Sore

Yesterday morning I woke up with some tension in my neck and shoulders.  Given that this is where I carry my stress, I didn't think too much about it.  By mid-day, however, I also noticed that my triceps and biceps are really sore, so sore that picking up Bear was a bit uncomfortable.  But, again, I didn't think too much about it.  This morning, however, I'm really, really sore, as in so sore it hurts to lift my school bag, which doesn't contain anything out of the ordinary.  I'd like to say it is from all the exercising I've been doing, but unless you count picking up Bear and taking books to and from my shelves while I do research exercise, that isn't it.  I mentioned it to Archer, and he said, "Well, it makes sense."  I gave him a quizzical look.  He said, "M, you had to hold Bear down for over an hour on Monday night while the nurses at the ER tried to give him an IV.  He weighs 27 pounds and is as strong as an ox."  Right.  That would explain it.

A frustrating evening

Last night Bear and I spent the evening in the emergency room.  He is absolutely fine now, and it seems as though what we experienced was a complete fluke.  That said, the entire experience was an exercise in frustration for me.  Here is what happened.

We spent the afternoon at the pool swimming with the boys.  Both Bear and Wild Man love the water, and in an attempt to help them learn to swim better and to give our backs a rest, we bought both boys life jackets.  This meant that Bear was not attached to my hip and that I could allow him more freedom in the water.  It also means that he was much more active in the water than he has been the last few times we've gone to the pool.  We left the pool at 4:20 and headed home to prepare for a dinner with friends.  By the time we got home 10 minutes later, Bear was crying.  Archer and I both thought he was either tired or hungry.  As I took him into the house, it became very clear he was not tired or hungry.  First, he wasn't crying as much as he was screaming.  Second, he was squirming a lot, as though he was struggling to get comfortable.  I took him upstairs and laid him down on my bed.  I quickly changed into dry clothes and then took off Bear's diaper.  I though he might be struggling to poop, but he wasn't.  His stomach was, however, as hard as a rock.  I pumped his legs a few times to see if that would relieve the pain, and while he farted a lot, he continued to scream.  By then, our guests had arrived.  Archer came upstairs to check on Bear, and he tried to comfort him as well.  Bear responded by screaming "Mommy!"  So I sent Archer back downstairs to entertain and finish getting dinner ready.  Then, I walked with Bear, hoping that would calm him down.  Then, I put him in his crib (after he asked me to do so, something he has never done).  I rubbed his back, and he fell asleep for a few minutes, only to wake up screaming in pain.  Archer came back up to give me a bit of a break and to ask me to finish making cole slaw, something he thought would be easier for me to do than to explain to him.  He managed to get Bear calm and brought him downstairs a few minutes later.  For the next ten minutes or so, Bear clung to me, but he was calm.  He asked for water and tried to eat a potato chip.  Just as I was starting to relax, he started screaming again.  I took him back upstairs leaving Wild Man and Archer to deal with our guests.  After another 10 minutes of trying to determine why Bear was in so much pain, I decided to go to the ER.  I told Archer, who seemed a bit taken aback,* and we left. 

Being in the car seemed to calm Bear down (and in hindsight, I think the pressure of the straps on his stomach helped alleviate the pain), but he started crying as soon as I took him out.  Luckily it was a quiet night, so we were taken back almost immediately.  It likely helped that Bear screamed the entire time the triage nurse examined him and refused to let her touch his stomach.  The doctor saw Bear within 15 minutes of us being taken to the exam area, and he assured me I had done the right thing bringing him in.  He said, "It may just be that he drank too much water at the pool, but he is clearly in a great deal of pain."  He explained that Bear's pattern of getting very upset and then calming down was concerning him.  He said if it was just gas the pain would be more consistent until it dissipated in some way.  He was further concerned by the fact that none of the farting or belching Bear had done seemed to alleviate the pain at all.  So he ordered an x-ray, which only showed a lot of gas in Bear's system.  He then ordered an abdominal ultrasound to make sure it wasn't some sort of obstruction, assuring me if it was we would be catching it very early as Bear hadn't vomited.  Before we could do the ultrasound, Bear had to have an IV to get him hydrated as well as blood taken.  It took the nurses three tries, an hour, and my insistence that they put the damn IV in Bear's leg before we were through that ordeal (I also had to hold him down and endure my very verbal two year old telling me, "Mommy, please no more hurt!" as well as him asking for both Archer and Wild Man before it was over).  By then it was 8:30, and we'd been in the ER for 3 hours. 

