Frustrations.

I should have posted this yesterday when it was all more fresh on my mind.  But I was pretty much the walking dead all day yesterday due to exhaustion, so maybe it wouldn’t have made much sense.

Anyways – we did NOT come home Friday as expected. Right before discharge was ordered Kendall started just freaking out in pain, screaming and writhing and just acting like something was going horribly wrong inside. They ordered an abdominal X-ray STAT (no literally, they said that to me. We all know how much I like repeating it…) – And it came back as “Possible Ileus or Possible Gas.” Please be kidding me. You can’t tell me whether my child’s intestines are paralyzed OR if she just needs to fart really bad?!?!?! I mean, we aren’t talking about something like, oh she may or may not have a slightly cracked bone – it’s literally life or death if they pick wrong.  Their plan was to give her a suppository, and if she pooped then voila, gas gone, problem solved, go home and enjoy. So we gave it to her, one hour later she finally pooped, and proceeded to have an even worse episode of pain/screaming than before. So then they were really confused. Jo-
Jo the idiot resident doctor ACTUALLY HAD THE CAJONES to suggest to me that I try placing a warm blanket on Kendall’s tummy and turning the lights out to see if that helped her calm down.  I am appalled that she paid thousands of dollars for a medical degree to learn that. Thanks doc. That’s actually called “Mothering 101” and guess what – I TOOK THAT CLASS 7 years ago. I told her to please leave our room and come back when she had more information to give me that didn’t involve environmental issues which were NOT the cause of her pain. I was so ticked. I just wanted someone to look me in the eye and tell me unequivocally that it was just gas, and that her intestines would NOT explode suddenly in the middle of the nite. No one could tell me that. Not even the head of pediatric radiology. So we spent another nite, another morning of poking and prodding. Jo-Jo Resident came back in with the BRAINSTORM of an idea to test her for a UTI or an ear infection. My response this time? “That’s good analytical thinking, JoJo, but do’nt you think that the IV ANTIBIOTICS she’s been on for a week would have killed BOTH of those things?” Dejectedly, she admitted that they would and went back out to her drawing board to come up with more genius ideas. Lucky for her, it was the end of her shift. She’ll do great in a pediatric practice with ONLY first time moms who have ZERO common sense for themselves. I think her official practice name should be “Dr. Obvious” – we like to state it in case you can’t see it.

Anyhoo.

Dr. A finally came in that afternoon, looked me in the eye and TOLD ME it was for sure just gas, but went over her from head to toe anyways to rule out other issues. They were taking her vitals at the time, and we noticed she had lost almost a whole pound from her highest weight that week, or ever actually. She had been JUST about to tip the scales into 11 pounds on Wednesday, and was back down to 10 lbs 2 oz on Saturday. This is in spite of adding the fat to her diet. Even Dr. A looked the slightest bit defeated. I definitely felt that way. He pulled me into the hallway to discuss transferring her to one of the Children’s hospitals downtown where they have Excellent GI (gastroenterology) programs, to try to figure out her nutritional deficiencies/issues. I said that I felt she needed a REALLY GOOD GI workup, but that right now we needed a break from the hospital, a break from the testing, the not sleeping, the idiot residents. So he agreed. (Not to mention that we cannot handle paying another “ambulance transport” bill at $45/mile that insurance decides to not cover. That was fun. From her last trip to the hospital. Aurora to Park Ridge. You do the math. Not pretty.)

So that’s where we left things. We were handed discharge papers and meds to go home on within 2 hours of that conversation. It was amazing.

And instead of going home I decided it would be fun to drive up to Milwaukee on the nite we were predicted to get a TON of snow, to go see my family for an early Easter. Ben took Kendall straight home from the hospital, and the girls and I drove up. It was a great visit with the family, I was so craving real human interaction that EVERYTHING was just hilarious to me.Then again, I do have the awesomest funniest family ever. My uncle’s new “quit smoking program” is sure to be a great hit. The steel toed boots should work wonders! Anyways – it was all good until we decided to head home and it decided to start DUMPING snow on the greater milwaukee area. There was 3 inches of snow on the freeway, which is just crazy – we were all trying to stay in the same tracks just following the car ahead of us cause it was a virtual whiteout.

All that to say, I crashed into bed Saturday nite right before midnite and was dead to the world from catching up on a week’s worth of “hospital sleep” until sometime Sunday afternoon. I had no idea what day it was or who i was or where I was when I woke up. And i could still use about two more nites like that!

Kendall continues to have tummy issues. She is clearly in pain for the majority of the day. I am at my wit’s end trying to figure out how to help her or what the problem could even begin to be. But I do feel like we are close to finding the root of her problems. Or at least a very large part of the puzzle. I spent the afternoon on the phone with a lot of nurse’s at specialists offices, so I should have a better game plan tomorrow as to what the next step is. I waver back and forth between thinking we’ll end up inpatient again for more testing/nutrition pumping for Kendall, and then thinking maybe this new doctor will just have all this awesome diagnostic/imaging equipment in her office and we’ll get it all done in a matter of hours all at once. A girl can dream, right?

So anyways – sorry to be so incoherent tonite. My mind never stops working over Kendall’s issues, how to help her, trying to figure her out and FIND something and FIX her. Topping it all off, Ben finally told me that my silver kitty did go to the big catnip field in the sky after a really quick but painful sickness he has been dealing with for a couple weeks. I didn’t think I would cry as hard as I did because I knew he was sick, like bad sick, and I had actually been hoping the end would come soon for him – but apparently all the pent up emotions from this crazy past week were too much and I just broke down sobbing. Why can’t kitties just live forever in perfect health? Why can’t we figure out how to help babies gain weight and eat normally without tubes in their nose and stomachs?

and yet I know that asking why is futile. It just is what it is. As kealey pointed out to her sister in that voice that only older sisters can perfect –

“{You get what you get and you don’t get upset}”.

Darn skippy.

Your prayers are so appreciated and needed tonite. Pray that Kendall gets some relief from this tummy pain, and that we can get in with the RIGHT doctor VERY soon to start figuring out WHY she has it. Pray that she leaves her NG tube alone for at least a few days. I have had to drop it down her nose a record 8 times in the last three days. Not good for a kid who is recovering from the rhinovirus/pneumonia. I am sure this isn’t helping matters and yet I have no idea how much more tape I can layer on her face without ripping off every last layer of skin she has left.

there is so much more to pray for – my grandma who suffered a bad fall last week and is recovering from that; the little girl on kealey’s bus who was recently diagnosed with bone cancer and is undergoing aggressive treatment currently; just for all the sickness and sadness in our world. We all need Jesus.

I pray that all of you have a great night/morning/tuesday.

Thanks for praying and writing and helping out with the girls and bringing meals and all you are all doing to help us get through this crazy time in life!

 

terra