I think I've eaten more hospital food than gramma
Being the youngest of seven kids, my grandmother was already old when I was really young, and I remember her going into and out of the hospital a lot. Sounds kindof familiar to me right now, though for very different reasons.
Erika got out of the hospital last Tuesday with instructions to follow up with her doctors (all four of them) in the week after that. We followed up with her primary care physician last Thursday, and I ended up getting a flu shot (so I don't get sick and give it to her).
This week, she had three appointments scheduled on Thursday with three different specialists. One specialist, the hematology/oncology one (no, Erika does not have cancer), wanted to give her an IV infusion of medicine over the span of about two hours. After having been in the hospital for a week and been poked so many times her veins all retreated to her lower back (nobody seems to look there for veins), she was really against the idea of another needle stick. After a couple hours of wrangling, tourniquetting, crying, and general freaking out, they called a truce by pricking her finger and taking just enough blood for a CBC, along with a promise to return the next day with some sedatives and lots of hydration.
On the way home from that appointment set, we stopped at Bonfils so I could give blood. She got a look at the size of needle they use on me (I have pretty fat veins) and was glad it wasn't trying to be stuck into her, shall we say "petite" veins.
Today, I took her back to the hem/onc place to get the IV line and get her infusion. They stuck the first IV in her foot, since her hands were all chewed up from other nurses with needles and good intentions. That went okay, especially after taking a sedative. She didn't even notice when the nurses poked her arm for a blood sample (since her IV wouldn't draw back).
They started her on the medicine, with Benadryl first to counter some of the normally-expected reaction, then the stuff she was there to get. It made her itch like crazy! She also had to pee (remember the "lots of hydration" thing above). Then her foot started to turn red, following the path of the vein in both directions. Okay, turn it off, start over. In came another nurse with a needle and good intentions. She got the IV started in her hand. The difference? Sedatives plus Benadryl make for a carefree Erika. No freaking out over the stick, and only minimal stiffening when the nurse went digging for the vein. Got the IV in, working and happy, got the meds in, and we were done.
A quick stop at the Eyeglass World to pick up the glasses that had been waiting for her, and we were home again. I had my bag packed and left the house for work. As I drove down Monaco, maybe a mile from the house, I got two phone calls telling me that Rick, my son, got hit by a car.
The place where he got hit was right about where I was heading anyway, so a slight course alteration brought me to the scene. There were lots of emergency vehicles, and for good reason. No, Rick was alright, but the friend of his that was walking with him got run over by the front tire of the minivan. They suspect it may have broken her pelvis. Rick was only a few feet away from that, as the van hit his left leg only, and only hard enough to bruise and scrape it.
We spent several hours waiting for the Denver Police to finish their investigation enough to let us leave. Rick wasn't in much pain, so it was not too bad. Then we spent several hours in the hospital waiting for the doctor to take a look at him. An x-ray later, and the confirmation that there was no broken bone, and we came back home. All told, it was probably around a five and a half hour long ordeal. Could've been much worse!
But lunch today was turkey at Presbyterian hospital, and dinner was fajitas at Swedish Medical Center.
Yum.Labels: kids, medical
Erika and the hospital: the rest of the story
On Friday, as of about 9 AM, Erika no longer had a fever. Her breathing was normal, though she had a little bit of cough still. Her chest x-ray still showed gunk in her lungs that needed to clear up.
Saturday, Erika still had no fever and had less cough than before, but the day ended with a little more trauma than usual. Her IV line, which was in her foot since all her arm veins were blown, stopped working. Rather than abuse her other foot, and still make her suffer continued pokes for blood draw, the decision was made to put in a PICC line. Basically, it's a really big, long-term IV line with special caps for putting in medicines and taking out samples, and a protocol to prevent clotting. This involved sterile technique, and an ultrasound machine to see where the needle was going. Yes, I said "needle." Erika heard it, and for whatever reason decided she had to look at said needle. She immediately began freaking out about needles and getting stuck yet again, even after having had a valium. She also really, really didn't like the burning sensation caused by the Lidocaine. A second valium was given, and she just kept on freaking out. It took the nurse, the person putting in the PICC line, and me to try to calm her down enough to get the line in. It ended up taking over two hours when all was said and done, but it was in place, flushed and working fine. Starting at her elbow, it went in about 53 centimeters into her chest. A chest x-ray confirmed the placement, and it was backed out about 2 cm.
On Sunday, her resting heart rate dipped below 75 occasionally. The chest x-ray was looking pretty good. Everything seemed to be going better. Monday was more of the same. We were promised a visit by the hematologist to talk about her blood levels. She never showed up, though, so at about 7:40, I went home for a bit. I caught up on watching stuff on the TiVO before it got erased, watching 24, Crossing Jordon, FutureWeapons, Numb3rs and Smallville. A quick check of the mail, download of email, and a shower, and I headed back to the hospital, arriving Tuesday morning at 3:11 AM. I didn't get a whole lot of sleep, but finally got out of bed around 9:30 AM, being interrupted only a couple times when Erika got her vital signs taken.
