Day 1- Tuesday, May 21st
4AM, 5AM, & 6AM- Brynlee woke up every hour whining/crying. She went back to sleep when we picked her up and rocked her, but it's not typical for her to get up during the night unless she is sick.
John went downstairs with her at 6AM and she just sat/slept in the chair with him. I went downstairs around 8:15 and she had just finished breakfast. She was whining (nothing new), so I picked her up and she puked all over both of us. I took her upstairs to give her a bath, then grabbed a few towels to put around her on my bed because I was going to take a shower. I don't think she has ever thrown up more than once at a time, so I didn't really think she would be sick again.
John left for an eye doctor appointment and in the hour he was gone, she had puked about 5 more times. I was thinking for a while when it would be safe to put the towels in the wash because I wasn't sure when the barfing would stop. As I came to find out that day, there was never a "safe" time to start a load because as soon as I would push start on the machine, she would barf on a few more towels. I had already gone through our old towels, then had to use beach towels and pretty much everything in the linen closet. In the 26 hours we were home with a sick child, we must have done 15 loads of barf laundry. I truly could not keep up and we were running out of clothes to wear, plus the ever-present shortage of clean towels.
As the day progressed, the puking slowed down from every 3-5 minutes to a couple of times an hour or only when she drank anything. Obviously I was trying to keep her from becoming dehydrated, so I would give her sips of caffeine free pepsi, ice chips, and water. The problem was if I put it in a sippy cup, she would hold on to it for dear life and clamp down on the mouth piece so I couldn't take it from her after just a sip. She she ended up drinking a whole cup of liquids and it would come right back up within minutes.
By 7:30 that evening, I knew it was about her bedtime but I certainly didn't dare put her in her bed with the chance she would aspirate the vomit into her lungs if no one was there (plus who wants to clean barf off the carpet and change sheets all night?) I had called our regular doctor around 1 PM to ask if they could call in a prescription for an antinausea medicine. The answer was no, they would not call in a prescription without seeing her and no there are no appointments for the day. So the only option was instacare which I was not interested in because it costs us around $150 and I really didn't think she was that bad at the time. I truly thought she had the stomach flu, especially because her cousin whom she had played with the day before, was sick with a fever.
The doctor at the instacare basically told me that I was the worst nurse, mom, and person in the whole world because I didn't take her to the ER hours before. He said, "As a nurse you should know..." Blah, blah, blah. I started bawling as soon as he left because I felt horrible. Probably the worst I have ever felt in my life. We were sent straight to the ER where they gave her IV fluids, drew some blood, did a chest x-ray and put a catheter in her bladder for a urine test. Her White blood cell count was elevated, which could indicate an infection. The ER doc thought it might have been from the frequent vomiting though. She perked up a little after the IV fluids so we went home around midnight. They left the IV in her hand and told us to come back around noon if she wasn't better.
All day Tuesday Brynlee basically slept off and on the whole day. She had almost no energy, which I thought was normal for being sick and she had basically been awake since 4 AM. When we got to the ER she didn't care at all about anything that was done to her. She didn't even blink or flinch when they put the IV in her hand or the catheter in her bladder. That's when you know your kids is really sick. Normally she fights even having her temperature checked or the probe on her finger.
Day 2- Wednesday, May 22
We got home around midnight after being discharged from the ER. She went right to bed, but she wasn't comfortable and woke up frequently. Every sound I would panic thinking she was vomiting and she would aspirate, so I didn't sleep well at all. Around 5 AM I got up with her and went downstairs after she puked in her crib (and it's too early to start another load of laundry). She wasn't puking, but I also didn't let her have anything to drink until 10:30 when I gave her zofran.
As I picked her up to leave to go back to the ER, she barfed all over everything again (the last of my clean clothes). In the ER, they first checked her WBC count again and it had increased to 23. So they ordered an abdominal CT scan which showed "something" in the right lower quadrant. They thought it was her appendix at first and I was happy because that is a relatively minor surgery and easy recovery (plus it can be done in St. George). But then they came back and said it was an intusseception, which happens only to babies/kids and where a part of the intestine "telescopes" or moves into another portion of the intestine, which then creates a blockage. So it's no wonder everything came back up- there was nowhere for it to go.
