Thomas Team Together

With my van having over 159,000 miles on it, I never expected Shayne to venture to drive it all the way to Philadelphia, but when I entered the garage in the middle of the night that's what I saw pulling in. THEY MADE IT! I couldn't get Shayla's door opened and her seatbelt off fast enough. Shayne is the most amazing man. And with God as the Thomas team's "Unseen Captain" they arrived safely.

Mom told me that Christi borrowed a train set from the playroom and put it together on her (huge) hospital room floor so that Shayla would have something to play with when she arrived, so thoughtful. Her IV fluids needed to be hooked back up because she was not drinking enough, yet she felt so well that she kept my mother up until 1:00 AM playing and eating. (She seems to slip into "teenager mode" when she's at the hospital-staying up late and sleeping in.)

Because my mom hadn't seen Shayla since mid-December, she whisked her out of Christi's room and off for fun as soon as we arrived in Christi's room where she was soundly sleeping this morning.

This morning's blood counts showed the drop that's already taken place, hgb. now down to 8.2. (We expect the worse set in next week.) Because we wanted to venture out today they agreed to transfuse her with blood at midnight and then gave us a six hour pass. When we returned tonight, her hgb. was down to 7.8 which explained why she occassionally said at the museum, "It feels like I can't get enough air." (Amazingly enough, she was actually RUNNING around despite needing a blood transfusion.) All day today we cringed each time we'd observe her bending her neck. When asked, she'll tell you that it hurts - but not bad.

Please Touch Museum Even though designed for little kids, Christi had been wanting to return to the Please Touch Museum she remembered from a couple of years ago. The wonderful people at the Ronald House provided our family with free admittance passes and we drove downtown where the girls had a ball playing together at "Please Touch". Explaining that we had a few hours left on our pass, we asked the girls if they wanted to go back to the hospital, or to the Ronald House and without a doubt you all know where they decided.

Shayne dropped us off at Ronald and drove my wonderful mom back to the train station to get to the airport. (Thanks, Mom!!) Back at the Ronald McDonald House there were about 15 high school volunteers in to play with the kids and to make ice cream sundaes. Imagine Christi & Shayla's delight to find out that they were the ONLY Ronald kids to be played with. For hours they were treated and spoiled by these great students doing crafts and playing games. (So much for the six hour pass.........eight hours later we snuck back into CHOP where the sweet doctor chuckled and said, "I didn't see a thing.......Do you think my kids would enjoy that museum too?")