I’ve exhausted the stories, the memories of the hospital, the emotions- I’m sure. But there’s one memory that I sometimes have pop into my head and I laugh out loud.
Three weeks in and several surgeries later it was my son’s field trip day to the zoo and I was a chaperone. With just having a baby I could have sent Russ, but I hadn’t seen much of my children and missed so many things. I wanted to go.
Marley had spiked a temperature to 99 but that wasn’t uncommon since she had surgery the prior day. I didn’t know, but the next read an hour later was back to normal. Russ relieved mom at the hospital and I sweat it out at the very hot zoo trip. It was a good time- hearding kids! About 2 o’clock Russ calls to ask about the fever. They were very concerned even though she didn’t have a temperature at that time. They wanted to do a spinal tap. The field trip had ended and I raced back to the hospital.
I wore a dress that day. Nothing fit quite right. I didn’t get to pump- no good time. I had a Starbucks at the zoo (I still want to say thank you for selling them now!!). A purse full of sunscreen, breast pads, Tylenol and money. I was all over the place. I park and make my way hurried past security to get to the elevators. By the time I got into the room I was drenched in sweat and hands full of things from the car. Marley was screaming at the top of her lungs. I came in right as she was getting a catheter to collect urine for testing. It was the third attempt. She was hysterical and they didn’t stop. My husband’s blood was boiling. The nurse took a minute to think. We came up with a solution that we could collect it from a clean diaper. It worked enough. But they still wanted the spinal tap.
It’s a hard thing to go against what’s being presented in front of you. We go in with an expectation that we deal with experts in a particular field and there’s a mutual level of trust. Whether it’s the mechanic telling you that you need new brakes, the server telling you to take a chance with the dining recommendation or the doctor telling you that your child needs a procedure to see what’s wrong. But, she didn’t have a fever and it seemed excessive to inflict this pain when she’d been through so much. We said no.
When given a roadblock it’s in the doctors nature to keep searching another way. Problem solve. Medical science isn’t exact. Process of elimination. And so, we did xrays. They wheel her down in her giant crib to radiology. I still had my purse draped across me and holding my Starbucks cup. I’m not sure what I was thinking. They place her on a hard table and strap her legs down. It was all happening so fast. I lay my stuff down in the corner. A nurse or technician gives Russ and I this sparkly royal blue lead apron to put on. His hits at his waist on his ever tall 6’7” frame. I don’t even remember someone putting mine on me. I watch him squat so she could add the thyroid cover around his neck. He looked like a robot. Why shimmery? It reminded me of a car paint job. Then I look over at my tiny baby strapped down by a belt over her legs and they put this tiny smaller than my fist disk over her female parts. She’s crying. We were to each hold down her arms, Russ on her right and me on her left. They all run out of the room. I can hear the buzzer of the machine taking the images and I look at him and then at her and back at him and I start laughing. I try to stop, hold it in. I think I shook a little. But the machine comes at me and clips my back while they are moving the table and I can see that his lead is too small and her lead is comical. She (tech/nurse?) says are you okay and the moment boils over I can’t hold it in. I laughingly release “uncontrollable laughter!”. And I don’t stop. For at least a minute or two. 60 plus seconds of awkward laughing. L-a-u-g-h-i-n-g. When I get a grip it’s over and I am picking up my big ole bag and coffee and we walk back quietly to the room. Where I cry over what just happened.
I can only imagine what the people in that room thought. I somehow feel they’ve probably never seen anyone laugh. Or maybe they have. Maybe they’ve laughed. But in that moment I bet they thought I’d lost my marbles. Loony bin for sure. And I probably did. But, praise God I found all (most!) of them, because she was fine that day but the next few surgeries were going to be tough. I laugh when I think about it. I’m sure they talked about it after. I would have! It is such a ridiculous moment in the entire stay and even though it was embarrassing- I still laugh even now. Because sometimes funny is still funny, and more so when you try to hold it in. That’s exactly where I was then.
Three weeks in and several surgeries later it was my son’s field trip day to the zoo and I was a chaperone. With just having a baby I could have sent Russ, but I hadn’t seen much of my children and missed so many things. I wanted to go.
Marley had spiked a temperature to 99 but that wasn’t uncommon since she had surgery the prior day. I didn’t know, but the next read an hour later was back to normal. Russ relieved mom at the hospital and I sweat it out at the very hot zoo trip. It was a good time- hearding kids! About 2 o’clock Russ calls to ask about the fever. They were very concerned even though she didn’t have a temperature at that time. They wanted to do a spinal tap. The field trip had ended and I raced back to the hospital.
I wore a dress that day. Nothing fit quite right. I didn’t get to pump- no good time. I had a Starbucks at the zoo (I still want to say thank you for selling them now!!). A purse full of sunscreen, breast pads, Tylenol and money. I was all over the place. I park and make my way hurried past security to get to the elevators. By the time I got into the room I was drenched in sweat and hands full of things from the car. Marley was screaming at the top of her lungs. I came in right as she was getting a catheter to collect urine for testing. It was the third attempt. She was hysterical and they didn’t stop. My husband’s blood was boiling. The nurse took a minute to think. We came up with a solution that we could collect it from a clean diaper. It worked enough. But they still wanted the spinal tap.
It’s a hard thing to go against what’s being presented in front of you. We go in with an expectation that we deal with experts in a particular field and there’s a mutual level of trust. Whether it’s the mechanic telling you that you need new brakes, the server telling you to take a chance with the dining recommendation or the doctor telling you that your child needs a procedure to see what’s wrong. But, she didn’t have a fever and it seemed excessive to inflict this pain when she’d been through so much. We said no.
I can only imagine what the people in that room thought. I somehow feel they’ve probably never seen anyone laugh. Or maybe they have. Maybe they’ve laughed. But in that moment I bet they thought I’d lost my marbles. Loony bin for sure. And I probably did. But, praise God I found all (most!) of them, because she was fine that day but the next few surgeries were going to be tough. I laugh when I think about it. I’m sure they talked about it after. I would have! It is such a ridiculous moment in the entire stay and even though it was embarrassing- I still laugh even now. Because sometimes funny is still funny, and more so when you try to hold it in. That’s exactly where I was then.
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