After the IV was in, Bear cuddled in my arms and rubbed my hair.  He was so calm that one of the nurses just wheeled us back to radiology in the hospital bed.  He actually fell asleep during the ultrasound, which amazed both me and the technician.  By 9:30 we were back in the ER, and Archer was there.  After he'd gotten Wild Man asleep, he'd asked one of our friends to stay with Wild Man so he could come to the hospital to check on us.  By 10:20 the doctor came over to talk to us.  The ultrasound showed nothing out of the ordinary, and he told us we could go home once he'd gotten the results from the blood work.  By 11:10, those results were back, and they were clear.  So after giving us some instructions, the doctor released Bear.  We have no idea, really, what caused the sudden and severe pain.  The best explanation the doctor could give was that Bear had ingested too much chlorinated water, although he again admitted he was concerned about the level of pain and the way it seemed to come and go.  Bear slept through the night, and he was in good spirits this morning.  Aside from a bruise on his arm, where the nurses attempted to put the IV, he has no signs of his traumatic evening.

I, however, am frustrated.  Why?  Well, I'd like to give everyone at the damn hospital, with the exception of the doctor and the ultrasound technician, a lesson in dealing with children.  Everyone we encountered needs to work on their bedside manner, especially considering that this is an ER solely for children.  From the nurse who asked me if I wanted to wake up my just turned two year old to take him to go pee before trying to give him an IV (I mean, seriously?  And the way the question was framed made absolutely no sense.  It was as though the nurse was telling me that Bear was old enough to be potty trained) to the x-ray tech who told Bear to stop crying so she could get a clearer image (really, I'd like to know what two year old doesn't cry when his mother is forcing him into very awkward positions while he is clearly in pain) to the three nurses who preferred to keep trying to get the IV in his arm (they looked at me like I was nuts when, after three failed attempts, I adamantly insisted they put it in his ankle, where they got it on the first try) to the medical student who insisted on speaking to Bear like he could understand everything she said (I do understand that they are students, but seriously?  Has no one ever pulled them aside and said, "You don't need to raise your voice to speak to children.  And it's better if you explain things in a soft voice as simply as possible."  She literally seemed to want him to respond when she said, "Do you understand I'm going to examine you now?"  I said, as calmly as I could, "The only thing he understands is that he is in pain and in a strange place.  Get on with it, ok?").  Almost every person we encountered needs some instruction on how to deal with children and their parents.  And this isn't the first time I've experienced such frustration at the Children's Hospital.

Thankfully, however, Bear is fine. 

*Archer was taken aback because this is typically the kind of decision I agonize over.  I do not like hospitals.  I do not like taking my children to hospitals.  Every other time we've had to take the boys to the ER, we've only done so after a lengthy conversation and after consulting with either our own doctor or getting a friend's opinion.  He was taken aback, I think, because I made the decision without any discussion.

Tired

Bear and I have spent the last two nights in the hospital, and we're beginning night number three. Luckily, we're going into tonight with good news, but I'll start at the beginning.

