Update on Sara Ruffin

It has been a hard week for our daughter. Since Monday night, Sara has been at the Redmond Regional Medical Center in Rome, Georgia. She has been dealing with an extensive blood clot that, as it turns out, extended from her left ankle, all the way up through her left leg, and even into her abdomen.

On Tuesday evening, a catheter was inserted behind her knee through which a “clot-busting” drug has been slowly administered. She has had to be in ICU while that was being done. She has also been receiving the blood thinner Heparin by IV. The good news is that the medicine largely dissolved the clot. Unfortunately, the part of the clot that was in her abdomen was not dissolving. Therefore, on Thursday night Dr. Whitney performed a procedure to “mechanically” break up and remove that part of the clot. The procedure appears to have been successful. The hope is that after spending Thursday night in ICU, Sara will be doing well enough to move to a private room.

There have been other struggles during the week, including difficulty drawing the blood required for periodic testing and a build-up of fluid.

Sara will still have to spend several days in the hospital as the doctor works to regulate the Coumadin that she will have to take upon leaving the hospital.

Please continue to pray for Sara. She has been very strong through all of this and her mother and I have been very proud of her. Many, many people have been praying for her and we want you to know how grateful we are.

If you would like to send her a note, the address is:

Redmond Regional Medical Center
501 Redmond Road
P.O. Box 107001
Rome, GA 30165-7001.

Sara cannot check her email now, but she should be able to get to it in a few days. If you would like to send her an email, her address is sara_kate05@yahoo.com.