Cdc's PICU stay

So, clearly Pmc never found the time to post more details! Not that I blame him, it was kind of a crazy week!

The intimidating equipment for making sure my baby was okay.

All of that bandaging just for his IV, and the computer screen I stared at most of the day for three days.

At about 10:30pm on Monday a nurse came in and said that unless alarms went off they'd pretty much let us (Cdc and I) be so we could get some rest. At about 2:30am a nurse came in and started administering Amoxicillin to Cdc. I was half awake when I saw her and asked what was going on. She said a doctor had noticed an ear infection. I nearly flipped. I asked why nobody had told me this and asked to know which doctor. She had already given the dosage, so I couldn't do anything but tell her I wanted to have his ears rechecked because nobody had mentioned an ear infection to me. I was really frustrated because of being woken up, but also because I'm allergic to Amoxicillin and if there's any chance that it's genetic, I didn't want another problem in an already bad situation.

Another nurse came in at 4:30am to check his vitals and I thought what happened to being let be? At 7:30 our original nurse came in and said to make sure not to feed him so that his tummy would be empty for the MRI. WHAT? I was so frustrated because I didn't remember anybody telling me he'd be having an MRI, I had just fed him, and I began to feel like nobody was communicating with me. Then she said they weren't sure there would be an opening for an MRI that day. So now I was expected to not feed my baby on the off-chance that he'd be able to have an MRI sometime that day. Lovely. I was so frustrated with the lack of communication, so I told the nurse that I really needed the doctor's to communicate better with me.

Finally a Dr. came in and checked his ears, sure enough they were just fine....no more Amoxicillin.

Just as Cdc started to really get hungry again, they came in to do the EEG. I sat there with tears streaming down my face, trying to hold my wailing baby still, as the technician hopelessly tried to get the little things stuck to his head. I know that kids are really resilient, but is it really impossible to try to work around the kids a little. Wasn't there some way of scheduling the EEG so that he wasn't starving, and wasn't this all on an off-chance of being able to do the MRI anyway? I just felt it was too much for my child, and I told the tech so, as she kept sticking little things to his head.

A tender mercy came though when just as they were finishing the test, Pmc showed up to comfort me, and a nurse walked in and said we were scheduled for an MRI in a half-hour. So we cleaned off Cdc's head and headed out. When we got to the MRI floor Pmc and Cpc sat in the waiting room while I was told about the test and signed consent forms. I hardly knew what to do when the Dr. told me that they needed my consent to give him the drug (needed for the MRI) that isn't approved for kids but they use it all the time anyway. Lovely. They said it can have bad effects on his kidneys. Great! I asked a few questions and then prayed that everything would work out okay as I signed the form. At least I felt some peace from the spirit!

Anyway, all the tests came back negative (meaning they couldn't find anything wrong), and instead of getting transferred out of the PICU we just got sent home! I'm grateful that our Memorial Day didn't turn into a different kind of Memorial Day for us. We had these great plans to have an FHE lesson on Family History, but we are now just grateful that this story had a happy ending for now....part of our own family history!

Home and Happy!

The bruise is from one of the blood-drawing spots. And you know how I LOVE Cpc's shoulder dimples. Cdc has elbow dimples that we love just as much! I'm grateful that Pmc took lots of pictures of me during this whole episode. I am not always great at remembering to get pictures of me as a Mother.

Oh, and I can't forget that Cpc is obsessed with the camera lately. This is one of my favorite pictures he's taken so far. Luckily he hasn't deleted any important pictures yet, but he's taken at least a thousand pictures in his short lifetime!