The good news is that they have a procedure called an air enema where they inflate air into the colon really fast and can often pull the 2 pieces apart so it goes back to normal. They do that in radiology so it wouldn't require surgery. The bad news is that if that procedure didn't work, they would send us to primary children's hospital because the doctors in St. George don't do the procedure enough to be comfortable with it. The ER doc said he has been a doctor for 25 years and had only seen 3-4 cases of this.
So it's probably around 3 PM and they take us to the radiology area for the air enema. I'm not really sure why they call it "air", because it was liquid contrast they put in and a lot of it. She screamed and tried to fight and get away when they pushed that fluid in. It was soooo sad and horrible to watch your baby go through that, especially when she had already been sick for so long. They tried 3 different times and were unable to get it to move at all. I was bawling watching her be in so much pain and there was nothing I could do about it.
So we went back to the ER room where they told us they would have to lifelight Brynlee to Primary children's in salt lake as soon as possible. It took a few hours to get everything figured out because the St. George flight team was already out on another call and wouldn't be back until 6PM or so. John went home to finish laundry so we would have clothes to wear and pack a few other things to drive up to Salt Lake. We had to take an ambulance from dixie regional to the st. george airport, then flew to salt lake in the airplane, and took another ambulance from the salt lake airport to primary children's. It was around 9PM when we got to the hospital. The flight was less than an hour and I was told it was going to be really bumpy because of the wind and to be prepared for everyone to be sick. But thankfully it was only really bumpy for a minute or so then it was over.
They did the usual assessment, check her vitals, and ask me a million questions again in the ER. Everyone was so nice and helpful and it was great that we didn't have to wait to see a nurse, then see a doctor, then wait some more... The whole team of doctors and nurses were waiting for us as we walked in my from the ambulance and made it a lot faster. It did take a while to get the radiology department ready again, but they wanted to try the air enema 1 more time. Primary children's does the procedure way more often than Dixie Regional and they know how to be a little more aggressive without causing any problems, so it seemed like a reasonable shot to try it again before having to do surgery. It was about 11 PM when we went into the radiology area. They had a few doctors and techs in there and again, when they put the air in she was screaming bloody murder. However, in St. George they put tons of contrast in her colon and when they were inflating the air, it caused the contrast (and bloody stool) to come out. It was funny because we have been kind of working on potty training and I've been trying to get her to "push" when she sits on the toilet. Well, she was pushing like a champ on that table and it was very messy. And smelly- bloody stool smells way worse than regular stool. The problem was that all the poop was pulling the tape off which was holding the tube in to provide the right amount of pressure in order for the procedure to work. So they took all the tape off (10 or so pieces) her bum and re-taped her bum and tried again. You could see on the x-ray that the the first time it had moved the intestine out quite a bit, just not enough. So they thought if they tried 1 more time it might fix it. The same thing happened again, she started to poop out the contrast while she was screaming in pain. They had a big guy squeezing her bum cheeks together and several other people holding her down. Unfortunately, the procedure didn't work and so the surgeon said there were 2 options- do the surgery now or since they were able to reduce it a little, we could wait and see if after she pooped out more of the contrast they could do the air enema again and it might work without surgery. But the surgeon said that because she had been sick for so long and the fact that she had blood in her stools meant that the likelihood of that working was slim plus she may have worse problems than they realize. We decided surgery was best, so we went back to the ER room for a little bit to wait for surgery to come and get her. A few minutes before we left to the OR, John finally arrived and got to see her.