Last Friday, Wild Man wasn't feeling well and had a slight fever. It was around 100 before dinner, so we gave him some Motrin. It went down, and he felt better within an hour. During the night it back up to 102. C gave him some more Motrin, and again, it went down. He was a little off throughout Saturday morning, but by the afternoon, he was back to himself. On Tuesday evening, I had a headache, which wouldn't go away. I had it throughout Wednesday and had decided to call the doctor by Thursday afternoon if it hadn't gone away. Starting around 10:00 or so on Thursday, we noticed Bear wasn't acting like himself. He had woken up around 7 to nurse, and he had immediately gone back to sleep. Ordinarily he would wake up in an hour or 2 and be awake for a while before going back to sleep. He slept until ten, and when he woke up, he wanted to nurse, but went right back to sleep. He was also more cranky than usual--and for him that means just crying a bit as he is a very calm baby. By 3 I was feeling bad, and I decided to take my temperature. It was 100.8. I then decided to take Bear's; his was 99.9. I called my midwife and talked to her. As we were talking, I took it again, and it had dropped to 99, which is within normal range for a newborn. She suggested we keep an eye on him, but that if it went up again we should take him straight to the emergency room. I went to lie down with Bear, and when we woke up, around 6, he still felt warm. I took his temperature again, and it was up to 100.2. C and I packed up some things, called our midwife, and headed to the ER. Our midwife informed us that we'd probably be kept at least overnight; she told us that it is just routine to keep an infant who has a fever. So we were prepared to stay.

Fast forward to today, we were admitted, and Bear has had every test imaginable. He's been poked and prodded and seen by every resident in the hospital. We got the initial results of his blood work today, and so far, everything is negative. Assuming that his tests results are still negative by tomorrow morning, we will be able to go home. The chief pediatrician met with us early this afternoon (after making us wait all morning), and he thinks Bear likely had the same virus that Wild Man and I had. He hasn't had a fever since yesterday afternoon, and today he acted very much more like himself.

It has been a rough few days. I'm happy to say that Pita was here visiting to meet Bear, and that she was wonderful. She kept Wild Man occupied and distracted all day yesterday. My sister drove up last night, and she took care of Wild Man today, as Pita had to fly home today.

So far, both boys have been in the hospital within the first year of life. I hope this means we won't have any more scares for a long, long time.

36 weeks

I am officially 36 weeks pregnant today. 1 more week and Z will be considered full term. I suppose I ought to think about throwing some stuff in a bag for the hospital . . .

Halloween in the hospital

I had intended to break my policy of not posting pictures of Wild Man and post of picture of him in his Halloween costume—a cute yellow chicken outfit that my mom bought for him, complete with orange and yellow striped tights and orange chicken feet slippers. Unfortunately, Wild Man never got to wear his costume. Instead, we spent Halloween in our pajamas, snuggled together in a hospital room, desperately wanting to be home. Wednesday was a very, very long day for our family.

It started out simply enough. C was up and gone by 6:30—he teaches at 8:00, and as he commutes an hour each way, he is typically gone by 6:30 two mornings a week. Wild Man had woken up at 5:00 to nurse and had promptly gone back to sleep in our bed, and when I woke up at 6:45, he was still sound asleep. I got up, surrounded him with pillows, rearranged the baby monitor to an optimal location, and started my morning routine. By 7:30, he was still not awake, so I began the process of waking him up. Like me, Wild Man does not wake up easily or happily. After a few minutes, however, he was up and happily chasing one of our cats, calling out "Purrie" as he ran after Pearlie. We ate breakfast and were out the door a bit earlier than usual. Before taking him to school, we had to go by the doctor's office so he could get his 1 year vaccinations and a flu shot. He'd had his check-up the Friday before, but the clinic was out of flu shots. If he had gotten his vaccinations that day, he would have had to wait a month to get the flu vaccine (something about a potential reaction if the MMR and flu vaccines weren't given on the same day), so his doctor advised waiting until the clinic had more of the preservative-free flu vaccine in. Wild Man happily played in the waiting room until we were called back. When we were called back to an exam room, I began taking off his jacket as the nurse explained the shots to me. I immediately asked if the flu shot was the preservative free one. As the nurse and I discussed this, Wild Man walked over to the corner of the exam room and played quietly with is toy MP3 player (it plays "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" over and over, and he loves it). The nurse explained that she didn't have the preservative free shot, but that she would go double check to see if they had any in.

