Day 13: Saved by the Nice Doctors!

Normally when you hear someone say that the doctors saved them it's followed by some great medical advancement or great surgical skill or such, no such story here today, but John was saved by two nice docs non the less. Today while we were wandering about he came out of the elevator at a funky angle and as the door tried to close it caught the back wheel of his gait trainer in the door. It was stuck in there hard enough that I couldn't budge him. The first doc that came couldn't either, but when the second doc came and they both jerked on it they were able to free the piglet from the elevator!

Our mishap with the elevator was entertaining to all around, including me and even John, it was the perfect ending to a Family Circus kinda errand running morning. When I was a kid we loved to read Family Circus and the little kid that had to detour through the whole house, yard and neighborhood to get from one place to the next was always funny, well today that was us.

We started out late this morning, because hey, we finally slept. I did tuck John in last night, on one side, which prevented him from wagging his legs in the air but he was still awake and ready to be changed when I set up his 4am Zosyn run, so no sore bottom, but sleep, yah sleep! The other sleep challenge around here has been how to set the thermostat so that we are comfortable sleeping and yet warm enough, sleeping alone is cold but finally last night I put the sheet on top of the blanket and was able to sleep without waking up every little bit looking for more blankets. Sleep makes everything better!

Just as I was getting done with John's improvised sink/salon bath. With his central line I can't put him in the shower, so I lay him on the bathroom sink, wash his hair like he's at the salon, and then sit him up and give him what my dad would have called a 'spit' bath, you know a wash cloth and soap, a good rinse, but no actual immersion, hmmmmmm, maybe it could be a Lutheran bath :) Anyway, just as I was wrapping him up in a towel to bring him out and get him dressed the cleaning ladies came. New ones today that we've not met before so John was totally distracted and spending all his time trying to catch their eye so that he could smile and wave and blow kisses to them. The boy loves cleaning ladies, and well so does his mommy. Often times in the hospital it's the cleaning ladies that have time to talk and visit and you end up knowing more about them and their kids than about the other staff.

We were headed to lunch, as breakfast had long passed us as we comfortably snoozed, when we got the call that John's new enteral pump was here, so we made a detour for the pump. Instead of going to lunch, I figured we might as well go ahead to the blood draw and then come back to lunch, part of the way there, John decided that he really needed cereal, his chose food of late, and ice now and couldn't wait any longer, so we turned around and went to lunch. We've not been in the cafeteria right at noon before, holy cow, there are a lot of people here. We found our normal seat and the high-chair that I'm sure John is going to be just heart broken if he ever sees another kid in it, and sat down for lunch. About half way through our routine of bites of cereal and ice, I told him that we needed to go back to whole sentences because we were getting lazy and just using one word for what we wanted again. Now I figured that I'd have to coach him through the first couple times, but he just looked me straight in the face and signed 'want more ice please mom' and then gave me that many words all the way through the rest of lunch. After that we meandered over to the diagnostic clinic for the blood draw and once there, had to wait for the better part of an hour before John's name was called.

John decided that he wasn't really interested in the tv after the teddy bear commercial was over, and the magazines weren't that interesting either so he walked around in circles and waved and smiled at all the people who were waiting to have their various tests run. One couple finally asked about the tubes and such, and how old, and those kinda questions and as we talked the lady reached out and touched John's hand and told him that he was a great blessing to all these people here, because today he made all of them smile, he smiled and said thank you and kept walking and entertaining everyone. Finally he decided that he would try a magazine again and after we looked at the animals in a couple National Geographic's his name was called and he was ready to go see what they had been hiding down that hallway that he'd not been allowed to walk down before. As always he was exceptionally well behaved for the blood draw and thanked the nice ladies for the band-aids. It took them two attempts but they were able to get his blood peripherally, which means less risk of infection for him.

A trip over to the pharmacy to pick up the new meds that we're hoping will straighten out the current bottom/tummy issues and let his g-tube feeds advance netted him two more ardent fans, both of the pharmacy ladies wanted to just keep him and take him home with them. I told them that they really need to watch the Ransom of Red Chief movie, thinking in my mind that once he was behind that counter with all the shelves of neatly organized bottles and stuff they would regret any such decision to keep him and be spending the better part of the night trying to put everything back that was within his reach.

John is now used to the hospital here enough that the fascination for just wandering is pretty much gone, now he has to feel the texture of the walls, see if he'll fit between the column and the wall, see if he can reach anything on the doors or the handicap door buttons, and certainly all water fountains must have their buttons repeatedly pushed before he can leave them be and go where he needs to go. He's also decided that instead of walking he'll hold my finger and let me drag him here or there, and every so often hold it with both hands and ask to go fast, i.e. have me walk as fast as I can so that he can zoom. Just day 13 of what could be 90-100's, makes me wonder what will interest him as the days go by.

The nicest end to our morning/afternoon was a box from home, I figure it is going to take a small U-haul trailer to get us home from here when all is said and done, and maybe a big one as the list of things that Mark is bringing when he comes up this Sunday has grown to the point that I'll be impressed if he can get it all in the Jeep in one trip. We've decided that it's time to bring the sewing stuff here, after all everyone needs new clothes, and Mark needs new clericals too, and I might even get to do some Christmas presents or work on my nephews school clothes, we'll see. It should be interesting. I've heard of several ladies here that have sewing machines in their rooms, and even one that is running her sewing business out of one of these rooms, no business for us now, but some personal sewing would be a boon to our dwindling wardrobes and the sanity of the mommy.

Well a little boy is awake and proceeding to change his own diaper, I think I'll post and go help before he accomplishes more damage than good ;)