Unsinkable

It's 6:32 am on Tuesday, September 5.  I am sitting here, wondering how I'm going to break it to my son that today, is not in fact, his first day of big-boy-all-day kindergarten.  

Two weeks or so ago I called Maryland to ask about an Early Childhood Assessment for Rose, just to get some wheels turning in case we need some help later on with her English, etc.  The adoption counselors recommend this, as sort of a "just in case" kind of measure.  While I had them on the phone, I asked the secretary if K-5 started on MPS' first day of school and she said yes.  Okay, then.

 Well, today, after baking blueberry muffins, and packing a lunch, I wonder, how much does milk cost at the school?  And I think, jeez, you would have thought they would have sent me something before today, because if I didn't have a vegetarian kid he might be buying lunch, and I have no freaking idea what that costs either.  We've gotten a bunch of mail from central office (like, marketing material about different plans they have, learning targets, student handbook, etc.) but nothing from Maryland directly…

Oh crap.  

I remember the other day right before I called the pediatrician who told me to take Rose to the ER, bringing in some mail from Maryland.  At this point, I'm just thinking, dang, I bet I have a bunch of papers I have to fill out before I bring him today, I'd better get on that.  But when I open the envelope, on the second page it says, "K-5 students do not attend the first day of school".  At this point I say, "Oh crap!" loud enough for Chuck to hear, he comes in and I explain to him what happened and he goes back to bed.  

I consider this option but decide I'm going to stay up, and wake up D so he goes to bed before 10pm tonight (he's turned into quite the night owl over summer vacation).  Now there's just the question if I call a friend who I know I told that the kids' first day of school was today.  On one hand, she was probably smart enough to read her mail and therefore I'd be waking her up super-early on the last day of summer vacation.  On the other hand, she didn't call me to tell me I was wrong, so maybe she didn't read her mail either.

Either way, I f***ed up. 

1.  If you get enough 'bubble juice' on your lips when you are blowing bubbles, you no longer need a wand.  

2.  If a dog eats a bee, sometimes they foam at the mouth.

That's all.  Fight the power.  Happy Labor Day! 

We are woken up very unhappily at 7:15 am by a lab tech who is here for more of Rose's blood.  I notice that Chuck is back from home, he steps up to help hold her so we don't call a nurse.  This tech gets it right on the first try.  Fantastic.  Rose has even managed to produce enough blood to fill the required vials. 

A few minutes later, our pediatrician walks in, he has spoken with the Infectious Disease Doctor and read some of the notes from the GI doctor (apparently even doctors have problems reading other doctors' writing!)  I ask him about us going home, he says that if Rose keeps eating and goes potty he would have no problem with that.  He also seems to fall into the hepatitis A group at this point.  

I order Rose some breakfast after he leaves, and she eats two scrambled eggs, half my bagel, but won't touch her muffin, hashbrowns, or pears that I ordered, so I order her two more eggs, which she eats quickly.  I have no doubt in my mind that she would have eaten two more had I asked for them, but we thought it would be better for her to take a little break. 

Dillon calls and asks to speak with Rose, and she gets the biggest smile when he's talking to her.  I'm pretty sure she says "I love you" to him, which we haven't heard her say before.  He tells us they'll come later in the afternoon and bring us some Qdoba for lunch.

We hang out and color and play for a while and the ID doctor comes back.  He says, "Hey."  I say, "Hey".  Chuck says "Hey."  Rose says "Hey!"  Everyone laughs.  The ID doctor says, "I guess you guys have heard the good news."  And we say, "um, what good news?"  And he tells us that the levels they've been so concerned about have gone from being 100x too high to only about 50x too high.  Everything else is pretty much back to normal.  He thinks we can go home, but we need our Resident and Pediatrician to agree.   Since the Hepatitis A labs take 7-10 days to come back, we'll be able to wait at home and just go in for follow up with the pediatrician.  If that comes back negative they'll probably want to do some more tests, including for the liver flukes, but that would have to go to the CDC in Atlanta, and so would take even more time.  But as long as Rose is stable we can pretty much leave- or at least, that's his opinion.

