The Report

There is a lot of information in this post, so just be prepared.

This week has been emotionally and physically exhausting.  Here are a few things to note:

1.)  The doctor's office needs to put a label or flag on my file.  I am not depressed due to life, I am depressed because my Cora had to leave.  I don't need a 'booklet' on depression...thank you very much.

2.)  People are jerks.  Either some of the guys that work at the cemetery are jerks...or people that have visited the cemetery are jerks.  I placed two butterfly solar lights and a butterfly that flapped its wings in the breeze by Cora's plot.  When I stopped on Monday, one solar light was missing, and all that I could find of the butterfly, was a wing under the bush by Cora's plot.  Yeah.  Heartbroken.

3.)  On the same day that I stopped at the cemetery, I got a call from the mortuary.  Cora's headstone is in.  It was going to be set in cement and then we'll see it get placed, hopefully this coming week.

Thursday, I had a doctor's appointment.  Can I just say that I *heart* my doctor??  And sadly, she's only temporary.  That makes things hard because I know I'll have to start all over again.  Relive...every. last. detail.  She listened to me.  She even took the time to go over the autopsy report on Thursday.

As she went through the results, she drew diagrams of the lungs, heart, liver, and spleen.  These things were confirmed:  pneumonia, RSV, strep B, and she was in septic shock.  As she went over the respiratory system, she noted that there was a puss pocket in the right lung, there was evidence that it was still hemorrhaging, and there was a clot.  Basically, she scribbled out the right lung.  It was done.  She said that the bacteria in her body had started to attack the valves in her heart.  The liver had differing kinds of fatty deposits happening due to the infection, as well as the spleen being enlarged...also from infection.  There was a blood clot in-between the two hemispheres of her brain, meaning that she had a stroke.  There was also the hemorrhage on the brain.  Sometimes with this kind of infection, the brain shifts to one side, and hers did just that.  She said that there were beginning signs of kidney failure.  I knew that they were having trouble with Cora's blood thickening.  The ECMO needs a certain consistency of blood in order for it to work properly and they were struggling to keep it thin enough.  My doctor told me that *again* sometimes with this amount of infection, the blood can do one of two things...either become thick or become too thin.  Cora's was too thick.

Basically when all was said and done, Cora was just very sick.  She was one of the healthiest kids and even being as healthy as she was, things could have gone either way.  I wish I could say that it brings comfort knowing that things could have gone either way, but it doesn't.  My doctor told me to tuck the report away until much later.  I'm really not ready to try and read through it with any clarity. 

Life keeps marching on and I don't want it to.  I want her here.  It wasn't meant to be this way.  Ever.

And yet...here we are...4 months and 8 days later...still muddling through this thing called life.