Over the night, Seven’s temperature had dipped to 95 degrees. He was put back on the Bair Hugger. He will have trouble regulating his temperature on his own until he is well. His calcium dipped again as well so we started him on a calcium drip. His blistering increased and his weight is up to 29 lbs. We entered the hospital on Tuesday morning at 20 lbs. To help the blistering, Vigilon pads were placed on the affected areas. These are gel like pads made of mostly water that help the healing process. Seven will be moving from a crib today to a big boy bed. The larger bed has an air mattress which will help relieve pressure from the excess weight. Seven continued to urinate through the night even after the one dose of diuretic had worn off. This morning it was decided to add another dose to keep up the progress, as he has a lot of water weight still to shed. There is an accumulation of fluid around the outside of one lung. Even so, he is weaning off the ventilator and handling it well. The fluid around the lung will be monitored, and if necessary, a tube will have to be inserted in that area to relieve pressure. The sodium was lowered to 145 by morning. This is now within the normal range! Yay! Seven’s platelet count dipped even lower over the
course of yesterday and last night. Platelets are an important part of the clotting process. Seven getting low had caused some blood to ooze out of the port in his femoral artery. It was decided to add platelets. We ordered the platelets, but apparently A negative platelets are a hot commodity. We were expecting them between 10am-12pm. 12 came and went. We were then told they might arrive after 3pm. I sat there helpless. I am A negative. I imagined the situation like I would see it in the movies. I race over to another room and they take my blood really quick and give it to him. It turns out it doesn’t work that way. If I want to donate my blood to Seven only, there is a protocol. They give me a form filled out with the hospital information and then I go to a blood bank and give there. My blood still had to go through the same testing that all other donor’s blood goes through, and that took two days. Any blood that I gave today would not be able to be used until probably Monday. I know that wouldn’t help him today but I thought I would seriously regret not giving, just in case something unexpected happened and he did need it next week. Worst
case scenario would be Seven not needing it and it would be given to someone else who did. That sounded like a win/win. I Googled for the closest blood bank and found out that they closed at 2pm on Fridays. Current time:1:15pm. We called, explained our situation and rushed over. Jarrad decided to donate also, since he was there anyway. It turns out that giving platelets is a different process than giving blood. I was in for several hours. I was hooked up to a machine that pulls my blood, separates it into blood, platelets, and plasma, and returns blood into my system. I need some red blood back to stay oxygenated. They also give some saline at the end of the process to keep you from being dehydrated. I got pretty light headed and had to keep thinking, “Seven needs this. Seven needs this.” The entire process took about 3 hours. I was pretty loopy afterwards. Jarrad found it very amusing. We got back to the hospital and were informed that the platelets weren’t coming. The blood bank here didn’t have any. They kept waiting for shipments from other banks which had all run dry on
platelets, apparently. Just about that time I looked Seven over and noticed the pad around his femoral line started to look pretty wet. Our only option was to give the A positive platelets if he started bleeding more. That came with a set of risks, but was better than not giving anything. Just as I started getting nervous, word came in that the platelets had just arrived. They were flown in from California. These platelets had a tan and bright blonde hair. We like to imagine that they were flown first class and had a nice meal. I’m pretty sure it was FedEx, though. The platelets were given for several hours before Jarrad and I left for the night, somewhere around 11. The platelets are in the bag hanging above Seven. Unlike regular blood, they are the color of clarified butter.
Over the night, Seven’s temperature had dipped to 95 degrees. He was put back on the Bair Hugger. He will have trouble regulating his temperature on his own until he is well. His calcium dipped again as well so we started him on a calcium drip. His blistering increased and his weight is up to 29 lbs. We entered the hospital on Tuesday morning at 20 lbs. To help the blistering, Vigilon pads were placed on the affected areas. These are gel like pads made of mostly water that help the healing process. Seven will be moving from a crib today to a big boy bed. The larger bed has an air mattress which will help relieve pressure from the excess weight. Seven continued to urinate through the night even after the one dose of diuretic had worn off. This morning it was decided to add another dose to keep up the progress, as he has a lot of water weight still to shed. There is an accumulation of fluid around the outside of one lung. Even so, he is weaning off the ventilator and handling it well. The fluid around the lung will be monitored, and if necessary, a tube will have to be inserted in that area to relieve pressure. The sodium was lowered to 145 by morning. This is now within the normal range! Yay! Seven’s platelet count dipped even lower over the 
course of yesterday and last night. Platelets are an important part of the clotting process. Seven getting low had caused some blood to ooze out of the port in his femoral artery. It was decided to add platelets. We ordered the platelets, but apparently A negative platelets are a hot commodity. We were expecting them between 10am-12pm. 12 came and went. We were then told they might arrive after 3pm. I sat there helpless. I am A negative. I imagined the situation like I would see it in the movies. I race over to another room and they take my blood really quick and give it to him. It turns out it doesn’t work that way. If I want to donate my blood to Seven only, there is a protocol. They give me a form filled out with the hospital information and then I go to a blood bank and give there. My blood still had to go through the same testing that all other donor’s blood goes through, and that took two days. Any blood that I gave today would not be able to be used until probably Monday. I know that wouldn’t help him today but I thought I would seriously regret not giving, just in case something unexpected happened and he did need it next week. Worst 
case scenario would be Seven not needing it and it would be given to someone else who did. That sounded like a win/win. I Googled for the closest blood bank and found out that they closed at 2pm on Fridays. Current time:1:15pm. We called, explained our situation and rushed over. Jarrad decided to donate also, since he was there anyway. It turns out that giving platelets is a different process than giving blood. I was in for several hours. I was hooked up to a machine that pulls my blood, separates it into blood, platelets, and plasma, and returns blood into my system. I need some red blood back to stay oxygenated. They also give some saline at the end of the process to keep you from being dehydrated. I got pretty light headed and had to keep thinking, “Seven needs this. Seven needs this.” The entire process took about 3 hours. I was pretty loopy afterwards. Jarrad found it very amusing. We got back to the hospital and were informed that the platelets weren’t coming. The blood bank here didn’t have any. They kept waiting for shipments from other banks which had all run dry on 
platelets, apparently. Just about that time I looked Seven over and noticed the pad around his femoral line started to look pretty wet. Our only option was to give the A positive platelets if he started bleeding more. That came with a set of risks, but was better than not giving anything. Just as I started getting nervous, word came in that the platelets had just arrived. They were flown in from California. These platelets had a tan and bright blonde hair. We like to imagine that they were flown first class and had a nice meal. I’m pretty sure it was FedEx, though. The platelets were given for several hours before Jarrad and I left for the night, somewhere around 11. The platelets are in the bag hanging above Seven. Unlike regular blood, they are the color of clarified butter.
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