Hospital Hopping
I feel like so much has happened in the last few days. Busy, crazy.
First on Wednesday we joined my mom for a last minute trip to The Great Wolf Lodge. Lets just say that place lives up to all it's hype. Very fun, can't wait to do it again. Thanks Mom!!
Unfortunately our visit was cut short by Ava getting sick. She had a little cold when we left the house and she did fairly well all day, enjoying herself in the water park. However each time we went into the hotel room she totally couldn't breathe! She has never displayed any signs of having asthma & I have watched her very closely because I have had pretty serious asthma all my life and she already inherited my terrible eczema, often the two go hand in hand. Anyhow she was wheezing and gasping for breath, it was scary.
We ended up having some paramedic staff that works for the hotel come check her out. She was such a good sport. I told her the doctor was going to come fix her and when the two paramedics came in she proceeded to show them all her owies on her hands and feet. Apparently she was not totally clued in to her most prevalent issue of the moment : ) She also held the oxygen mask and breathed in to it really well, most of the time smiling. She almost started to cry when the lady said something to the effect of "she is doing really well, most kids get scared and cry". Dumb bitch. I quickly changed the subject back to how fun this was and how well she was doing. They wanted us to take her to the ER but in the end we decided that something in the hotel room was setting her off so we packed up and left.
It was sad to leave that place but we knew it was the right thing to do. As we walked out of the hotel Ava yelled to the receptionist (not the "Dr" from earlier) "Thanks for fixing my owies!!" That child is too funny and so stinkin cute! Our hope was that we would put her in her car seat and she would be all calm and go right to sleep. That child jabbered on and on about anything she could come up with until I finally threw a blanket over her and she all of a sudden stopped, caught her breath and says "I'm tired." Within 15 seconds she was out. She slept the whole two hour drive home and didn't get up until about 10 this morning. I think it really helped to have her in her own bed, surrounded by familiarity. She is doing much better today.
Sadly while we were away on our trip Grandpa ended up needing to be admitted to the hospital. His toe got a serious skin & bone infection. Tomorrow he will have to have it amputated. Grandpa HATES the hospital. On the wall he has a board that posts his goals. #1 Get out of this place! #2 Resolve toe infection, yes in that order.
To make matters worse the staff woke him up at 6am to pee. This guy could sleep until 11am no problem. He does not operate well at 6am. Anyhow, they take him in to go pee and he can't grab on to the hand rails in his bathroom because for some reason he was put in a room typically used for suicide watch patients which have no real usable handrail and he FALLS! More set-backs. Now they seem to be putting the toe issue on hold while they sort through falling issues. The whole thing is a big mess. We did get him moved into another room with real hand rails so at least the risk of falling again will go down slightly.
One of the lovely team of doctors sat us down to update us and totally traumatized me with his worse case scenarios approach. He very flippantly mentioned that they may end up amputating all the way up to his knee. Like that would be no big deal or something. WTF? Please stop talking now. The toe is bad enough, thank you very much.
Grandpa does seem to be keeping in pretty good spirits about everything and assured us he will be back to dancing in no time. I really hope that is true.
In better hospital news Billy had her baby! I am so happy for her. She was soo done being pregnant. First of all, the girl did it with NO DRUGS. She should get an award for that. Somehow there is NOTHING about this achievement that sparks my competitive spirit. I don't really get the no drugs thing but yay for her, good job mama! She had a 6lb 5oz little boy named Zechariah. He is beautiful. Being that this is baby number four Billy & her husband are totally done, there are even rumors of a vasectomy AND an IUD. Double sure, double d o n e.
I spent my day back and forth, starting at Grandpa's hospital, then over to see Billy, then back to Grandpa's. You would think these people could coordinate and do there business in the same place! : ) Really the two hospitals are pretty close together so it wasn't too bad. Billy's hospital is right next to one of my favorite Thai food places so I brought some delicious take out up to the family. We sat and decompressed over a game or three of Ticket to Ride while we ran back and forth checking on Grandpa. We found a little area right outside his door which has a much less claustrophobic hospital-feel to it then his tiny room. Earlier we tried to spread out in a different room and this lady who was on her cell phone across the room leans over and says "could you take your stuff off that table?" we asked her if she needed to use it and she responds with "no, not right now, but I think other people might need it." We got so mad at her! How rude is that? We scooted the table right up in front of her and walked out while she yells after us "You don't need to move it over to me, I don't need it!" Somehow I think it made our point better to move it though. Ha!
First on Wednesday we joined my mom for a last minute trip to The Great Wolf Lodge. Lets just say that place lives up to all it's hype. Very fun, can't wait to do it again. Thanks Mom!!
