Tuesday, November 03, 2009

we're home!

We got home late last evening. Daniel's doing really well, which is why we were able to leave, duh.

It's all so surreal. The last two days seem like they're memories from someone else's life, you know?

As Mary noted, Daniel HAS handled things with his usual "WHERE'S THE PARTY?" aplomb (dude still talks in capslock) so, when we were getting out the car early Sunday morning, I was LECTURING him, all "Daniel, don't look like you're having so much fun" because Daniel was all alert and happy and running around in the carpoark outside the emergency depaertment, and was totally BUZZED about being packed up and raced to the hospital. "Pretend to be sick!", I whispered through the side of my mouth as we walked through the doors "lay it on, mate, or they'll NEVER take a look at us!".

Jesus.

The triage nurse stuck on of those clippy things on Daniel's finger, and Daniel went over all Go Ask Alice with his hand in the air, all "whoa, man. I can see MOLECULES" or some shit, and I was clenching my teeth and willing him to Act Sick! Be Convincing!, and I may have even said smething like "remember our little talk, son?" because he was having WAY to much fun at this point. Granted, after dancing (DANCING!) in the carpark (me: "do you need to wee?", him: "no, mummy. I'M DANCING". me: *groans*), he was now hanging limply in my arms, but I figured he was just tired because it WAS 4am, and we HAD been up all night, when really and actually and truly it WASN'T fatigue, it was freakin' OXYGEN DEPRIVATION, probably from the I'M A BALLERINA!'ing he was doing outside.

Anyhoo, when his oxygen saturation came back at Oh Shit and I started crying for a millisecond, which was a truly dumbass thing to do because I saw Deebs' expression change from "WEEE!" to "OH FUCK", but shit, man. SHIT, you know? Because I've watched enough ER to know that this was Not Good, where by "Not Good", I mean "Truly Fucking Scary FOR REALS". The triage nurse paged the paeds nurse, and the paeds nurse stuck his head out of the resuscitation room and said something about NO ONE being available because they were ALL in the resus room, you know, RESUSSING, but triage nurse gave him The Eye and all of a sudden, we had that nurse AND a doctor, and were being rushed through admitting and the nurse stayed with us, which I realise now wasn't because he was waiting FOR us, all tapping his toe and checking his watch, he was there in case Daniel stopped breathing.

His sats dropped some more while we were at the counter, then Daniel barfed, and the admitting clerk was all "I can get this all later....." and we were rushed through some doors and the doctor was saying stuff like "are you SURE it's 85??", and I was actually holding it together, go me, and then Daniel was on the nebuliser.

*waves on beaches, sands through the hourglass*

The treatment worked, but ultimately, it didn't work enough so we were admitted sometime around 7am. I can't praise the ED staff enough, or the paeds staff who came straight away from upstairs once the order went through. The only waiting around we had to do was the Waiting And Seeing. Nebulised, then wait, nebulised, then wait. We didn't have to wait to be seen, for treatment, for results, nothing. Even radiology came straight away: by the time the doctor told us she was ordering a chest screen, the radiographer was at the door and confirming this was Daniel Bee.

He looked SO LITTLE standing in front of those BIG machines (Daniel, not the radiographer), and was very brave because that room is SCARY. All dark with machines humming, and he stood still, even when the two grown ups telling him there was NOTHING to be scared of, rushed behind a screen like there WAS something to be scared of. It's very humbling to be that trusted. I mean, in the scariest of situations, my son stayed calm and stood still in what HAD to feel like Mortal Danger to him, and he did it because I asked him too. Even when, to him, it probably looked like I was too scared to stay there.

Yesterday was agonisingly slow. He had a couple or three more treatments with the nebuliser in the morning


and would like you to meet Scruffy. Say "Hi Scruffy!"








and then albuterol in the puffer every hour for the rest of the day. I came home in morning to eat and shower, and came back again last night to do the same. We live, like, five minutes from the hospital, and while I felt SO GUILTY to leave him there, I really had to because by late evening, I was losing mah shit.

I did go through this alone. I thought I was Being A Weiner, and that I should be Holding It Together better than I was, but a nurse told me this kind of thing was HARD, but I'm me (ie stupid) and I still feel like I should have been able to manage how I felt. Feel. I hate that he wasn't quite asleep when I walked away from him, and I hate that I have to bargain with my head to get a grip because I KNOW Daniel will, when I sit with him at bedtime, sometimes bask in the glory that is me rather than drift off, and I KNOW the albuterol was helping him wallow in my presence, ahem, and I KNOW that leaving was probably the key to him kicking the albuterol high's ass and going off to sleep.

Whatevs.

At the moment, Daniel's on albuterol every four hours. We have an Action Plan that takes us through the next five days and tapers its usage until it's only as needed, which I hope means "maybe once a year, if that".

It MIGHT be like that. When we got to the paeds ward Sunday morning, the ward was half empty. By Sunday night, they were diverting ambulances and had closed the ED to all paeds cases because the ward was full and they were all respiratory cases. Thank you hot north wind + springtime pollens. It stirred up a LOT of known asthmatics, so it's not entirely WTF? to imagine a kid with hayfever so bad he hasn't been able to breathe out of his nose for two months would suffer a leetle more with that combination too. The paediatrician he saw this morning said he fits the profile, but as it's his first evah attack, we wouldn't be nuts to cross our fingers and hope it doesn't happen again.

Still, we can never leave the house again EVER without his puffer and spacer. EVER. And I imagine it's going to take a while to not worry (ie stress the fuck out) whenever he's not with me, which is really only twice a week because apart from preschool (oh yeah, THAT. No updates. I suck. He loves it, the end), we hang out together all the time.

Daniel says hospital was "REALLY GREAT", which considering there were bedside magic shows





balloons AND balloon animals



and all day non stop Thomasfests broken only by the all day, non stop access to Maisie, isn't surprising he kind of dug the whole ordeal.

He was ready to go home though



and is doing really well.

I'm tired and sad and scared and a whole bundle of emotions that are probably more due to sleep deprivation and lack of food than anything else because my boy is healthy and happy and HOME, and those things make me very, very happy so why the sad face, dumbass?

Rhetorical question, by the way. Feel free to have a stab at it though.

Love to you all,

xx




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