As she got up, Wild Man stood up from a sitting position, lost his balance, and fell to the right, hitting his head on the wall. The nurse walked out, he cried a little bit, and I bent down to pick him up, calling him by his name. This isn't the first time he's taken a tumble in the doctor's office, so I knew what to do to distract him from being upset. I walked him over to the full length mirror on the wall and tried to get him to look in the mirror. He was silent and unresponsive. I looked at his face on my shoulder, and my perfect little boy's eyes had rolled back in his head and he was a pale shade of blue. I called his name several times, and when I got no response, I carried him into the hallway, screaming for a nurse. Three nurses and a doctor were by my side in seconds. One nurse took him from me and lied him down on the floor. By now he was completely rigid and arching his back. Another nurse held his head while the doctor tried to listen to his heart. After what seemed like hours, but I know was only a minute or two, he relaxed and seemed to go straight to sleep. The first nurse, a wonderful woman named Katy, carried him into an observation room, and the doctor began to give him some oxygen. The third nurse hooked his finger up to a pulse ox machine to measure his oxygen levels. His color improved immediately, and the doctor began quizzing me. The nurse who had been in the exam room with us helped me answer the questions, and I told the doctor what I just described here. The doctor explained that Wild Man seemed to have had a mild seizure, the biggest of indicator was how he had gone immediately to sleep (and my little guy, who is a light sleeper, slept soundly for 20 minutes will the doctor and nurses poked and prodded him). She reassured me that he had never stopped breathing, and I could see for myself from the pulse ox machine that his oxygen level never went below 98%. She said, let's keep him here for a while and see what he does and then decide what to do. She left, and Katy stayed with me. I was finally able to think for a minute and said, "I need to call my husband." My cell phone wouldn't work in the building, so they let me use the phone at the nurse's station. Katy stayed right beside Wild Man as she could see I was uncomfortable leaving him alone.

I got a hold of C just as he was leaving his first class. I told him, "Everything seems to be fine right now, but Wild Man had a seizure in the doctor's office. I need you to come home now." He simply said, "I'm leaving now; I'll be there as soon as I can." That was the extent of the conversation.

I returned to Wild Man's side, and watched him while Katy filled out some paperwork. I repeatedly asked her, "He is just sleeping, right?" She continually reassured me, and she didn't leave me until he had finally woken up and was snuggled in my arms. She returned every 5 minutes or so to check on us and to ask more questions. Wild Man soon began sticking his hand down my top, so I asked Katy if I could nurse him. She went to check with the doctor and told me I could. After that, Wild Man seemed like his normal self. He wanted to get down and get into things, but as the exam room was far from baby proof, I tried to occupy him in other ways. The doctor returned to examine him again. She looked at every inch of his head, and asked me again and again where he hit. I had to tell her the truth. I was talking to the nurse about the flu shot; I didn't see precisely where he hit. She asked about a bruise on his cheek, and I said that is old—he likes to slide down the sliding board head first, which is where the small scratch on the top of his head is from. I told her several times that as far as I could tell there was not a mark on him where he hit his head about 40 minutes earlier. She said, "I don’t think we're going to find an explanation for this, but I want to admit him to the hospital for tests to rule everything out." She then went on to explain that sometimes babies' brains "misfire," her word. Apparently at key developmental changes, like 12 months, there is so much activity in a baby's brain that the brain sort of short circuits. As she explained all this, C arrived and began asking so many questions, which I was glad of. By then, I couldn't think anymore. I just wanted to hold my little boy in my arms and never let him go. In the next 15 minutes, we were packed up and headed over to the hospital.

