2009 September - Aria MacDonald

The emergency department is a really tough place to be. For Aria and us it is a necessary stepping stone to what we know is an inevitable admission.

We got in there this morning just before 10am and Anita got into a room about 5 o’clock this afternoon. It’s a real mental battle being in that situation, knowing that you will (hopefully) be getting a room at some stage but having to hang in E.D in the meantime. To make things worse Aria knows that we aren’t staying in E.D too and wants to go up stairs to our room too.

What ends up happening is Aria asking for whoever is with her, this time Anita, to walk around and around and around the emergency department. Very boring and very tiring. Anita was a real trooper today and saw things through till a room came free.

When she got upstairs, they gave Aria a transfusion to get some blood into her to help with the Hb count, and started her on antibiotics to see if they can clear up whatever is lingering around causing trouble.

Hopefully she’ll be happier in the morning, and hopefully Aria and Anita would both have had a good night’s sleep. A sleep that Anita really needed after all those laps of E.D.

By the way, Aria is stuff.co.nz here

A few things were simplified for the sake of the story such as Aria being the first bowel/kidney kid not multi-oragan, but overall a good piece.

Just got a call from Starship, Aria’s HB or iron is 56 again 🙁

This isn’t right just weeks after a blood transfusion, something is causing it to drop and we are really concerned for Aria.

Aria hasn’t been right for weeks now so in some way we are glad that something is being actioned and hopefully we will get to the bottom of it.

Please pray for us and a bed in a chocka block hospital.

We are pretty disappointed to have to go back but Aria however is sitting on the couch giggling and telling us all the stuff she is going to do at Star and clapping her hands.

Also – there is a story about Aria in the Manukau Courier today too.

Yesterday Aria and I went to ‘Star’ for a clinic appointment.  Aria was very excited, I think it might be the highlight of her week.  She is so funny, she plans a big list of all the things she is going to tell Dr E.  It included counting, spelling her name, big NuNu little NuNu, Ashie, preschool etc etc.

We got of the motorway and drove up the hill.  Aria yelled from the back seat ‘Aria sees it! Aria sees Star YAY WooHoo!!”  ‘That way Mummy’.  Honestly, it was so funny. She was so excited.

But of course, she is funny, and gets all shy when we actually get to clinic and had a bit of a meltdown about lying down for Dr E to look at her tummy.  So we needed up lying on the floor with a pillow a certain way.  She was pretty good after that though.

We had to go up to the ward to do monthly bloods because we wanted to avoid the drama of the Labtest change over.  It’s precious blood and don’t want them losing it cause they aren’t organised.  We talked about visiting Baby Sam and she was excited about that but again got all shy when we went in.

Overally it was an exhausting experience and we didn’t get home until 3pm which is quite late considering clinic was at 11am!

No news on funding except that it is held up in the process for various reasons.  It is annoying and a waiting game but we continue wait and trust in God’s timing.