Platelets, Blood and IVIG

So, I realized I didn't really explain the source of the spots all over Julianne. The spots all over her, the petechia and purpura, are tiny bleeds all over under her skin. They're caused by the extremely low platelet count which, when combined with her daily aspirin and plavix, made a bad thing worse. Julianne received four units of platelets yesterday and her platelet count was up to 28,000 early this morning. By afternoon, it was back down to 3,000. Keep in mind, that normal is around 300,000. Anything under 20,000 is at risk for internal bleeding. Scary... Despite all that is going on, Julianne has remained quite stable throughout all of this, so that is great! She received more platelets today as well as red blood cells because her hemoglobin was low too. Her WBC is low, but not super low, so that's good too.

Julianne was started on something tonight called IVIG. The way I understood it is that Julianne's body for some reason, be it from the Bactrim, virus, whatever, is likely suppressing her bone marrow production because her immune system is fighting off everything...even the good cells. The IVIG will hopefully take over and make her body stop doing the bad stuff its doing and allow the bone marrow production to resume. Basically this will, hopefully, make her better more quickly than just waiting and watching would do. What we don't want is to just be waiting it out and she gets even more sick. So, IVIG it is.

Now some good news, everyone that looked at Julianne today thought she looked better than yesterday. Even though she still has all of those spots, she wasn't as red underneath all the spots. When she wasn't being messed with by anyone in scrubs, she was happy, watching mickey, coloring with markers, playing with her mickey number cards and being "Julianne". It makes us so happy to see that. Now, we need her insides to follow suit!! Please continue in prayer for our baby girl. Please pray that God will heal this and that he will continue to protect our precious baby.

I shared on facebook that yesterday, while in the ER, Julianne said, "These two need to go!!" as she pointed to the two ER doctors examining her. It wasn't funny yesterday, because she had so much going on, but I couldn't help but laugh a little as I thought of it today. She's not shy about saying what she's NOT OKAY with! I think that is a good thing in some ways. :)

Finally, here are a couple of pictures from today:



We are so grateful for all of your prayers for Julianne and for the rest of our family. Yesterday was a tough day, but today has been easier because we saw a little more normal "Julianne" AND now that she has a central line SHE DOESN'T HAVE TO BE POKED ANYMORE!!!!!! Its so hard to see Julianne go through all of this, and we do have times where we break down, but we know that God is in control of all of this and there is not a moment that Julianne or us are out of his care. Thank you for all of your prayers and encouragement. We're more than appreciative!!