We were transferred to another hospital, again in Lubbock, Texas. They immediately got busy with PICC lines and central lines and total parenteral nutrition (TPN), where fluids are given into a vein to provide most of the nutrients the body needs. It was so surreal.
For a month, we sat there day after day watching our beautiful, vibrant, sassy girl waste away. Day after day, I feared the labs knowing her numbers were climbing to the highest limits these doctors had seen. Nothing they were doing was working. She had had no food in her mouth in a month at this point. She relied on TPN through her central line. Test after test, despite having endured so much blood drawn, they could not find the root cause of her pancreatitis.
In the harrowing halls of the hospital, I could hear babies cry, children whimper. Parents biting their nails, hurriedly talking on cell phones. The shower was for sobbing. Sometimes I rode the elevator an extra floor because I simply could not face what was to come. I always faced it. Carson always took it. She has seen the devil and spit in his face.
Their answer was a discharge and a referral to a specialist in Houston. A referral? You want me to take her home like this? She can’t eat. She has 4 tubes in her. ‘Ma’am, we will set you up with home health until Houston can get to you.’
I hit the floor in prayer. I cried out in prayer. I prayed and I prayed. Then I heard a whisper: ‘just ask.’
