There's no place like...

Home!

After spending the last nine days and 8 nights in the hospital Karli is finally HOME! She was so happy to sleep in her own bed last night! (Thanks Ashley for cleaning Karli's room and washing all her bedding, it smelled so fresh and clean and made me us both smile as she was climbing into bed:)

In my last update I was feeling great about Karli's progress, but when I arrived early on Thursday, New Years Day I found Karli in a very groggy state. Pat said she hadn't slept very well during the night so I just figured she needed more sleep, but after sleeping all morning and into the late afternoon I started to worry. She seemed to be doing better the day before and now I felt we were going backwards once again. Even after eating her lunch she wasn't snapping out of it. I told the nurse that Karli seemed extra sleepy to me today and was a little worried. She responded by telling me that Karli's hematocrit was 25 (it is suppose to be in the low to mid 40's and that the doctor was considering a blood transfusion.....what!? that is the first I had heard of that. "What is making her blood count so low" I asked. "We don't know, that is what the Doctor is trying to figure out." The doctor had also ordered blood tests the day before to check for any auto immune diseases which hadn't come back yet because of the holiday. I was really starting to worry that maybe there was something else going on besides her pneumonia. A little while later the nurse came in and started injecting a drug through Karli's IV tube, when I asked her what the drug was she said they were steroids and that they were going to start giving them to her every eight hours. Apparently they help with swelling and make you feel a lot better.

Karli had been trying all morning to get up enough energy to shower, it had been eight days since her disastrous shower she took on Christmas Eve. She had been wanting to shower but simply wasn't well enough to take one. At around 4:00 in the afternoon she finally felt strong enough and hopped in the shower (well she didn't really hop but you get the idea:) There was a seat for her to sit on and while she was showering she felt so good that she was even able to wash her hair!

I don't know if it was the nice warm shower, or the steroids kicking in, or maybe it was just her body finally turning that long awaited corner.... but whatever it was she came out of the bathroom a new person and everything started to go uphill from there! For the next day and a half her vitals slowly improved. Her heart rate slowly started to drop, her fever finally subsided and they started weaning her from her oxygen.

Fast forward to Saturday. We felt pretty confident that even though Karli was still very weak she was well enough to go home. They started turning her oxygen down the night before and took it off completely this morning. We figured the Doctors would be in early and we would be out by the 10:00 am checkout time. The day dragged on and then sometime around 4:00 both of the Doctors finally showed up. They came in and told us that her blood tests came back negative for Auto Immune Diseases....whew!!! Then one of the Doctors said that Karli could go home in the morning. We sat there in silence for about two seconds when I said ..."Tomorrow? How about Tonight!" The Doctor stared at us then said... "Well why not... we're not doing anything right now lets get her out of here!"

Here are some pictures we took in the hospital a few days before Karli was released. We didn't take any for the first five or six days she was there so it's hard to tell by looking at these how sick she really was! But trust me....Pnuemonia + Pluisy + Pulmonary Embolisms make you very sick + they are very scary!

This is how Karli spent her time when she wasn't sleeping...Hooray for laptops!

Justin taking Karli for a little tour of her hallway the day before she came home.

Ashley getting cozy in Karli's bed:)

Jake was happy to see Karli finally feeling better:)

Karli had tons of visitors while she was in the hospital, 74 to be exact! Her cute friends came almost every night and played games with her which lifted her spirits a lot! Some of the Senior Class Officers from Alta even came by and brought her flowers. Other visitors included Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, Grandma's, Grandpa, Neighbors, Friends of mine & Pat's, Her Boss, some of the Young Women and their Leaders, Her Sunday School class, Home Teachers, The Bishop & his wife, and even our Stake President. We also got to meet Ashley's boyfriend Nate's parents when he brought them for a visit....so nice! She had friends of her siblings and a cousin of mine send flowers to the hospital and one of her friends even started a facebook group called Prayers for Karli that at last count had over 100 members:) A big Hug to everyone who took time out of your Christmas/New Years Vacation to stop by and say hi....You will never know how much it meant to Karli and the rest of us!!

Karli is still in the recovery stage and the Doctors want us to keep her home from school this week. She still has a little ways to go to regain her strength (she lost 18 pounds!) but is slowly starting to look and feel like herself again:)

We all agree that is feels like Karli has been missing from our family these past three weeks but after making us laugh....HARD.... more than once yesterday, we can tell she is finally....Home Sweet Home!

Cute sign courtesy of Karli's cousin Courtney