Blood

On the Monday, one week into the hospital stay Georgie underwent her last blood draw. The neurologist had showed up late in the day on Friday. He barraged me with questions, examined Georgia and then pronounced his diagnosis, Spinal Muscular Atrophy Type 1. Georgia's life expectancy was between 6 and 8 months. He delivered all of this information as if he was talking about my car needing new brakes or even an oil change. There was absolutely no compassion in his voice or his eyes. I believe that you can learn a lot by looking into somebody's eyes. He then asked me if I had any questions. I had none at that point as I was still using all of my strength to stay standing.

It should be said that there was already a huge part of me that understood that Georgie wasn't getting better. My mother's instinct had been telling me on and off from the time that she was born that I wouldn't get to keep her forever. It was still shocking however to have an expert walk in and tell me that my time with her was down to weeks instead of years.

In the end, the blood was drawn by the pediatric surgeon because we had had enough of all of the tests. My attitude at that point was that if they couldn't make her better than they should just leave her alone and let us take her home. In my mind it didn't matter what they called it. The doctor had the blood drawn on second try. We told them that they had two tries to get it otherwise we weren't interested in the test. We were tired of watching our little girl be tortured with test after test and we couldn't stand the look of terror on her face every time the door opened. We wanted our little girl happy even if that meant losing her.

We would wait ten days for the results... our fates all sealed in a few vials of blood.

Love to you all,

Kristen