Day 3- Thursday, May 23
They started the surgery around midnight. John wanted to give her a blessing, but had left his oil in the car. The anesthesiologist found some and helped with the blessing. It was so nice to do that before she went to surgery and also that the doctor could be involved. We went to the cafeteria to grab a snack, then found the waiting room. It was around 2 AM, the surgeon found us and said she did well, but they had to take out about 8 inches of small intestine because it was necrotic (dead) and took out the appendix as well. There are a few reasons why an intusseception can occur and one of those reasons is because of what's called Meckel's diverticulum. Meckel's diverticulum is an outpouching of a part of the intestine. It is a birth defect that occurs when the intestines didn't form properly. About 2% of the population have Meckel's diverticulum, but only about 2% of those people develop problems like diverticulitis, intusseception, or bleeding/infection. It's great our child is so unique!
They let us go to the recovery room with Brynlee until they took us to her room on the surgical floor. She had an NG tube coming out of her nose, a foley catheter draining her bladder and heart and oxygen monitors. She looked uncomfortable just looking at her facial expressions.
We got to her room around 3 AM and we all finally went to sleep around 3:30/4 AM. What a long couple of days!!! Brynlee moaned occasionally, but slept pretty good. The team of doctors came in at 6:30 to check on her. We all went back to sleep for a couple more hours.
Around noon we got her out to bed to take a small walk. It was so sad seeing her cry, but walking is the best thing for getting the bowels moving again (which would get the NG tube out faster and home faster). She was in a lot of pain so the nurse gave her a little morphine in her IV. Bad idea! She was super irritable and crying/moaning even when we were holding her. Plus she was either itching or she suddenly realized her NG tube was in her nose and she was constantly itching her nose and trying to pull out the tube. I had to hold her for a couple of hours until that wore off and she went back to sleep. Her poor little eyes were so swollen from the IV fluids. The next time she got up to walk, I saw a wagon and thought that if she was already unhooked from everything, we might as well take her for a walk in the wagon. They have the halls decorated with fish paintings and drawings, plus kids had decorated ceiling tiles, so she had a lot to look at. It was so cute to finally hear her talk as she pointed out the different colored fish and other stuff around the hall. We actually hadn't heard her talk much at all since Monday. She mostly just nodded her head yes or no. After she walked and she was in the wagon, she said "I did it!" (talking about walking). She wasn't very happy getting out of the wagon, but we had to get her hooked back up to the suction and monitors. She cried for a while again after the walk, but didn't last too long. They gave her Toradol and Tylenol,which worked pretty good.
They took out the foley catheter and took her for a walk one last time late in the evening and she was not happy about it at all. She was the most unhappy I had seen her for a while, but eventually John just held her and she finally calmed down.
Day 4- Friday, May 24th
We all went to sleep and slept well until around 4 AM. The nurse was in the room and they were giving her antibiotics and changing her diaper. There was a code blue on another unit and the alarms were really loud for a while, so I was wide awake. I also couldn't help but think about what the parents of the child they were resuscitating were thinking. I now know all too well how horrible it is to see your child so sick. I went over to check on Brynlee and she was awake too and wanted me to lay in bed with her. So I did, and it was really fun talking to her and seeing her like herself again. She asked if we could go on another airplane ride and was saying, "Look mommy" to everything on the Baby Einstein movie. Then she wanted Daddy to lay with her and after a while John was wondering why his shirt was wet. Her diaper had leaked which required a shower for Dad and a bed change for Brynlee. But the best news is that they could take out the NG tube later in the day because her bowels were working! She saw the spot on the sheet and said, "Look mommy, my poopy".
Around noon the NG tube came out. As expected, the worst part was taking the tape off of her face. A little while later the IV in her hand infiltrated and they had to take it out and start a new one in her other hand. They had an IV team with 3 people come- 2 to put the IV in and 1 person to distract her with bubbles and books. She did cry, but not for long.
The rest of the day we spent trying to entertain Brynlee as she was no longer interested in sleeping (even though we were super tired) and wanted to play the ipad and watch her shows. We also changed a lot of diapers because her bowels were working too good and she was having liquid stools.
