We’re staring at the last few drops of the IVIG dripping one by one. Just a few more minutes….

Let me take this time to describe the wonderful view outside this room. It’s dark, dreary and rainy. Scanning from left to right, 9 floors up, we have: the hospital parking garage, the red EMergENCY room sign (“erg” aren’t lit up), the 9th street entrance under construction and blocked off, the big old abandoned Pillsbury plant, an enormous puddle-filled parking lot, the Carol Jo Vecchie center with their nice rooms, lots of air conditioning units atop a roof, the unused medical incinerator smokestack, and finally the power plant construction at CWLP.

I can’t see Smokey Bones from here… that’s a shame. We’ll be there soon for some dinner and some SWEET TEA!

The platelet infusion is done.  Now it’s on to the 3 hours of IVIG.

This morning, Ana had a scheduled blood test (due to our last hospital stay) that came back quite unfavorably with her platelet counts at 7,000.  So they had her come into the hospital to get another platelet transfusion as well as a dosage of IVIG.

This is the outpatient floor of the hostpital so they are insisting that we’ll be out of here tonight.  It’ll be a while though – she’s currently getting her platelets infused at a rate that will take 2 hours; following that will be the IVIG that will take another 3 hours.

We haven’t really spoken to any doctors, which is pretty annoying.  This has all been handed down by one, obviously, through the various nurses.

She’s not in the comfortable Carol Jo Vecchie center, so the rooms aren’t nearly as comfortable and she’s got a roommate.  Keep checking back for updates, I have a nice broadband connection here in the room thanks to Jay.

We actually got home last night, around 7pm.  Friday morning, Ana was told her platelet count was up to 14,000 (still abysmal) and that she’d be staying another day.   After some begging the doctor said she could get another test in the afternoon and if that looked good, that decision would be reconsidered.

They came around and tested in the afternoon and she was up to 33,000 and we were given the ok to go home!  It still took several hours to actually leave the hospital but that was expected.

Thanks again to everyone for their thoughts and prayers this week.  It was nerve racking for a while there and it really helped.

It took all weekend, but it was well worth the effort. I started Friday evening with priming, followed by painting on Saturday, and chair rail creation/installation Saturday night and Sunday. It was a lot of effort, but we love how it turned out!

Pardon the crap on the floor 🙂 More photos can be seen in gallery.

Here’s a way to find out….

Today Ana and I announced to our families that we are expecting our first child, God willing, this December.  We’re very excited, to say the least!

I’ve put some of the photos I took in Chicago online.

This is the area where, over night last night, some individual(s) spent approximately $700 of my money.  At a Wal-Mart, a Popeye’s Chicken, and a Shell gas station.

This morning I received a call from my bank, saying they wanted to validate some suspicious activity on my debit card.  The gentleman mentioned they were from Louisiana and were from yesterday.  Well, Ana was in Louisiana for the past two days, so I thought nothing of it and said things were just fine.  I was stupid, didn’t ask for a dollar amount or anything, he just mentioned in passing that Wal-mart was involved.

Something was nagging at me so I called Ana and asked if she had bought anything down there at Wal-Mart and she said she hadn’t.   Uh oh.  I called the bank back and talked with him more and learned that around $700 had been spent in total and that they were now closing my card.

I just had to sign a few papers and should be getting a new card in a couple days.

Oh, what fun.