“Rhett is waiting for you in recovery…” was all I heard the nurse say as I was making a run for it. I had no idea where I was running to, but I was on a mission to see Rhett and we had to get there fast! I grabbed Scott’s phone and threw it on the table as she was going over the phone rules. If he didn’t have the stupid phone, we couldn’t break the rules…so problem solved. As I was speed walking to the recovery room, the nurse was preparing us for what to expect. Yeah, yeah, yeah lady I know the drill; extremely pale or extremely red coloring, swollen face…I got it, let’s go, let’s pick up the pace. We finally get to another “pit” and there he was…there was my little pale, swollen faced baby. He was out, and by out I mean he has checked out for the week…please hold all calls until further notice. I was so happy to see him…and I was thrilled everything went smoothly. We stayed in recovery for about an hour or so to make sure he was coming off the anesthetic properly and then we made our way to his new home for the next 4-5 days.
9 North West was our new home. When keeping up with the stories of kids that have been/are being treated here, they always have a wing they brag about and how wonderful everyone is on that wing. I always wondered which wing I would be bragging about…I finally had a wing. We arrived on floor 9 which is the Neurology Floor for inpatients. Some wild things take place on this floor (sleep studies & medically induced seizures to name a few). We made our way to the North West wing which is the home to most surgical patients. As soon as you get off the elevator, you know this building is all about kids…the hallway was adorned with animal balloons for each room and windows painted brightly with Scooby Doo, Shrek etc… Rhett’s room had a tiger balloon tied to the entrance, which for him could not have been more perfect. We get him settled in, and all of our junk put away and made ourselves at home…after all we weren’t going anywhere anytime soon. My Dad finds the ESPN on the TV and bam…everyone was comfortable. I think it only took about 5 minutes for us all to be passed out…it had been a LONG DAY!
After we all took our short little nap, Rhett’s Nurse was getting us up-to-date on how this whole thing worked, and she wanted to show us Rhett’s dressing and what it should look like and when to be alarmed. I don’t know what it was, but when I saw the dressing, what had been done to his back hit me; I felt a huge rush of panic. I was suddenly hot & queasy, I just knew I was going to puke…I can’t handle seeing my baby like this.
Wednesday night, I was getting settled in to spend the night with Rhett in his room. I had my little bed made with my favorite blankie from home and my special pillows so I would be nice and comfortable…all I wanted was SLEEP! YEAH RIGHT! The first night was horrible. The pain had finally set in and Rhett was definitely feeling it. He would wake up and just scream out. He was confined to just being on his stomach and he was no happy about it. He didn’t want to eat which isn’t unusual, and began to spike a fever. Morphine and Tylenol were the first drugs they began pumping in him which didn’t seem to do anything…next came the Valium. He had to wear a little cast on his arm to protect the IV that had taken several sticks to get in…they didn’t want to take any chances of losing the IV in case something happened and he needed to be rushed back to surgery. It was also the only way of getting meds in his system…and he needed the meds. Heck, let’s be honest here, I needed the meds…hook an IV up to me! He was on a constant rotation of each of the three drugs and maxed out on the amount he was taking and how often he could take them. Managing his pain was the number one thing we had to accomplish that night and we weren’t making any headway. He was hurting and had no clue what was going on. The one difficult thing about babies recovering from surgery is that you can’t reason with them. I couldn’t tell him what was going on and the more he moved the more it hurt. Finally, the nurse basically strapped him down with a blanket. She wrapped him as tightly as she could and tucked it into the mattress to keep him still. If he wasn’t swinging that heavy cast around he was arching his back and then he would just cry out…I would just stand beside his crib and hold his little hands trying to comfort him. There is no feeling that is worse than your baby being in pain and there is absolutely nothing you can do for him. I couldn’t pick him up…I couldn’t do anything. He didn’t know where he was or what was going on, all he knew is every move he made hurt him beyond belief, and his Mommy was just standing there.
It was 5:30am before he finally calmed down and went to sleep. I crawled into my bed and passed out. Next thing I know, I hear Scott walking in the door at 6 to meet with the surgical team for an update. It was all I could do not to scream “Keep it down…do you know we have gone through to get everyone asleep??? Take it to the hall folks!” Next thing I know, I am waking up around 9 or 10 who knows what time it really was to Dr G giving Scott another update…
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