We went to the playroom and she did not want to leave. She was painting (her new obsession) for a while, then decided she wanted to play with all the other stuff like cars, balls, tea set, pretend kitchen, and push around a stroller and grocery cart. At one point she was almost running and we had a hard time keeping up with her because we had to push the IV pole and there wasn't much space for a wide load. We forced her to leave after a while with the promise of "dinner", she hadn't eaten since Monday (which would be apple juice and broth) and because she had another full diaper.
She has been almost completely back to her normal self today. I'm amazed that she moves around so well, not like she has a large cut on her belly. As I'm typing this it is almost 10:30 PM and she is not interested at all in going to sleep. She keeps sitting up in bed and saying "Look!" to whatever she is trying to show me, then she throws herself back down in the bed.
Day 5- Saturday, May 25th
The doctors came in early and said she could have a regular breakfast (instead of just liquids). They were a little concerned about the amount of loose stools she was having, but said they had slowed down compared to yesterday. If she could eat a regular diet and not increase the amount of stools, we could go home. Her white blood cell count was back to normal so that was good. The lab and nurse had come in around 5:30 that morning and Brynlee didn't go back to sleep after that. Again, we played in her bed and watched some shows. I ordered her some oatmeal (her favorite) for breakfast and she ate almost all of it. We got dressed and went to the playroom. Again, I had a hard time keeping up with Brynlee. It was nice that we didn't have the IV pole with us at all. She found a ball and we kicked and bounced it back and forth for a while. Again, I was amazed that she bent over to pick up the ball over and over again like nothing happened. She had a messy diaper so I told her we had to leave for a minute. I knew she was her old self again she she had a tantrum and threw herself on the ground in protest. She found a car to drive on our way back to the playroom and so that entertained her for a while, driving it up and down the halls. One of the nurse practitioners on the team saw her in the hall and said she didn't look sick enough to be there anymore. I totally agreed, but we were waiting for the doctors to decide that.
4AM, 5AM, & 6AM- Brynlee woke up every hour whining/crying. She went back to sleep when we picked her up and rocked her, but it's not typical for her to get up during the night unless she is sick.
John went downstairs with her at 6AM and she just sat/slept in the chair with him. I went downstairs around 8:15 and she had just finished breakfast. She was whining (nothing new), so I picked her up and she puked all over both of us. I took her upstairs to give her a bath, then grabbed a few towels to put around her on my bed because I was going to take a shower. I don't think she has ever thrown up more than once at a time, so I didn't really think she would be sick again.
John left for an eye doctor appointment and in the hour he was gone, she had puked about 5 more times. I was thinking for a while when it would be safe to put the towels in the wash because I wasn't sure when the barfing would stop. As I came to find out that day, there was never a "safe" time to start a load because as soon as I would push start on the machine, she would barf on a few more towels. I had already gone through our old towels, then had to use beach towels and pretty much everything in the linen closet. In the 26 hours we were home with a sick child, we must have done 15 loads of barf laundry. I truly could not keep up and we were running out of clothes to wear, plus the ever-present shortage of clean towels.
As the day progressed, the puking slowed down from every 3-5 minutes to a couple of times an hour or only when she drank anything. Obviously I was trying to keep her from becoming dehydrated, so I would give her sips of caffeine free pepsi, ice chips, and water. The problem was if I put it in a sippy cup, she would hold on to it for dear life and clamp down on the mouth piece so I couldn't take it from her after just a sip. She she ended up drinking a whole cup of liquids and it would come right back up within minutes.
By 7:30 that evening, I knew it was about her bedtime but I certainly didn't dare put her in her bed with the chance she would aspirate the vomit into her lungs if no one was there (plus who wants to clean barf off the carpet and change sheets all night?) I had called our regular doctor around 1 PM to ask if they could call in a prescription for an antinausea medicine. The answer was no, they would not call in a prescription without seeing her and no there are no appointments for the day. So the only option was instacare which I was not interested in because it costs us around $150 and I really didn't think she was that bad at the time. I truly thought she had the stomach flu, especially because her cousin whom she had played with the day before, was sick with a fever.