 It turns out that's the Resident's opinion as well, and its shared by our pediatrician, so we just wait for them to get all the paperwork and everything together.  Dillon and Grandma Vickie and Grandpa Tim come with lunch just as our nurse comes in and asks if we are ready to go home.  We are, but we stay and eat.  Dillon brings Rose a toy cell phone, which she LOVES.  He knows his sister too well already.  She's been playing with a paper cell phone from a piece of junk mail for two weeks now, walking around the house with it, saying, "Hello?"  and a variety of other things…

We bring Dillon and Rose home, the dogs are quite happy to see us.  Rose falls asleep in the car (as do I) and manages to stay pretty much asleep while we bring her into the house.  I call Kate's and leave a message that she doesn't have to come back today to let the dogs out (but she doesn't get the message and comes back a few hours later).  It's great to be home again, although less great as the house was a disaster from four days of Rose being sick and then three days of us being in the hospital with brief intermissions of Chuck running in, throwing things around looking for stuff, and then leaving.  I had to run the dishwasher half-empty as it smelled terrible from three day old cereal bowls and stuff.

But I clean up a bit while Rose sleeps and Dillon and Chuck play Uno, then I help D get ready for a birthday party he's going to for an older kid.  It's a soccer theme, so he puts on the super-cool Mexico team outfit Rachel and Patrick brought back for him from their recent trip.  He makes up a little chant, singing "I know soccer and the Astros ROCK" around the house (kinda quietly as to not wake his sister).  

Eventually we have to wake her and take Dillon to the party, where they've closed the block and are playing soccer in the street.  Rose gets right in the mix of it, following her brother and trying to get the ball.  She is very upset a few minutes later when we have to leave, and cries as if her heart will break when we leave Dillon.  He's spending the night, too, so she'll miss him tonight, but Dillon had already planned on attending the party and it didn't seem fair to make him leave early.

So we take her home and make it an early night, for the most part.  I think everyone just really needed some sleep! 

We head down bright and early to get an ultrasound done of Rose's belly.  She is super-good, as the brilliant techs have a brightly colored flashing boombox toy that keeps her entertained as the ultrasound takes about 15 minutes to complete.  When we finish, our Pediatrician is waiting to speak with us.  He has about the same information as they had the night before in the ER, but somehow it is easier to hear coming from him.  Still a lot of scary words being mentioned.  I am concerned that I don't know what to hope it is, as it seems past the point where I can hope it is nothing.  It's scary when I am wondering if I should hope that it's some sort of parasite, but the alternatives that are mentioned (including the big C) sound so much worse.

Then we head back to the room where we are told we can't order Rose breakfast until the GI doctors say it is okay.   Chuck goes to the deli to get a cup of coffee, and brings me back a diet coke, bagel, and (as he was instructed to get a plain bagel but returns with the dreaded cinnamon-raisin variety) a chocolate muffin.  I am starving and low-blood-sugary, but I can't eat them in front of Rose, who I know has to be starving as well as she didn't have any terrible pizza in the ER the night before, and hasn't eaten anything since some popcorn with D at 11am on Thursday.  

Chuck decides to leave to run home and pick up some essentials (toothbrushes, clean undies, etc.) to get us through the day.  There is also some concern that the dogs have been home alone since 3pm the day before and they are either turning yellow or have had an accident in the basement where they are restricted to when we leave.  He asks the nurse if we'll see any doctors soon as he wants to be here for it, but she says it could be five minutes or five hours.  So he goes, and right after he leaves I get the all-clear to order Rose some breakfast.  I do, but they are busy, so while we wait I break out some goldfish crackers and open my muffin.  Rose decides that despite liking neither sweets nor chocolate, she wants to share my muffin, and I oblige her.  She eats about a quarter of it, and then moves on to the bagel.  She's eaten about a fourth of that when her scrambled egg, pancake, and banana come.  She takes a bite of banana, and I can see on her face that she's remembering puking one of these up the other day and she gives it back to me.  She eats every bite of egg but won't touch the pancake, but this is still way better eating than I've seen from her since Monday.

I receive word that they'll be drawing more blood at 11am and I call Chuck to let him know he should try to be back by then for the unpleasantness.  He is still at home, packing clothes for Dillon to potentially stay another night at Grandma's and for Rose and I to be able to change.  My mom calls, she and Dillon will come visit and bring lunch for us, I tell her to be there after 11:20 or so, since I don't want D to walk in when they are torturing his sister.

It's 11am and Chuck isn't back, but then no one comes.  And then the lab tech beats Chuck here.  I take a look at her, and tell her that she might want some reinforcements.   The nurse comes in to help hold Rose down.  She's still dehydrated so they have trouble getting enough blood, with multiple pokes and then the tech just gave up, and left with significantly less than the empty vials indicated that she came for.  Rose screamed so loud I was sure they could hear her in the lobby, (and we're on the 8th floor) and the nurse wound up pretty much sitting on her to keep her still.  Afterwards she had to re-tape Rose's IV tubes since they were dangling pretty precariously after the big struggle.  For such a small little kid, she really is strong!  

