Monday, December 26, 2022

Tilly and Thomas Go to the Hospital

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December 26

I’d appreciate any prayers for our dear Tilly who chewed through an electrical cord and is now at the vet hospital for 24 hours of observation. She chewed through the cord of a space heater we were using since both our HVAC units were defunct for days. John and Mary were heroes and drove her (in the car that wasn’t broken down) to the doggy hospital . . . Because Chris was meeting with the HVAC man and I was gone, having had to take Thomas to the Emergency Room (103.4 temp, uncontrolled by Tylenol, in absence of a spleen is scary times). Our life has been a country song today! 

But the heat is back on (downstairs anyway). 

The Expedition is starting again. 

Thomas should be discharged soon. 

And that leaves me worrying about our precious Tilly.



Update: It turns out that both Thomas and Tilly will be spending the night in their respective species’ hospital for observation. 

Thomas popped a simple 100-degree fever (with no respiratory symptoms) around 7:00 p.m. Christmas night and by the next morning, he had started to develop pneumonia. That’s how vulnerable a person can be without a spleen to be the first line of defense against germy invaders. 

Thomas probably just needs to be perked up with IV antibiotics and hydration. We hope to be home within 24 hours. 

Please pray that he won’t miss EVERY exciting Christmas event we had planned this week. He is already heartbroken about that.



December 27

Miss Tilly is home from the hospital! After another 24 hours of watching for post-electrocution complications at home, we can breathe a final sigh of relief. Also, I want to thank our hero son Joseph (9) who was the first to leap into action, running across the room to unplug the electrical cord since Tilly was being zapped and couldn’t extract her own teeth from the cord. We love our little bird brain puffball with bug eyes so much!



Thanks to those who inquired . . . Thomas will be staying in the hospital one more overnight because nobody wants him to go home and “bounce back” (into the hospital). One of his labs is going up when they want to see it go down. Thomas enjoyed a Lego play session with his brother this morning, but then his fever spiked again and he’s been sleeping the last six hours. (Chris and I swapped out for a bit and I went to retrieve Tilly and hug kiddos). All should be fine soon enough; he’s just a fellow who needs extra medical care to fight bugs most of us deal with easily.



December 28

My Little Inspiration

If you’re not “in the know” about hospital life, you’d have no reason to know that any standard, planned blood labs each day are drawn at 4:00 a.m. and that is because the latest lab info for patients needs to be ready for the Residents’ pre-rounds between 5:00 and 6:00, which is before real Rounds that start right after shift change at 7:00. 

If the patient has a port or central line, the ninja-like lab techs will draw blood off the line while the patient sleeps. The rest of the unfortunates experience being woken from a sound sleep by the overhead glaring lights being turned on and a lab lady ready to go. 

Little Thomas at seven years old can be woken that harshly and will quietly hand over his arm, get poked for the blood draw with not a peep, and then curl up to be fast asleep — all in four minutes flat. 

These little medical kids can become quite stoic little people!



Going home! Thanks for the prayers!



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