The doctor at the instacare basically told me that I was the worst nurse, mom, and person in the whole world because I didn't take her to the ER hours before. He said, "As a nurse you should know..." Blah, blah, blah. I started bawling as soon as he left because I felt horrible. Probably the worst I have ever felt in my life. We were sent straight to the ER where they gave her IV fluids, drew some blood, did a chest x-ray and put a catheter in her bladder for a urine test. Her White blood cell count was elevated, which could indicate an infection. The ER doc thought it might have been from the frequent vomiting though. She perked up a little after the IV fluids so we went home around midnight. They left the IV in her hand and told us to come back around noon if she wasn't better.
All day Tuesday Brynlee basically slept off and on the whole day. She had almost no energy, which I thought was normal for being sick and she had basically been awake since 4 AM. When we got to the ER she didn't care at all about anything that was done to her. She didn't even blink or flinch when they put the IV in her hand or the catheter in her bladder. That's when you know your kids is really sick. Normally she fights even having her temperature checked or the probe on her finger.
The first (of 3) ER visit
Day 2- Wednesday, May 22
We got home around midnight after being discharged from the ER. She went right to bed, but she wasn't comfortable and woke up frequently. Every sound I would panic thinking she was vomiting and she would aspirate, so I didn't sleep well at all. Around 5 AM I got up with her and went downstairs after she puked in her crib (and it's too early to start another load of laundry). She wasn't puking, but I also didn't let her have anything to drink until 10:30 when I gave her zofran.
As I picked her up to leave to go back to the ER, she barfed all over everything again (the last of my clean clothes). In the ER, they first checked her WBC count again and it had increased to 23. So they ordered an abdominal CT scan which showed "something" in the right lower quadrant. They thought it was her appendix at first and I was happy because that is a relatively minor surgery and easy recovery (plus it can be done in St. George). But then they came back and said it was an intusseception, which happens only to babies/kids and where a part of the intestine "telescopes" or moves into another portion of the intestine, which then creates a blockage. So it's no wonder everything came back up- there was nowhere for it to go.
The good news is that they have a procedure called an air enema where they inflate air into the colon really fast and can often pull the 2 pieces apart so it goes back to normal. They do that in radiology so it wouldn't require surgery. The bad news is that if that procedure didn't work, they would send us to primary children's hospital because the doctors in St. George don't do the procedure enough to be comfortable with it. The ER doc said he has been a doctor for 25 years and had only seen 3-4 cases of this.
So it's probably around 3 PM and they take us to the radiology area for the air enema. I'm not really sure why they call it "air", because it was liquid contrast they put in and a lot of it. She screamed and tried to fight and get away when they pushed that fluid in. It was soooo sad and horrible to watch your baby go through that, especially when she had already been sick for so long. They tried 3 different times and were unable to get it to move at all. I was bawling watching her be in so much pain and there was nothing I could do about it.
The 2nd ER visit
So we went back to the ER room where they told us they would have to lifelight Brynlee to Primary children's in salt lake as soon as possible. It took a few hours to get everything figured out because the St. George flight team was already out on another call and wouldn't be back until 6PM or so. John went home to finish laundry so we would have clothes to wear and pack a few other things to drive up to Salt Lake. We had to take an ambulance from dixie regional to the st. george airport, then flew to salt lake in the airplane, and took another ambulance from the salt lake airport to primary children's. It was around 9PM when we got to the hospital. The flight was less than an hour and I was told it was going to be really bumpy because of the wind and to be prepared for everyone to be sick. But thankfully it was only really bumpy for a minute or so then it was over.
Terrible picture, but I didn't want to hold up the ambulance because I wanted a picture. So I was trying to take a picture as I'm walking. This was at the St. George airport as we transferred from the ambulance to the lifelight airplane.
