rarely go to the doctor. I sleep. I never think about the battle that is going on inside of my body between all of the different parts of my blood cells and whatever foreign thing has invaded me, but our bodies work very hard to heal us. What a piece of work is man. No wonder I usually sleep right through sicknesses. Battles are exhausting! Claire's immune system is just not old enough or strong enough to fight those battles alone. She needs antibiotics, epinephrine, monitoring, doctors, nurses, and several liters of fluids being pumped into her at a fast rate to fight. (And yes, she has spent a LOT of time in the bathroom.) This is why she can't go anywhere, have too many visitors, eat or drink certain things, or do a multitude of other things. It's just too dangerous. Even though we know that the greatest dangers often come from things that are already inside of her body.

The PICU is a hard place to be for so many reasons. It is such a hotbed of human emotion. For the last two days there has been a large family camped out in the PICU waiting room. Lots of people, lots of food, lots of emotion. A small part of me (and I recognize that it is THE small part of me) is resentful that they have taken over this public space. I have kind of wondered why we don't have that happening. (I know the answer to that. We don't invite people into our lives that way, and Claire would be overwhelmed by it, anyhow. And maybe we are just too accustomed to being in the hospital, which is pretty sad.) It also makes me mourn the fact that Claire doesn't have any living grandparents to stand guard for her. But the much bigger part of me hurts for this family. They are obviously here for a serious and sad reason, and their grief can be seen on all of their faces. Everyone has a story to be told and a battle to be fought. We'll keep fighting ours.