Unfortunately our visit was cut short by Ava getting sick. She had a little cold when we left the house and she did fairly well all day, enjoying herself in the water park. However each time we went into the hotel room she totally couldn't breathe! She has never displayed any signs of having asthma & I have watched her very closely because I have had pretty serious asthma all my life and she already inherited my terrible eczema, often the two go hand in hand. Anyhow she was wheezing and gasping for breath, it was scary.
We ended up having some paramedic staff that works for the hotel come check her out. She was such a good sport. I told her the doctor was going to come fix her and when the two paramedics came in she proceeded to show them all her owies on her hands and feet. Apparently she was not totally clued in to her most prevalent issue of the moment : ) She also held the oxygen mask and breathed in to it really well, most of the time smiling. She almost started to cry when the lady said something to the effect of "she is doing really well, most kids get scared and cry". Dumb bitch. I quickly changed the subject back to how fun this was and how well she was doing. They wanted us to take her to the ER but in the end we decided that something in the hotel room was setting her off so we packed up and left.
It was sad to leave that place but we knew it was the right thing to do. As we walked out of the hotel Ava yelled to the receptionist (not the "Dr" from earlier) "Thanks for fixing my owies!!" That child is too funny and so stinkin cute! Our hope was that we would put her in her car seat and she would be all calm and go right to sleep. That child jabbered on and on about anything she could come up with until I finally threw a blanket over her and she all of a sudden stopped, caught her breath and says "I'm tired." Within 15 seconds she was out. She slept the whole two hour drive home and didn't get up until about 10 this morning. I think it really helped to have her in her own bed, surrounded by familiarity. She is doing much better today.
Sadly while we were away on our trip Grandpa ended up needing to be admitted to the hospital. His toe got a serious skin & bone infection. Tomorrow he will have to have it amputated. Grandpa HATES the hospital. On the wall he has a board that posts his goals. #1 Get out of this place! #2 Resolve toe infection, yes in that order.
To make matters worse the staff woke him up at 6am to pee. This guy could sleep until 11am no problem. He does not operate well at 6am. Anyhow, they take him in to go pee and he can't grab on to the hand rails in his bathroom because for some reason he was put in a room typically used for suicide watch patients which have no real usable handrail and he FALLS! More set-backs. Now they seem to be putting the toe issue on hold while they sort through falling issues. The whole thing is a big mess. We did get him moved into another room with real hand rails so at least the risk of falling again will go down slightly.
One of the lovely team of doctors sat us down to update us and totally traumatized me with his worse case scenarios approach. He very flippantly mentioned that they may end up amputating all the way up to his knee. Like that would be no big deal or something. WTF? Please stop talking now. The toe is bad enough, thank you very much.
Grandpa does seem to be keeping in pretty good spirits about everything and assured us he will be back to dancing in no time. I really hope that is true.
In better hospital news Billy had her baby! I am so happy for her. She was soo done being pregnant. First of all, the girl did it with NO DRUGS. She should get an award for that. Somehow there is NOTHING about this achievement that sparks my competitive spirit. I don't really get the no drugs thing but yay for her, good job mama! She had a 6lb 5oz little boy named Zechariah. He is beautiful. Being that this is baby number four Billy & her husband are totally done, there are even rumors of a vasectomy AND an IUD. Double sure, double d o n e.
I spent my day back and forth, starting at Grandpa's hospital, then over to see Billy, then back to Grandpa's. You would think these people could coordinate and do there business in the same place! : ) Really the two hospitals are pretty close together so it wasn't too bad. Billy's hospital is right next to one of my favorite Thai food places so I brought some delicious take out up to the family. We sat and decompressed over a game or three of Ticket to Ride while we ran back and forth checking on Grandpa. We found a little area right outside his door which has a much less claustrophobic hospital-feel to it then his tiny room. Earlier we tried to spread out in a different room and this lady who was on her cell phone across the room leans over and says "could you take your stuff off that table?" we asked her if she needed to use it and she responds with "no, not right now, but I think other people might need it." We got so mad at her! How rude is that? We scooted the table right up in front of her and walked out while she yells after us "You don't need to move it over to me, I don't need it!" Somehow I think it made our point better to move it though. Ha!
Comments
I don't know if that makes you feel any better, but welcome to the world of medicine :)
We have had several strange hospital experiences. It can be pretty frustrating. That same doctor wouldn't even look at my aunt when he sat talking to the two of us. He would only look at me, it was really uncomfortable. I kept giving him every social cue under the sun that he should be directing what he was saying to my aunt and he continued to only look at me.
I pray it is just his toe.
@Nain thank you, we can always use a few prayers around here.
Bummer that you guys had to come back from the lodge soon, I've always wondered if it was a good as it sounded, but I'm glad Ava was better once you left.