The inside of the airplane
They did the usual assessment, check her vitals, and ask me a million questions again in the ER. Everyone was so nice and helpful and it was great that we didn't have to wait to see a nurse, then see a doctor, then wait some more... The whole team of doctors and nurses were waiting for us as we walked in my from the ambulance and made it a lot faster. It did take a while to get the radiology department ready again, but they wanted to try the air enema 1 more time. Primary children's does the procedure way more often than Dixie Regional and they know how to be a little more aggressive without causing any problems, so it seemed like a reasonable shot to try it again before having to do surgery. It was about 11 PM when we went into the radiology area. They had a few doctors and techs in there and again, when they put the air in she was screaming bloody murder. However, in St. George they put tons of contrast in her colon and when they were inflating the air, it caused the contrast (and bloody stool) to come out. It was funny because we have been kind of working on potty training and I've been trying to get her to "push" when she sits on the toilet. Well, she was pushing like a champ on that table and it was very messy. And smelly- bloody stool smells way worse than regular stool. The problem was that all the poop was pulling the tape off which was holding the tube in to provide the right amount of pressure in order for the procedure to work. So they took all the tape off (10 or so pieces) her bum and re-taped her bum and tried again. You could see on the x-ray that the the first time it had moved the intestine out quite a bit, just not enough. So they thought if they tried 1 more time it might fix it. The same thing happened again, she started to poop out the contrast while she was screaming in pain. They had a big guy squeezing her bum cheeks together and several other people holding her down. Unfortunately, the procedure didn't work and so the surgeon said there were 2 options- do the surgery now or since they were able to reduce it a little, we could wait and see if after she pooped out more of the contrast they could do the air enema again and it might work without surgery. But the surgeon said that because she had been sick for so long and the fact that she had blood in her stools meant that the likelihood of that working was slim plus she may have worse problems than they realize. We decided surgery was best, so we went back to the ER room for a little bit to wait for surgery to come and get her. A few minutes before we left to the OR, John finally arrived and got to see her.
Day 3- Thursday, May 23
They started the surgery around midnight. John wanted to give her a blessing, but had left his oil in the car. The anesthesiologist found some and helped with the blessing. It was so nice to do that before she went to surgery and also that the doctor could be involved. We went to the cafeteria to grab a snack, then found the waiting room. It was around 2 AM, the surgeon found us and said she did well, but they had to take out about 8 inches of small intestine because it was necrotic (dead) and took out the appendix as well. There are a few reasons why an intusseception can occur and one of those reasons is because of what's called Meckel's diverticulum. Meckel's diverticulum is an outpouching of a part of the intestine. It is a birth defect that occurs when the intestines didn't form properly. About 2% of the population have Meckel's diverticulum, but only about 2% of those people develop problems like diverticulitis, intusseception, or bleeding/infection. It's great our child is so unique!
They let us go to the recovery room with Brynlee until they took us to her room on the surgical floor. She had an NG tube coming out of her nose, a foley catheter draining her bladder and heart and oxygen monitors. She looked uncomfortable just looking at her facial expressions.
We got to her room around 3 AM and we all finally went to sleep around 3:30/4 AM. What a long couple of days!!! Brynlee moaned occasionally, but slept pretty good. The team of doctors came in at 6:30 to check on her. We all went back to sleep for a couple more hours.
In the recovery room right after surgery
Out in the hall for a walk
Her eyes are so swollen from all the IV fluids. Thankfully that only lasted a day
They took out the foley catheter and took her for a walk one last time late in the evening and she was not happy about it at all. She was the most unhappy I had seen her for a while, but eventually John just held her and she finally calmed down.
