Recalling a hard time...

Last night, I was just thinking about how God has taken care of me and my family. You see, just after my son, Connor, had his first birthday, I noticed something on his finger. It was a bump. I really didn't know what to think of it at first. It didn't seem to be bothering him, so I waited until Ben came home and showed him.
We initially wondered, could it be a broken finger? So, just in case, we called our family doctor, who happened to attend our church. It was after hours, so we called him at home. We described the situation, and he didn't seem to know what it was either. So, he said, if it doesn't get any better -or if it gets worse, call my office in the morning for an appointment. Well! The next morning, his finger was HUGE! So, we called and got an appointment for early afternoon.
The hours couldn't go by fast enough. I was worried. No, I was SCARED out of my mind! What was wrong with my baby boy?
So we went in, and the doctor, who is normally rather laid back -had this look on his face that made both Ben and I cringe. He cut open the "wound" and when no puss came out -like he was expecting, he excused himself from the room to make some phone calls. Okay, that's what frightened me.
He came back and told me he had called two doctors. One, a pediatric hematologist in Iowa City -a childrens' hospital. And two, a bone doctor from the local hospital.
He wanted us to take Connor to the ER immediately, and the bone doctor was going to meet us there.
Needless to say, all of the doctors were baffled...they didn't know what was going on with him. They took Connors' blood for a test -and then proceeded to insert an IV for antibiotics into his arm.
They admitted him. Connor fell asleep in my arms, as we waited to be moved upstairs to Pediatrics. Ben and I were stressed to say the least. No one was giving us any answers as to WHY my dear son had this infection, or what type of infection it was.
They moved us upstairs, and I stayed the night with my boy. Ben went home to get some sleep...no sense both of us having a sleepless night -and I needed to be with my boy. I needed him, probably more than he needed me at that time.
The nurse came in about every 2 hours to do something! Check his temp, restart some antibiotics, give him Tylenol, etc. At one point, his temperature was up to 104.something! When the nurse told me that, she said, that's good -that means his body is fighting something. I felt like saying, lady, why in the world would you tell a young Mommy that her baby having a 104 temp is good! That's just not right!
Anyhoo...this nurse did EVERYTHING by the book, coming in to clean out the garbage -in the meantime turning on the light, making noise while Connor and I were trying to sleep. He would JUST fall asleep and within a half-hour, in came the nurse! For the first 2 days, we had different nurses on each shift. I was really hoping for the second night, that we would have a different nurse for the night shift....but, no such luck!
During the first night, Connor was not sleeping. No matter how much I tried to nurse him, he wouldn't fall asleep -and he was so uncomfortable. So, I asked the nurse to look at his arm -where the IV was. His entire arm was swollen! Poor guy, that's why he didn't want to sleep. Well, they need to reinsert the needle somewhere else....and it was between his foot -or in his head. I hoped for the foot, but the nurses said it would be "easier" to put it in his scalp! Well, they were WRONG! They had me lay over his body, and comfort him, as they wiggled that needle around the veins in his scalp. I cried as he sobbed. That was tough. They told me that usually the Moms don't stay around for that -because its so difficult...but, I couldn't leave my little guy alone through that. NO WAY!
Anyway, after the blood tests came back, it showed that Connors' white count was down. Our doctor told us that it should be going up -in order to fight the infection. We needed to find out why it was doing this.
Well, we spent 3 days and 2 nights in the hospital. That was TOO long. At the end of our stay, they told us that they believed Connor to have a staph infection. And, that's normally something that is on our skin -at any given time, but for some reason, Connors' body reacted to it. I began to think about the state of my home -and how I am not the best housekeeper...blaming myself for not having a cleaner house for my little pumpkin to crawl around in...but that wasn't it, we later found out. That experience taught me a lot. We could have lost not just Connnors' finger that week, we could have lost our little boy. I learned to have so much compassion for parents' of chronically ill children. I cannot IMAGINE how parents function long term under those circumstances. It was so hard to watch my little boy sitting in his hospital crib, with needles sticking out of him.
I'll continue tomorrow with more...