We spent most of Easter in the hospital getting blood and platelets but we still enjoyed our day.

Brody started having problems with blood in his urine late on Good Friday.  At first we were not terribly alarmed because he does have blood in his urine occasionally due to the stent in his ureter.  A small amount of blood or clots makes the urine look very bloody.  We tried to remind ourselves of this when we saw some very bloody looking urine after Brody had difficulty going pee due to passing a blood clot in his urine.  Things did not seem to be improving on Saturday though and we started to get worried as the urine looked darker and darker red and Brody was having a very hard time trying to pee due to large clots.  Brody's previous lab for platelets he had done on Thursday had been low too.  

We contacted the oncologist on call and explained our concerns.  She called Brody's urologist.  The urologist called us and said that it sounded like he had a very large clot in his bladder that just needs to pass and that the urine will look extremely bloody until it does pass.  She wanted us to see if Brody can manage to pass the clot on his own but if he were to get to the point that he really could not pee that we would have to bring him in to place a catheter and assistance with getting the clots to move on out.  I told her that we were worried about Brody's low platelet counts and that this may be contributing to the blood in the urine too.  Also, Brody was super tired and was not having the energy to do the things he normally is able to do.  We were worried he was losing a lot of blood.  She asked that we discuss these concerns further with the oncologist on call.   So, I called her back and she had us come in Sunday (Easter) morning to check his labs.  It turned out that he did need platelets and blood too (from loss of blood).  

Brody's bleeding started to settle down very soon after receiving the platelets and he started to feel much more energetic and more like himself after getting blood.  Platelets and blood were excellent Easter presents. 

 Although we spent most of our Easter at the hospital we did enjoy the day together.  We played lots of games, got Easter baskets from the hospital, and enjoyed talking and goofing around with one another.  We were all just happy to see Brody starting to feel better as he was getting some much needed blood products and we all just appreciate and cherish every holiday we get to spend together.  The boys did get to have their Easter egg hunt at home Eater morning before we headed to the hospital too.  We didn't miss out on this fun festivity. 

My mom drove up for a visit on Saturday afternoon and stayed the night.  She just celebrated her birthday on Good Friday.  We weren't able to make it down to visit her on her birthday and were glad she was able to come see us instead.  With all that was going on with Brody, we didn't quite get to give her the birthday celebration we had planned.  But, we were all very happy to see her and spend some time with her.  We will just have to have a belated proper birthday celebration.  Sounds like a good excuse to me to plan another extra special day.