Hi everyone,

Unfortunately, mom began feeling pretty sick on Wednesday and came back to CDH on Wednesday night. She had a couple of pouches of infection that are currently being treated with IV antibiotics. I was able to take a half day of clinic duty on Friday and come home to be with mom while she's in the hospital.Yesterday, she had a second drain placed to help clear out the infectious fluid. After the placement of the drain, she was feeling pretty good, but around 2 am, she woke up and began vomiting blood. Her overnight team was wonderful and sprung to action getting in contact with her doctor and comforting her as best as they could. She was given some anti-nausea medications and after about an hour and a half of the vomiting, it finally settled down. I am so grateful for my sweet aunt Mary who got up in the middle of the night to come be here with my mom and I. Mom was taken to a stat-CT scan, which didn't find anything significant, and she was able to get a little bit of rest. The doctors suspected a bleeding ulcer due to the blood thinners she was on, high dose NSAIDs for her pain, and some erosions in her intestinal lining. All of this had come to a head, which led to a bleeding ulcer and the vomiting. Around noon today, she was taken down for an endoscopy, which confirmed the suspicion, and they were able to clip the bleeding vessels. While the entire situation was very scary, her vitals remained stable, and her hemoglobin has not dropped enough for her to need a blood transfusion. We are so thankful for her incredible team who jumped into action to make her feel as comfortable as possible. We are all very tired after such an eventful night, and hopefully we'll get a good night's rest. Mom is pretty worn down and the medication used to keep her GI tract moving forwards instead of backwards are causing some discomfort, but she is still much better than last night. For now, the plan is to keep her on a continuous drip of an acid reducer, so her GI tract lining doesn't erode any further and hopefully get her recovery back on track. Naturally, she has not interest in eating or drinking anything right now, so we're anticipating a few more days here, until she's feeling ready to go home. 

Unfortunately, I have to head back to Michigan tomorrow, but we know she's in very good hands here. I should be able to come back home next weekend to spend some more time with her (hopefully at home). Overall, we feel so blessed that this was nothing more serious, despite how scary it all was. Please keep our family in your prayers, as this has all been a lot for us to juggle. Dad is still receiving biweekly chemotherapy, so he will be receiving that on Wednesday. Thank you all for your continued love and support.

Love, Nikki <3