Chuck walked in a few minutes after the lab tech left, but by then Rose had pretty much worn herself out and was falling asleep. She slept for about an hour until her brother came in for a visit and brought some Culvers with.  I also ordered her some macaroni and cheese and stuff off the hospital's lunch menu.  We had a happy family visit, Grandma and D came through with a coloring book, stickers, crayons, a puzzle, and a ball, which was awesome since for some reason neither Chuck nor I had thought to put entertainment for Rose on the list of stuff he should bring back.   We played for quite a while, and when D and Grandma left around 3pm, Rose was pretty sad.  She hates when her brother leaves her or when we drop him off somewhere.

But she can't be sad too long, because the GI consult comes in shortly to poke her in the tummy and talk a bit about her ultrasounds, etc.  He gives us another range of possibilities that could be at work here, and then he leaves.  Chuck and I are fiending for some caffeine at this point, and Rose is playing with the puzzle quietly on Chuck's lap, so I head out to find the deli.  I make my way over there, get Chuck a coffee and I reconsider the soda and get juice and an ice cream cone instead. As I come back to the room, I see the GI doctor in the hallway on the phone and hear a couple of scary words about my daughter, including the word "biopsy".  I go back to the room and tell Chuck, who freaks out a bit as well.

The Infectious Disease Doctor is the next in the room.  He is very nice, very easy to understand, and he examines Rose.  I feel pretty at ease with him, so I think Rose picks up on this and is pretty comfortable with him.  He tells us that he thinks the most reasonable assumption is that Rose has Hepatitis A, and he tells us it is as likely that she contracted it in Milwaukee as in Ethiopia.  He tells us to "agitate to go home" while we wait for the labs, as Rose appears to have perked up significantly during her stay so far.

After he leaves, Chuck and I discuss this.  I'm not particularly comfortable with agitating in this regard, specifically with the possibility that we could push people into letting us go home and then maybe Rose gets worse.  So we sort of agree that we'll bring up this possibility but defer to the doctors and whatever their opinion is.  I do, however, ask the nurse if we can get the IV out of Rose, as she's drinking a ton of water at this point, almost back to her pre-illness amount.

The nurse asks for a few minutes to find that out, and then she comes back in later and says they don't want to do that at this point as they are still potentially looking at a gallbladder infection which they might want to push antibiotics through.  This is acceptable to me.  We eat some dinner (Rose eats two eggs, a dinner roll, and a bowl of rice, everyone's very happy about her appetite).  

Then we try to get a bit of sleep.  I am tired as heck, as I only got about three hours of sleep last night.  Rose, however, is totally hopped-up and doesn't seem the slightest bit tired.  I am laying with her in her bed, trying to distract her from pulling on her IV tubes, etc.   Then Chuck takes a turn, convinced he can get her to go to sleep.  I am doubtful, but as it allows me to pass out immediately on the little couch in the room where Chuck slept the previous night, I immediately let him take her.

I awake a few hours later feeling something being thrown at me.  Chuck is irritated that it took three quarters and a wallet being thrown at me to wake me up, (not so happy about that myself) but he has been peed on, so I figure we're even.  Turns out Rose is plenty hydrated again, and despite going pee 47 times before bed, had a little accident.  I help Chuck change her clothes, then go in search of clean sheets to the nurse's station down the hall, because no one answers our page.  I get the sheets and change them myself.  Then I crawl back into bed with Rose, first putting her in a diaper, and Chuck goes home to shower and change.  When Chuck went back this morning he only brought one day's worth of stuff, with some glaring omissions (like clean socks for me and reasonable underwear-you know, something you'd wear to sit around in a hospital all day and night).  I had made a list over the course of the day of things I'd like to have, so I sent that home with him.  I was a bit concerned about him driving home and back at 2:45 am, but I figure he'll know if he's too tired to drive and then maybe he'll stay at home until the next morning.

Just when I'm falling back asleep from Chuck leaving, the alarm on the IV of the girl across the room starts going off.  I push the call button for the nurse after it seems like her dad is going to sleep through it.  The girl is around three, and in the hospital with lead poisoning.  A nurse comes in and resets it, and I fall back to sleep.  This happens three more times.  I don't know if the nurse was just pushing the snooze button or what, but every time I call the nurses' station, they are like, Can we help you? (again?) and I feel bad for bugging them but the alarm is really loud and might wake Rose, not to mention, you know, something actually being wrong with the IV!

Finally they get it worked out and I fall back to sleep…  Chuck's still not back, but I am too tired to worry.