You just keep me hangin' on...

Friday Nov 13, 2009

You just keep me hangin' on

You don't really need me
But you keep me hangin' on
-The Supremes

Faithful blog readers, I must apologize. My last blog post has left ya hangin' for over a week now, and that's no way to treat you! Life has been a crazy whirlwind this week of medical issues and kitchen renovation craziness, and I simply haven't made time to blog. I'll give you the medical update today and will post lots of kitchen pics this weekend.

So, in our last episode, Jay and Derek were happily singing away as I left the hospital. Jay was joyfully slamming the faux cast/IV line against the bars of his crib and appeared in no way to be as sick as he had been mere hours before.
Lesson #1 - Kids can turn on a dime - one minute seriously sick, the next healthy as a horse.

He needed no oxygen and had no other problems during the night, so the next morning our wonderful pediatrician sent us home. The next day, Thursday, he had been scheduled for pre-op to have his tonsils out. (TONsils, Ginger. Not NOStrils. I'm still laughing over that one!) I was assuming that having been so sick, surgery would be a no-go. But our Ped & ENT both agreed that the hospitalization incident is exactly why he needs the tonsils & adenoids out in the first place. He has breathing issues so frequently that we really should go ahead sooner rather than later, assuming he continued the upward trend over the weekend. Okay, we make arrangements to keep him home the rest of the week/weekend to keep him germ free & get ready for surgery on Tuesday.
Lesson #2 - My mom and my AJ are the world's best babysitters, and I owe them BIG time.

Tuesday, we head to the hospital for the big day. I thought that going without breakfast would make him (and therefore me!) incredibly miserable, but he handled it remarkably well. Got checked in, got the hospital bracelets, dressed in the gown - the whole 9 yards. About 3 minutes before he was scheduled to go to the OR, the anesthesiologist (we'll call him Doogie Howser) comes by and decides to call it off. WHAT? You're kidding me, right?!

Yes, without even looking at our child, without listening to his lungs, without listening to our explanation that he's as healthy at this moment as he ever gets, he calls it off just because he'd been sick the week before. He wanted to wait another 6 weeks. Yes, he expects the child to be fever-free for SIX more weeks! Ha ha ha ha ha. You've never set foot in a daycare, have ya Doogie Howser?

Some of my favorite comments from Dr. Howser:
"Pediatric anesthesia is my training and I've been doing this for a long time." (Um, that's why we're at a pediatric specialty hospital, buddy, because you've been trained in this. And I'm not sure how you define a long time, but I've been preggers longer than you've been in practice.)
"I don't think primary care peds really understand what we deal with as anesthesiologists." (You'd best not knock Dr. Nechyba, cause he understands taking care of kids - especially my little heart patient. He saved my baby's life when the so-called specialists didn't believe that he really had serious heart issues. Don't you even go knocking your medical colleagues to me.)
"If he were MY child, I wouldn't do an elective surgery today." (Save me the guilt trip, Doogie. There's nothing elective about this - we're trying to keep him breathing at night, which is kind of a critical issue.)
Lesson #3 - There are some fantastic, amazing people in the medical profession. And then there are some arrogant jerks who go into fields like anesthesia because there's big $$ there. We've now met docs at both ends of the spectrum.

So now we wait for surgery, part 2. Our ENT has assured us that we can reschedule when Doogie won't be on duty. We're looking at early December, assuming he can stay healthy that long.
Lesson #4 - In the wonderful, awesome world of parenting, you can never, ever, EVER expect anything to go the way you planned. And that's what makes the adventure so much fun.

Posted at 10:32AM Nov 13, 2009 by Jen Foster in General | Comments[3]