Back in the saddle

It's been a while since I posted and I have a couple good reasons.  Things in the Lacey household have been a little bit crazy for the last two months.  September started strong with the typical back to school madness, all of which was completely overtaken at the end of September by the catastrophic illness of my bestie's daughter Molly.  Kristen has written eloquently and bravely on her CaringBridge site, so if you're interested in Molly's story go to https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/mollydunne/createorsignin. 

Meanwhile, in LaceyLand, we've had our own shares of stress and strain and in typical Erin Lacey style, I try to see as much absurditiy as possible.  Which leads us to tonight's story.  On Sunday, October 10, Jack awoke seemingly fine, but it became apparent very quickly that he was having some kind of issue.  I thought it was an ear infection and, with him being a third child and all, decided that he would still have an ear infection on Monday and left him home with Caroline, while the rest of us attended a party for our friend Andee. 

Monday morning, I awoke to the sound of Jeff getting Jack out of bed and saying something to the effect of "Holy crap!"  I leapt out of bed - and by that I mean dragged myself into a sitting position and then took a minute to curse all things morning.  Once I collected myself, I came down to the dining room to find Jeff holding a very odd looking Jack.  The entire right side of his little face was swollen and he looked generally miserable.  Jeff took Maggie and the baby to drop Mags off at preschool and Jackieboy and I went off to urgent care. 

Strangely enough, this happened on the first occasion in the five years of going to Dr. Field that she wasn't available when I needed her.  This is our doctor who, when Jack was a baby with croup, called us back on a Sunday and had us meet her in her office, but asked us if we could wait to meet her until after her cake came out of the oven.  However, Dr. Field's father in law had passed away over the weekend and she was at his funeral on Monday.  We got to the Lantana Square Urgent Care only to find out that it was closed until noon.  I called Dr. Field's office in hopes that her trusty office staff could tell me where I should go next, and when I described Jack's symptoms, she stopped me at facial swelling and told me to go to the ER. 

Having just spent a good bit of time at AI Dupont, I was leary of going there again.  It seemed like a bit of a bad dream to be pulling in with my own child.  They whisked us right back to a room and within twenty minutes of being there, Jack had IV and a CT scan and a diagnosis of Parapharyngeal Abcess.  Basically this means that he's had an infection in the WAAAAAAY back of his throat.  Treatment?  Two days of IV antibiodics.  WHAT?!?!?!?  My mind started to race... I'd need a change of clothes, someone to watch the other kids, can Jeff take off work?  I hadn't even had breakfast, now was I allowed to leave him to eat? 

We were admitted and taken to the care of the Gold Team on 4F.  Jeff got us settled in and then left for the night.  Jack was pretty dehydrated so in addition to the antibiodics, he was also receiving fluids.  At some point after Jeff left, Jack went to sleep.  A couple hours later, the alarm indicating the fluids had run out started to blare.  Not wanting it to wake Jack, I ran out to the nurses station and called in Nurse Nancy (that was really her name and it pleased me endlessly).  Nurse Nancy came in and while she was changing the bag, I noticed the gauze covering the IV site was bloody.  One second later, it became apparent why... Jack had rolled over in his sleep and pulled the IV needle right out of his hand.  The IV fluid had just pumped out all over his crib and his gown.  Nurse Nancy told me that she'd get the "IV nurse" up there to fix him up.

IV Nurse, who's name I've forgotten, has absolutely no luck with sticking Jack.  Probably the worst part of the whole experience was wiping the streaming tears from Jackie's face while they stuck him three times, trying to get a vein.  Finally IV nurse said that she couldn't do it, so they were going to have to call transport.  Transport?  I asked.  Turns out that when they have a particularly difficult IV to put in, Transport is the go-to.  I guess they have to put IVs in kids while bouncing in ambulances or airplanes, so it sort of makes sense.  In walks the Transport Nurse, the best of the best, the savior of my poor Jack, and she looks at me over Jack's sad little form and I immediately notice that her right eye is looking at me, but her left eye is looking at Nurse Nancy.  A little shocked by this, I immediately tell myself not to worry about it.  What's a little bit of a strabismus?  Obviously the Nurse Nancy thinks that she's the best choice.  Then Transport Nurse reaches out to take Jack's arm to inspect his veins and then I notice that she only has two fingers and half of a thumb n her right hand.  Strangely enough, the thing that interested me the most about this latest development was how was she going to get a glove on?  Quick as a flash, Transport Nurse, walleyed as she was, had a new IV in and Jack's arm taped within an inch of it's life.  So that will teach me to judge a book by it's cover!

The rest of our stay was uneventful.  On Wednesday morning, we were released back into the wild and Jack was given a clean bill of health a couple days later by the returned Dr. Field.  There is nothing like having your friend's kid be critically ill to put things in perspective, and in the grand scheme of things, this was a blip.  Before we left, the nurses in 4F were asking us if Jack was acting more like himself, and at the time it was a BIG no.  I told them that when he started throwing stuff at them, it was time for us to go.  Last thing Jack did before we left was throw his full sippy cup and hit me right on the top of my foot... it was time for us to go!!