Another wonderful nurse named John explained the tests to us: blood work, a CT scan, and an EEG. He assured us that he'd make sure everything was done as quickly as possible. He wanted to take Wild Man to another room to draw blood and insert a hep lock, in the event that he needed an IV. He said that one or both of us could go with Wild Man, but then he said that generally it is more upsetting to the baby if a parent is present as he would have to be restrained. I said, "Please do what will be least traumatic for him." He took Wild Man from me and said they'd be back in about 30 minutes. C hugged me, and I was finally able to cry. Wild Man, however, has a set of lungs, and as soon as I heard him crying from I have no idea where, I got out of the room and walked down the hall. Coincidentally our very good friends had their baby the night before, so I walked down the hall to visit them. They were wonderful as they distracted me with all the details of their birth. Their little girl was in the NICU due to some complications, so they were as stressed out as I was, if not more so. After 10 minutes I walked back down the hall, and 10 minutes later, a nurse brought Wild Man to me. His right arm was covered in a maroon sock, and he was not happy at all. He wanted to nurse again, and I knew he wanted lunch, which I asked about. He didn't have time to nurse or to eat anything as a radiology tech came to escort us down to radiology for his CT scan. C and I were both able to be in the room with him, and this was the second most horrifying experience of the day—almost as bad as the seizure itself. The tech, who was very nice and had gotten married on Wild Man's first birthday, basically had to tie him to the machine. He screamed the entire time, while we feebly attempted to comfort him. C sang "The Wheels on the Bus" over and over while I rubbed his toes. When the test was over, we had him out of the machine before the tech even left her control room. We took him back to the hospital room and waited for the next test. The lunch they brought him was nothing he was going to eat—and he is not a picky eater. Luckily I had his lunch that I was going to send to school with him with me, so we fed him that. He was happy for a little while, eating peaches, cheerios, and chunks of chicken. Then another tech came in to give him the EEG.

Someone, somewhere has to invent a better way to give a baby an EEG. Wild Man had to have 26 individual wires attached to his head. By this time, he was cranky and exhausted. He simply wanted to take a nap. After 15 minutes of trying to get him to lie on his back and hold still, C looked at the tech and said, "I'm sorry, but you're going to have to get over seeing my wife's breast. She's going to kneel over Wild Man, so he can nurse. This is the only think that will calm him down right now. While he nurses, you can attach the wires and run the test." The tech, a 50-something woman, looked a little shocked, but agreed. C sat on the edge of the bed and helped me keep my balance while I nursed Wild Man. Once she got the first half of the wires in place, the tech told me we could turn Wild Man on his side, putting us both in a more comfortable position. Wild Man eventually fell asleep, making it much easier on the tech to run the test. In fact, he slept for the next 2 hours, waking up just as C returned from a trip home, with clothes for all of us and toys for Wild Man. We spent the night and most of the next morning at the hospital.

All of his tests came back good. There is no explainable reason why our little boy had a seizure, and there is absolutely no indication that he'll ever have another. By Thursday morning he was, however, quite cranky—he simply wanted to get down and play. C and I did the best we could to keep him occupied, but he wanted to be in his own space. He kept calling out "Purrie," which meant he wanted to chase Pearlie around. When we finally got him home, he proceeded to pull out every single one of his toys, eat a huge lunch, and take a 2 hour nap. We spent the afternoon at the park, where he played on the swings and went down the slides—although we made him go down sitting on his bottom.

Neither C nor I have ever been so scared in our entire lives. I never, never want to see my son like that again. We've spent the past two days showering him with kisses and hugging him as much as he will let us. The saddest part of this whole experience is that my fearless Wild Man has developed some stranger and separation anxiety. I had to sit with him for 30 minutes this morning at school before I could leave him. I called about 30 minutes later to check on him, and he was, as I suspected, happily playing with his friends.

I'm sorry for the enormously long post; I think I needed to get all of this out to let it go in some strange way. I love that little boy more than I can put into words.