Weekend Update....

Well, this weekend was a little more eventful than I had hoped it would be! As most of you know my dad is battling late-stage cancer and has been undergoing very intensive chemo treatments, which haven't been making making him feel just 100% to say the least. On Saturday morning he passed out multiple times and began to go into convulsions. My mom called 911 and they took him to Baylor Hospital in downtown Fort Worth. He was severly anemic, so they began giving him fluids in the ER while they waited for the shipment of blood to arrive. I got there as quickly as I could. I kept thinking to myself "stay calm" - everyone has been telling me how important it is to stay calm right now. Well, that's much easier said than done. While driving to Fort Worth I had 5 painful contractions, was in a cold sweat, and was just praying that I could make it there in one piece.

The human body typically holds 9 - 10 units of blood total. My dad had to receive 6 units of blood. The doctors said that they've never given that much blood to a non-trauma patient before. So Saturday was primarially focused on pumping as much blood and fluids into my dad as they could, but at a safe pace. He also had a CT scan. By Saturday evening his color had returned and he said that he was feeling much better. On Sunday, they ran several tests including an echocardiogram, ultrasound on his heart, and full endoscopy. We haven't gotten the results of anything except for the the endoscopy - I was able to speak to the physician immediately after the procedure. My dad has a large duodenal ulcer that he believes has been the primary source of his blood loss. He said that it is a result of the large amounts of ibuprofen that he has been taking, in addition to the stress from chemo. They're going to put my dad on a treatment program for that, so hopefully that will help. He also said that my dad was "one half of a horse," and he'd let me figure out which half - good to hear that my dad is giving everyone a hard time right now!!

I only have had a few additional contractions since Satruday morning - about half of which have been painful. I'm going to call my doctor today - hopefully everything is fine. I'm sure that it was just stress-induced. I'm in my 27th week of pregnancy - I read this morning that most women at this point have gained 16 - 22 pounds. I'm still at negative 3 pounds as of this morning..... A little discouraging to say the least, but it should be relatively easy for me to shed my baby-weight! I just hope that Baby Ruby can't tell how stressed and how sad that I am. I'll post a new belly picture soon - she's definitely growing.

Please keep my dad in your prayers. He has some great doctors working on him, but he's not out of the woods yet. Say a prayer for little Baby Ruby too - I want her to know how special she is and how much everyone loves her.