This morning, Erika had a breakfast burrito with eggs, green chili and potatoes. And a bowl of cereal with a banana. And a blueberry muffin. And orange juice. And apricot nectar. I think she's still hungry.
As I wrote the above, it was morning, and we had received three votes to send Erika home from various doctors. We waited all day for the pediatrician to give his opinion. Finally, at 5:30, I decided to go home and do the usual stuff, then come back for another night's sleep in the hospital, on the little convertible chair. While I was at home, I got a call from the pediatrician saying that Erika could go home today if I could come back and pick her up. He saw me at the hospital, but didn't see me leave!
Ah, well, she's out now. We had to stop by the pharmacy on the way home. The pharmacists took 45 minutes filling her various prescriptions, which was kindof bad since we showed up 20 minutes before their closing time. They weren't able to get everything so we'll have to go back to pick up the rest later on. At least she is home, and I can sleep in an actual bed again!
Labels: kids, medical
She's sick, I'm tired. Together we're...
She's sick, I'm tired. Together we're in the hospital. (Note that this was written last Thursday, but I did not have internet connectivity at the time.)
Last Friday, Erika woke up in the morning with a pretty high fever - 103 degrees or so. I called the doctor's office and made an appointment. They fit her in that morning. At the doctor's office, her symptoms were described a couple times. Vitals were taken which not only corroborated her story, but found also that her blood pressure was really low. The doctor told me to take her over to the emergency room. So I did.
We arrived at the emergency room to a parking lot with only empty parking space. I was hoping the wait wouldn't be that long. As we were walking towards the entrance, I noticed a sign that told patients to proceed to the main entrance. We started to walk in that direction when someone from the E.R. came out the ambulance entrance and walked us in that way instead. Apparently, they had a water line break right over the emergency room waiting area. Once inside, they knew Erika by name since her regular doctor called ahead to let them know we were on our way.
We went straight into a room where she was poked and prodded, taking enough blood for some cultures, and given an IV. She received fluids and an antibiotic. Once the antibiotic infusion was done, we were sent home as long as we promised to return the next day for another infusion. The IV was left in her arm and wrapped to prevent it from being yanked around. On Saturday, Erika and I ran some errands, including washing the truck, getting her some new glasses, and eating lunch. After lunch, we went up to the hospital and she got her second dose of IV antibiotics and a second round of blood cultures.
On Sunday, her temperature once again spiked into the "killing brain cells" zone, so we once again returned to the ER, where she once again provided a blood sample for cultures, and received an IV antibiotic. By now, she has been stuck by needles 4-5 times, and if you know Erika, you know she would rather slam her fingers in a door than get stuck by a needle.
Monday rolls around, and Erika is not feeling too well. I took her temperature and it was just about normal, so I went to work and left her at home to rest. When I returned at 6 PM, she looked very flushed and somewhat disoriented. I took her temperature with the digital under-the-tongue thermometer. It read 104 degrees. I was stunned! So just in case the thermometer was lying to me, I got out the digital stick-it-in-your-ear thermometer and tried again. This one read 103.5 degrees. So I called the on-call physician to see what she would recommend. As you probably can guess, we made our fourth trip to the ER in four days, where she gave a blood sample, got an IV and got another dose of antibiotics. A chest x-ray was also taken, but turned out negative.
Around 9:00 Tuesday night, we got a call from the ER doctor saying that one of her blood cultures turned up positive, and that we should take her right away to the hospital. No, not that hospital, the other hospital that's another 20 minutes from your house, where she'll be admitted and watched more closely. So I threw together a bag of stuff for her, one for me, and we drove over to the emergency room. The emergency room admittance nurse knew her by name and sent her straight up to the pediatric ward where she got her own little room and bed. And when I say little, I mean little. There's barely enough room to walk around the side of the bed with all the stuff in this room. The bed is the focal point, as you might expect. Around it are two tables, two chairs, an IV stand, a sink, the door to the bathroom, a closet and a computer station bolted to the wall. The first order of business: stick another IV in her. We've both lost count of how many times needles have pierced her skin and dug around looking for yet another vein that hasn't packed up and moved to her kidneys.
Test after test, fluid after fluid, and pill after pill, not a lot of progress was made. A chest x-ray was taken on Wednesday, and another on Thursday. This series of x-rays showed a progression of "something" in her lungs, which is never a good thing. Lungs are for air, not "somethings." Thursday afternoon, she was wheeled down to the OR where another in the whirlwind of doctors performed a brachioscopy, taking a scope and looking around in her lungs. Samples were taken for culture, and some saline was thoughtfully left behind for her to cough out after she woke up from the anesthesia.
On Thursday, she was put on a couple new antibiotics with more difficult-to-pronounce names, but her breathing is a little deeper than it was earlier in the day when she was panting somewhere around 80 times per minute. She's back down under 60 again now.
Labels: kids, medical
