Children's Hospital - Lead Poisoning

After our routine blood draw at the Cancer and Blood place in Children's of Minneapolis Monday, I was given false results twice of my children's lead levels. I was told, "Oh they stayed the same! Ahavah is 13. Alecia is 9." I passed the word to my Pediatrician and we went about our week.

Then Wednesday morning I got a phone call. "You need to go to the ER IMMEDIATELY! We got the results back from their blood draw Monday and Ahavah is at 74 and Alecia is at 10. Ahavah has severe lead poisoning and you need to leave right now! We also need to get the Department of Health involved and Poison Control."

So we packed up and here we are back at Children's Hospital. After some research and information from the nurses and hospital staff, I discovered my daughter was 6 points away from seizures, being in a coma and having a high risk of brain damage! Oh God's grace is so good!

We were up all night having a medicated "fruit punch party" (which I would NEVER, EVER allow my kids to have at home), and watched movies until the wee hours of the night (which, again, I rarely let my kids watch tv). We then had a pooping party!

The plan today is to continue to flush out Ahavah's bowls and organs, do a second x-ray (the first came back with something abnormal in her bowls), and draw more blood to check the lead levels again. 

But here's the BIG kicker... we aren't allowed in our house for the next 2 weeks. Poison Control and the Department of Health is going to have to inspect our home and I guess there are government programs that help people who have lead in their homes to get rid of it (IF the poisoning is coming from the home).

So again, we are just taking things one thing at a time. We are all in great spirits though (as you can see from the pictures). We have so much joy and peace and we are not really moved by anything going on.