The moving around of items from point A to point B in a semi-organized manner.
My brain is consumed with logistics right now.
Kendall is in the hospital in Naperville. My kids are at a friends house in Plainfield, until they go to school, at which time Kaylen should be deposited back to a friends house in Bolingbrook so they can go run errands up in Hinsdale, before coming home to get Kaylen on the bus to go to school also.
I am also at the hospital in Naperville, which is where I need to be, but I also need to be at the grocery store, the party supply store, my own house.
I can only say thank you Jesus for unlimited texting and non-arthritic thumbs because my phone has been “logistics scheduling central” all morning. Also for amazing friends who are willing to re-arrange their own schedules to fit my kids and their various needs in!
Kendall stuff: She is acting much better after some good IV antibiotics, but is still not making very much urine. She doesn’t want to eat or drink very much, and there is currently a river of nastiness pouring out of her G and J tubes so we can’t get much in via those routes. She is on her TPN which has more than enough fluids in it for her. We changed her foley tube (that drains urine out of her bladder) in the hopes that maybe the one she had in was just clogged – but still no go. She’s not third spacing it (putting it in her tissues instead of her blood stream) – well, at least she doesn’t look very visibly puffy anywhere – so we have no idea where her fluids are going to right now. I haven’t talked to a doctor yet this morning so I haven’t heard if there was any growth yet on any of her cultures or really much of a plan at all. She isn’t vomiting anymore and her HR/oxygen sats are within the range of what I would consider “stable enough for home”. We basically got sent here because the ER doc we saw at the ER down the street from our house was scared she was going to crash on us based on her less then stellar labwork and her history of doing such a thing, so he needed to cover his own (rawhide) and send us here to be observed for the night/get antibiotics/etc. Supremely frustrating.
(this is a picture from a few days ago. her hair is never like this! she looked so grown up like this!)
I’m hoping I can talk whatever doc comes on service this morning into letting us get out of here in the next couple of hours because I have too much crap to do to be sitting around here with a mostly stable kid.
I know so many of you have volunteered to help out with anything you could, you are all amazing. Not knowing where I am going to be tonight makes it really difficult. I don’t know if you all know this – but tonight was going to be Kealey’s birthday party for a few of her friends from school. Just a little sleepover, but Kealey has had the best time looking for party stuff, talking about games and things they were going to do today, and in general just looking forward to the fun of hanging out with some of her friends. Kendall is almost always in the hospital around her birthday, and has ruined Kealey’s day/chance at a celebration pretty much every year that she’s been around! Kealey takes this in stride, as she does with so many other things, and this year I really wanted to do it up for her. She had a small party last week with her dance friends, we did a modified celebration lunch on her actual birthday, but tonights party was going to be all about Kealey. We had picked out decorations at Hobby Lobby (all zebra themed!), and I was supposed to go yesterday to get everything. I was supposed to be cleaning the house and moving the Wii downstairs to the basement today, getting snacks, ordering pizzas, having everything ready for the Pitch Perfect Perfect Party tonight.
But instead i am watching numbers on a monitor, willing a flood of urine to hit the bag hanging off the side of her bed, sending telepathic messages to the nurse station right ouside our room to have the doctor come in here already and discharge us. Trying to plan out how many hours I will have to get everything done if we get discharged by 10. Or 11. or 3. I mean, really, let’s face it. I’m no Martha Stewart of party planning. This party wasn’t going to be anything magazine worthy to begin with, even on a good week where my eye wasn’t trying to pop out of the socket and I didn’t feel like the walking dead from a bad head/chest cold. Add in my own current health status, and it may or may not have hoped to resemble something remotely cute. But I at least wanted to TRY. For Kealey. For my beautiful, strong-willed, knows-too-much-for-her-age 11 year old, who spends her life doing stuff for others. To be able to give her back something just for HER.
I promised I would try to come up with a list of things that would help me out for those of you who have volunteered to help and want to help! I am just writing this all down as I would plan it out if life were perfect and I had a personal assistant to help me get this all done. And possibly if I grew two extra sets of arms. I do not expect that anyone will do all or really any of this. This is simply for those of you who have been patiently waiting for the list of how you can help! if that isn’t you – then please feel free to skip right over this! (if you know me at all, you know how hard this is for me, to even ask for help let alone direct people on how to help!)
My House
I am pretty sure it’s not quite at “hoarders:buried alive” level yet, but it’s needing some help! If we get out of here this afternoon, I will be cleaning like a madwoman. If you live close by and are handy with a vacuum, stop on by! I can put you to work for an hour or so!
I will be hopefully transforming our basement (which luckily Ben went kind of ham on and literally shoveled up 16 grocery bags worth of old toys/dressup clothes to clean out an area for the girls to spread out in a couple weeks ago) into Party Central. I need help setting up the Wii in the basement (connecting it to the TV down there and such).
Speaking of the Wii – I need the game Just Dance 4!!! does anyone have it that we can borrow? I need to find a place to rent it at (redbox) if not!
Party Stuff
I have a beautiful wonderful friend going to get some of the party decorations. It is zebra themed with hot pink accents. If you happen to be at or near Hobby Lobby this morning and want to browse the party aisle and pick up a decoration or two, that would be spectacular. i obviously won’t have time to get much of anything on my own, and I was just really wanting to make it look awesome for Kealey. Clearly, not a huge priority at this point, but I know some of you like to do stuff like that so there you go!
Balloons – same as above!
Snack foods/2Liters of sprite/lemonade/whatever
So that’s what i would be doing if I wasn’t here.
I cannot say thank you enough to the people who have been instrumental in helping me maintain some semblance of normalcy thus far: Sharla who has had my kids since yesterday evening, Anne who picked my kids up from my house where they were sitting all alone and brought them to the ER so I could see them for a little bit, and then took Kaylen again this morning, Molly who will be running around like a madwoman all day trying to help me with the party stuff for tonight, Nancy who keeps me supplied with coffee and sugary snacks and cold medicine so I can function in the hospital. My good friends who text me the most random stuff in the middle of the night just to make me laugh. All of you who send me messages on facebook volunteering your help/prayers/anything I need. my wonderful in-laws who are willing to drop everything and fly to the frozen tundra of chicago to help us out if so needed!
i have realized more so this stay than really any other how much of a village it really does take to live this life. We are so very blessed and i hope you know how very very appreciative I am of it all. The prayers, the offers of help, the actual help… I am overwhelmed by you all right now. Plain and simple – I could not do what I do if it weren’t for all of you. For my amazing family who normally pick up all this slack – thank you. i hope you are all enjoying your vacations!!
Hopefully we are packing it up to get out of here within the next couple of hours so I can get to all of the above on my own. Hopefully Kendall continues to respond well to the antibiotics and i can run some extra fluids at home and kickstart her kidneys into putting out some good urine again. Hopefully we get home for the party and we don’t end up scarring all those kids with all the medical crap Kendall will still be dealing with tonight!
Keep on hoping!
I’ll update Kendall’s facebook page as I hear or learn more about what’s going on!
Thank you to all of you for everything you do for us – praying, physically helping, sending gifts – I cannot thank you enough.
Have a beautiful Friday folks!
Terra.