Merry Christmas!

Maura had a great Christmas! First, both her sisters are here for Christmas and beyond. She loves to be with her sisters. We had to spend much of Christmas Eve at the hospital for lab work and lab review, but we were together, so we were happy. Missed church, though. Maura checked about returning on Christmas day, but the nurse said more than once that she did not have to come. We knew the nurse had made a mistake, but, we stayed home anyway--I mean, come on, it was Christmas!

Maura's cousins live mostly in California. They all stay in touch fairly regularly and draw names for their own Christmas gift exchange each year. The 2008 Hoggard Cousin Gift Exchange became the 2008 Let's Cheer Up Maura Gift Extravaganza. The cousins and sisters gave her a large boxful of presents of every kind, including a Wii game system and Rock Band. Maura was ecstatic. We drummed, strummed, hummed, and wailed away for hours yesterday. Today, we got home from the hospital at 11:30 pm and the family is rocking out again. Nice.
I love my nieces and nephews. I love their thoughtfulness and their willingness to give up their own present to make Maura happy and show her that they care about her.

Today (well, actually yesterday, since it's after midnight) we spent about thirteen hours at the hospital only to leave without receiving the transfusion of red blood cells that she needed. It was the perfect storm of delays and mishaps. First, it took four hours just to get the lab work results, which showed that Maura needed both plenty of platelets and red blood cells. Then it took hours to get a slot in the transfusion center. She almost didn't get her platelets because of an acute shortage. Their were only 15 bags of platelets in the whole hospital. Only those with platelet numbers under 10 (low normal is 140) or active bleeding were considered critical. Maura's platelets were at 6 today, so she got one bag of the precious golden liquid (okay, it's not golden--it's more of a pukey yellow, but it IS precious). Finally, the lab neglected to do a type and cross, a necessary test before a red blood cell transfusion. Okay. fine. Send a phlebotomist to draw more blood from her torn up veins. The phlebotomist forgot to immediately send the blood to the blood bank. More delays. Our nurse figured that there was no way at this point to get six hours' worth of red blood cells transfused before closing. Duh. By the time the blood bank had finished its protocol and sent the two units of rbc upstairs, we had already been rescheduled for the next morning and were walking out the door.

Our faith in the Promise of Christmas has carried us through these last eight months. My favorite Christmas card received this year is one with the following written on the inside: "This Christmas season and in the new year may you rest in the deep assurance that in knowing Him you have everything."