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So while Birthday week was going down Heath was healing from a cut in his esophagus caused from a cough-sneeze combo while swallowing pizza crust. He was coughing up tiny strings and dots of blood, but nothing of much substance and the frequency dwindled down by the end of the week so we didn’t worry about it too much. But Friday we decided to have a few drinks and alcohol opened up a whole new can of worms. By Saturday he was coughing up fairly large clumps of blood, bright red blood. It’s now Wednesday and the frequency and size of the clumps has subsided since, but can I just say how scared it made me.

I thought the reasoning behind why he was coughing up blood seemed logical during the first week, but by Saturday I thought maybe I wasn’t taking the issue seriously enough. Doing a search for coughing up blood online brings up 290+ causes – none of which are good and being the worry wart I am my mind immediately went negative.

I had him drinking Mylanta round the clock, taking Mucinex DM to keep his coughs to a minimum and he ate very little in an effort to not rip back open any wounds. As a result, by Sunday night-Monday morning I found myself at the grocery store getting mashed potatoes, gravy, and chicken noodle soup in abundance because Heath loses energy & weight quickly when he doesn’t eat (I’m reminded of his 2½ day flu where he lost something like 16 lbs in the time frame and was blacking out when he tried to move on his own) – it’s scary.

So finally yesterday we went to Patient First and they did an X-Ray to ensure that the blood wasn’t coming from his lungs. Luckily, it wasn’t. (Sigh of relief, one ridiculously scary possibility out) The doctor seemed to find our theory logical, but worried that it was still bleeding after all of this time and suggested he see a GI specialist to have an endoscopy. He gave him a cough suppressant and suggested he keep up the soft foods diet until it stops.

There was still blood today, but about half as much as the day before and we’re praying it will be half as much tomorrow.

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Outside of the anguish surrounding the above, being home playing nurse allowed me to read a really good book. I finished “The Last Song” by Nicholas Sparks and while I found myself not 100% into it in the beginning, I couldn’t put it down because something just told me it’d get better. And sure enough it did. I could have done without the mini chapters surrounding supporting character Marcus, but at least they were small so they didn’t take too much away from the meatier parts of the story. As far as the supporting characters of the book, I found myself enjoying Ronnie’s brother Jonah the most. For a 10 year old, he was quite funny and his relationship with his sister and dad is really something special.

I’ll be honest, I cried for almost the last 150 pages. Sometimes it was heartache, sometimes it was joy – most of the time it was a complete mix of both. And while I would have rather not sobbed over the entire end of the book, it was necessary to the story and finished well. The lessons and values illustrated wouldn’t have been complete without the tough walk to the end. Watching the change in Ronnie from the start of the book to the end is respectable and everything she has to go through to get from point A to point B makes her that much more impressive.

I wasn’t sure I’d see the movie, but after reading the book I would definitely like to see it. As I feel with most books-made-into-movies, I’m sure the book will be better. But since Nicholas Sparks wrote both the book and screenplay there’s a greater chance for it being extremely close to the book and that I like!

I started Maggie Stiefvater’s “Lament” while waiting in Patient First and I can see already I will enjoy it (not that I doubted I would – kind of can’t go wrong for me with fantasy, love, and Irish ties). I’m glad I went ahead and bought “Ballad” because I’m the kind of reader who prefers to read sets or series straight through and these aren’t long.

Peace – Sarah

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