Day 4- Friday, May 24th
We all went to sleep and slept well until around 4 AM. The nurse was in the room and they were giving her antibiotics and changing her diaper. There was a code blue on another unit and the alarms were really loud for a while, so I was wide awake. I also couldn't help but think about what the parents of the child they were resuscitating were thinking. I now know all too well how horrible it is to see your child so sick. I went over to check on Brynlee and she was awake too and wanted me to lay in bed with her. So I did, and it was really fun talking to her and seeing her like herself again. She asked if we could go on another airplane ride and was saying, "Look mommy" to everything on the Baby Einstein movie. Then she wanted Daddy to lay with her and after a while John was wondering why his shirt was wet. Her diaper had leaked which required a shower for Dad and a bed change for Brynlee. But the best news is that they could take out the NG tube later in the day because her bowels were working! She saw the spot on the sheet and said, "Look mommy, my poopy".
Around noon the NG tube came out. As expected, the worst part was taking the tape off of her face. A little while later the IV in her hand infiltrated and they had to take it out and start a new one in her other hand. They had an IV team with 3 people come- 2 to put the IV in and 1 person to distract her with bubbles and books. She did cry, but not for long.
The rest of the day we spent trying to entertain Brynlee as she was no longer interested in sleeping (even though we were super tired) and wanted to play the ipad and watch her shows. We also changed a lot of diapers because her bowels were working too good and she was having liquid stools.
We went to the playroom and she did not want to leave. She was painting (her new obsession) for a while, then decided she wanted to play with all the other stuff like cars, balls, tea set, pretend kitchen, and push around a stroller and grocery cart. At one point she was almost running and we had a hard time keeping up with her because we had to push the IV pole and there wasn't much space for a wide load. We forced her to leave after a while with the promise of "dinner", she hadn't eaten since Monday (which would be apple juice and broth) and because she had another full diaper.
She has been almost completely back to her normal self today. I'm amazed that she moves around so well, not like she has a large cut on her belly. As I'm typing this it is almost 10:30 PM and she is not interested at all in going to sleep. She keeps sitting up in bed and saying "Look!" to whatever she is trying to show me, then she throws herself back down in the bed.
Eating a grape popsicle and drinking apple juice
One of her favorite things at the hospital- going for a wagon ride
Day 5- Saturday, May 25th
The doctors came in early and said she could have a regular breakfast (instead of just liquids). They were a little concerned about the amount of loose stools she was having, but said they had slowed down compared to yesterday. If she could eat a regular diet and not increase the amount of stools, we could go home. Her white blood cell count was back to normal so that was good. The lab and nurse had come in around 5:30 that morning and Brynlee didn't go back to sleep after that. Again, we played in her bed and watched some shows. I ordered her some oatmeal (her favorite) for breakfast and she ate almost all of it. We got dressed and went to the playroom. Again, I had a hard time keeping up with Brynlee. It was nice that we didn't have the IV pole with us at all. She found a ball and we kicked and bounced it back and forth for a while. Again, I was amazed that she bent over to pick up the ball over and over again like nothing happened. She had a messy diaper so I told her we had to leave for a minute. I knew she was her old self again she she had a tantrum and threw herself on the ground in protest. She found a car to drive on our way back to the playroom and so that entertained her for a while, driving it up and down the halls. One of the nurse practitioners on the team saw her in the hall and said she didn't look sick enough to be there anymore. I totally agreed, but we were waiting for the doctors to decide that.
Driving her car
Painting in the play room
Finally around 1PM the nurse practitioner showed up to write discharge orders. We were out the door and on our way home at 2:30. Brynlee had been up since around 5 that morning, so she slept in the car for an hour or so. She had refused to have the sticky heart monitors taken off her chest (she had 5), so they went home with us and ended up being on for over a week. She did great on the ride home, but was in pain when we got home. I think it was mostly because she had been forced to sit in her carseat on the ride home, which makes you stiff. She also wasn't getting the tylenol and ibuprofen around the clock anymore. John's family had a surprise waiting for us at home. They had decorated the front door with a cute sign and balloons and another sign on Brynlee's door with her entire floor covered in pink and purple balloons. She thought it was pretty awesome. John's mom had also washed and folded clothes and towels and restocked our fridge. We were so grateful!
Playing with bubbles in her room waiting to go home
Our house decorated with balloons!
Sign on the front door
Our living room was decorated too!
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