I think someone is trying to send us a message...

Ray and I "snuck" down to Palm Harbor Friday night so that we could attend my niece's 1st Birthday. She looked absolutely beautiful and the kids were having a great time. Then, all of a sudden, we hear the back screen door slam and loud screaming from my 2 year old. At first we thought that he had just pinched his finger in the door. But, after we saw blood pouring down his arm, we found that he the door had caught his left pointer finger (he is a lefty) at the henge and when he pulled his arm back, the end of his finger was cut off.

Thankfully, my brother was able to recover the missing piece and brought it up to us so that they could sew it back on. About 4 hours later, we left the hospital with his finger stiched and wrapped up tight.

Today, I took him to his follow up appt. with the plastic surgeon. As she unwrapped the final layers of gauze, we both gasped at the same time. My sons tiny finger was a peculiar shade of grey. She immediately sent us to an orthopedic hand specialist. He put a soft cast on his arm, leaving a sort of open cone around the end of his hand to protect his finger from hitting anything, but allowing circulation. He thinks that we caught it in time to save his finger, but, we won't know until it starts to heal.

It seems like every time we try to take a break from the transplant, something bad happens. hmmmmm.

Are you kidding me!!!

I probably shouldn't be blogging today, since I am so frustrated. Ray's numbers have been dropping over the last couple days. He had to have a platelet transfusion yesterday and red cells today. The doctors are concerned about a possible brain infection, so we were at the hospital til almost midnight last night so that they could do an MRI of his brain.

To add more stress, Logan (our 4 year old son) had a nocturnal seizure last week and after an EEG and meeting with the neurologist, he was diagnosed with Benign Rolandic Epilepsy. The good news is that they said that if you are going to have Epilepsy, this is the best type to have. 95% of children outgrow it by their mid teens. The bad news is that the medicine they put him on has him flying off the walls. I felt that he needed us right now, so, he is up here in Gainesville with us for the next couple days.

Things have got to start improving around here!!! We will just have to keep our faith in God and keep praying!!

Another bump in the road

Well, Ray is now 51 days out from his transplant and the last few weeks have gone pretty smoothly. However, today we informed that the stems cells should be 100% engrafted, but they are only 12% engrafted. They are going to taper him off of his steroids to see if that helps. If it doesn't start engrafting, they will have to give him another set of his brother's cells.

Needless to say, Ray is devastated. His platelets and red blood count have dropped and he is feeling like this was all for nothing. I have to admit, that this is definitely not the news that we had hoped nor prepared for. However, we have to keep our faith in God and trust that he will heal Ray. Hopefully the news will be better next week.