It's Over. That what I need to remember...it's OVER.

Thank you all so much for your beautiful wonderful comments. As I was laying in the hospital bed crying because my head and arm hurt so bad, I read your comments from my phone...and it made everything so much better. Like seriously, I can't tell you how much they boosted my attitude. I knew that it was gonna be okay because I had all of my crazy awesome blogger friends praying for me. :-)

So let me just start at the beginning, when everything started going wrong and we had to go to the hospital. I was bleeding abnormally long, and so that's why we went to the doctor in the first place. Doctor Albert checked my blood, did some tests, and sent me home. We got a call a few days ago saying that everything was normal.

But my momma was concerned because I had been feeling so weak, and looking so pale. So she called the office and they told her to bring me in. The first thing the doctor said to me was, "Oh my gosh, you are SO pale!" She even went so far as to say I looked like a ghost, and coming from a doctor, that can't be good.

I took some pictures of myself before I went, and looking at them now, I am amazed. My face was literally dead white, my lips were the same color as my skin, I had purple bags and red eyes. I can't believe I even went in public with my color the way it was.

So Tuesday afternoon, Doctor Albert told me I needed to get some more tests. So Momma and I walked to the lab, and I remember wishing that I could go home and go to bed. My vision was cracking and my knees were wobbling, my head aching. It wasn't that great.

I entered the lab, was seated in one of those big chairs, and the nurse got one of those scary knifes hidden in a box. She slid the tip of my finger into the rounded corner in the small knife-box, and clicked a button. The blade gashed my finger, and the nurse squeezed it to get blood out. Finger-pricks don't sound very painful, do they?  But your fingers have many many nerves on the tips, because they touch so many things. So yeah. It was painful. It was to test my hemoglobin, and she got the bottle with my blood and gave it to the doctor to test.

Then she got another box thing with a hidden blade, and cut my arm this time, right next to my other cut from a few weeks ago. She timed how long it took for me to stop bleeding.

Normally, it takes eight or ten minutes. Ten minutes max. It took me sixteen minutes to slow down, and even then the bleeding didn't stop completely. So the nurse was concerned about that. But before she could do anything, she got a message from the doctor, requesting that we go back to the room immediately. Which means something isn't right.

Doctor Albert said that the normal hemoglobin level is 12-18. My hemoglobin was 5.3. Which is EXTREMELY low. She said I needed to get wheelchaired to the emergency room immediately and after that, ambulenced to Minneapolis (about an hour away) to the Children's hospital to get more speciliazed care. I didn't know what that meant, all I heard was "ambulenced." I was really excited, I gotta say. I mean, seriously, AMBULENCED? How awesome! Mmm. Not. (Thankfully, I didn't end up being ambulenced to Minneapolis.)

I was wheeled to the ER. I was put in a side-room, and was told to undress. I had already gone through so much and was in so much pain I didn't even care. I was dressed by a nurse in a hospital gown, and hooked up to an IV, which is where they put a needle in your arm and then stick a tube in there so they can pour whatever they need to pour into your body.

A  woman doctor came in, and took my blood pressure and temps and such and then left. I waited there forever. Momma and Daddy came and sat with me, and Grandma too. Hours crawled past. My doctors appointment was at 3:30. I got to the ER at 5:15. A lot of nurses came and went, asked me questions, felt around, took my blood pressure/temps, etc. I had to go get an ultrasound to make sure there wasn't anything in my ovaries. I felt like I was pregnant. Ultrasounds, IV, those stupid hospital gowns, that annoying "Hugs" bracelet to make sure I didn't sleepwalk...I had it all.

At about 7:00, the main doctor finally came in, and asked some questions. Then he took a blood sample again, in my other arm that wasn't hooked up to the IV, and then came back a while later, and said that my blood type was AB+. AB- is the most uncommon blood type, but AB+ was the next uncommon. They didn't have my blood type in the "blood bank" (what a COOL name!) so they couldn't pump blood into me, so they needed to get the blood from a different state's blood bank. It was five hours before the blood even arrived at the hospital, and another hour before it was screened and tested and ready to pump into me.

At around midnight, they hooked me up to a blood-pump and began giving me blood. I received two units, and it takes two or three hours to pump one unit. It was about five o'clock in the morning before all the blood was finally in me. I slept a little bit during the blood transfusion, but not much because it was very uncomfortable. I remember laying there on my bed, just staring into the darkness. I fingered violin songs on my bedspread to keep my arm from going numb. I repeated verses that I had memorized in my head to keep from crying. (It was very hard to lay there, feeling blood pumping into you, remembering having to expose your whole body to complete strangers and letting them feel you and poke you and stick their fingers  and their needles and probes everywhere)

The doctors have to wait four hours before they can test my hemoglobin again and get accurate readings. So at about 8:45 that morning, they came in, shot a needle in my arm and drew blood. My momma and I waited around the whole morning, watching I love Lucy and Little House on the Prairie (I love both of these shows, but they get really old REALLY fast). At noon, a doctor came in, and told me I needed one more unit of blood. That was so hard. By that time, I wanted out. I didn't want to stick around for another three hours.

But I didn't really have a choice. My hemoglobin was still pretty low, and I wasn't completely out of  the woods, so I needed that extra unit.

You know what I hate about the hospital? You have no control over your situation. The doctors need to poke you with needles, undress you, take your blood? You can't say no. It's for YOUR health, but its YOUR body, you're the one who has to deal with uncomfort and pain. I hate when doctors pull a huge needle on you and say "this will only pinch for a second" and then give you the worst shot of your life. I hate when doctors ask you personal questions, and talk about your bleeding like they are discussing the weather. I hate hospital food. It almost made me throw up. I HATE hospital food. I had next to no food throughout my long stay there, and I lost two and a half pounds.

These last few days have been hard. The worst days of my life. But you all helped through it, Hannah left me a sweet voicemail that I listened to at least five times, Jenna texted me through the whole process and stayed up super late even though she had school the next day, and the nurses were kind. I have bruises and gashes and pokes on my arms, but my lips are re-gaining color and I can RUN up the stairs without being out of breath (believe me, that is SO nice). Even though I'm technically not supposed to ("absolutely no physical strain whatsoever").

I'm exhausted. But I feel better. I have to forget the needles, the pain, the awkwardness, the probing, the tests. I have to remember your AMAZING comments, my nearness to God, my amazing friends, my amazing family.

What really made me feel bad about this whole thing was that yesterday was Ab's birthday. Momma had to be at the hospital all night and wasn't there to wake her up by singing happy birthday. She wasn't there to take pictures of her eating doughnuts. She wasn't there to take her for ice-cream early in the morning. She wasn't there to pamper her and make her feel special because she was with me at the ER. And yesterday was Daddy's BIG presentation at work. He got no sleep two nights ago, and little sleep Tuesday night (staying with me until like midnight), so he was tired for his presentation. He did really well, but I'm sure he would have done even better if I hadn't been shipped to the hospital. It wasn't my fault, I know that, but...you know. I can't help but feeling bad.

You guys have helped me SO much, and I just want to give you a huge HUG for being there for me! :-)

All that I have to do now is take it easy and get my hemoglobin up there again. No more needles and blood. Hallelujah. :-)