Life by the Numbers

Today I looked through the 244 pages of the detailed bill from John's transplant and subsequent hospitalization. It totals $1, 551, 885.13, but that's not the part that I was looking for. The PICU time is mostly blood for me, bag after bag of blood or blood products hanging, I have never seen so much blood and I was wondering if I was remembering it as more than it actually was. So I counted and there were

61 units of Packed Red Blood Cells
56 unites of Plasma
30 units of Platelets, and
44 units of Cryoprecipitate, a blood product that is used in hope of setting up clotting and fast.

More days than not I would go through the First Commandment, reminding myself that I was only to fear God, trying to set aside fears that John wouldn't survive, that the medical team would give up or run out of blood. Day after day I continued to pray that God would provide both John's and our Daily Bread, and often times that bread came in the form of another bag of blood.

There is no price in $$ that a life is not worth, there is no price in tears, fears, worries or care that a life is not worth. I will be putting this detailed bill away with all the cards and letters and pictures drawn by little kids that were sent from people who were praying with us. Someday when John is much older and it is time to talk to him about his transplant, the donor's family, the cost of life, the blessing which God has bestowed on him and on us by keeping him here, I want him to see this. I have read several places about transplant patients having a hard time dealing with the thought that someone else died and they lived, survivor guilt of a sort I would guess, on that day it is my prayer that God will guide our words so that John knows that Christ died for him, that his life is so very worth it, and that there is no need to go back and try to repay people who gave so much, there is just this life to live under Christ's cross and in His mercy.