My baby's story part 2

I had just hung up the phone with Daddy. My baby was going to Primary Children's Hospital. (PCH) I stood up and began to wander through the house. What was I supposed to get? Daddy had just told me to grab what we needed and get back to the hospital so they could take my baby in an ambulance to Primary's. My cousins were there to watch our two other boys and I'm glad they were. 

I wandered. Nothing was collected. My mind was numb. I have never understood how someone's emotions could make them physically sick until I received the worst, no the 2nd worst, piece of news a parent could receive. Death being the worst news- and at that point I prayed with all my heart I would not be feeling this feeling soon. Because being told your baby has an unknown mass and seeing in everyone's eyes the pity they feel for you is bad enough.

My cousin helped me get things we needed. Without her, I would have still been stuck home in a stupor.

"J. What about a change of clothes?"

"oh yeah... Right .. " I'd collect the clothes and then run around the house trying to think of more things while she quietly followed me and essentially told me what else I should get. With her help I made it out the door in 5 minutes or less. 

2:45am

I made it back to the hospital in 2 minutes and ran inside, not wanting to be away from my baby for another second.  

He was lying on the exam table, exhausted from everything we'd put him through that he was asleep. We were told he would have to be put in his carseat for the ambulance ride. I was devastated. He was in so much pain and finally sleeping. I didn't want to move him at all. 

I wanted to take him and hold him and will his tumor away from him. I wanted it to be me. Writing this now, I still wish it was me. Please Heavenly Father, let this tumor be in me and take away all his pain. I wanted him to understan, I needed him to understand how much daddy and I love him, but how can you tell a 6-week old that. You can't. 

I put him in the carseat. Crying probably as much as he was at this point. If he cried, I cried. I wish he knew that we were putting him in his seat so when the EMT's arrived, he could have time to settle down. I wish he knew that everything we were allowing to happen to him was because we love him.

Two men came in with a stretcher. Baby boys' carseat got strapped in. One of the men smiled at me reassuringly. The other stood back with saggy firefighters' pants on, seemingly uninvolved. Definitely not comforting when your babys' needs are in his hands for the next 1/2 hour as we travelled.

He and I were loaded into the ambulance and tried to settle in for the drive from Orem to salt lake. Daddy drove home and met papa so they could drive up behind us. I had the pleasure of sitting there with my own haphazard thoughts in a strange smelling ambulance, with a silent, uninvolved EMT, jerking about at every little bump, putting my fingers under my baby's nose to make sure he was breathing. 

It. Was. Awful.

I can remember now thinking of the stupidest things and then remembering what was happening to 
my little boy and I'd start crying all over again. Very embarrassing when the EMT is sitting over there listening, doing everything he can to not look in my direction.

The one thought that kept creeping into my mind while riding in the ambulance was actually about my sweet grandmother. She lost her first child at 10 months old. And I was praying that her experience wasn't so she could help me through my own loss of a child. My mind couldn't shake this irrational fear and it was terrible.

We made it to PCH at about 3:30am. And then it all began again, but this time it felt different. 

There were doctor's everywhere, nurses, and other medical personal coming to and from our room in a steady stream. Daddy and papa made it and seeing a new face only renewed the crying I had kept at bay for at least 10 minutes.

We told our story over and over. To the ER doc. To the surgeon. The oncologist. The nurses. I cannot even begin to express the agony I was in. No one wanted to say cancer, but no one wanted to tell us it wasn't that either. I've never really felt physically sick from emotions before, or at least not to this extreme. I wanted to puke. I felt like I had to pass out. I could barely stay standing. And thinking 
functionally was a joke. 

4am. Daddy, little boy and I had been awake now for 22 hours straight. 

PCH brought their IV team in to stick him and draw blood. It was amazing how different their approach was. They weren't going to poke him until they knew they had a good vein. They were very attentive to daddy and I and the attention we needed. They were also very concerned with keeping baby boy as calm as they could, all things considered.  It was a breath of fresh air to feel safe being sent where we were. 

We had a few more tests we had to go through.  After the multiple blood draws, we went down to get a catscan.

Daddy, papa and I had to hold his arms and legs down while they strapped him into the machine. The poor boy had to have the contrast dye put into one of his IVs. It stung a little, he cried. I cried. 

They took us back to our room and we waited. 

7am.

The ER doc came in, the surgeon and the oncologist. And they told us this.

Your son has a tumor. It's 6cm by 6.5cm around. About the size of a softball or grapefruit in his lower right abdomen. We cannot confirm or deny that it's benign at this moment. He is severely anemic, we think he's been bleeding into the tumor. We're going to want to give him a transfusion. We are going to have to do surgery. So what we'll do first is get you up to the PICU, get him comfortable and put him on the stand by list to get him in as soon as we can tomorrow. 

We had about a million questions. I couldn't really ask anything. Those dang tears just wouldn't stop coming.  So I listened numbly, halway lost in my thoughts. They were talking about my baby. My sweet little angel boy with the big blue eyes and happy personality. At one point daddy came up and hugged me. He told me, we are strong. We have gone through so much and we can take this. 

I hugged him tight and told him I didn't want it. I didn't want this challenge. I wanted it to be taken away. Please take it away.

My babys' journey, part 1

You know those stories you always here about someone else's kid getting in a car accident or someone else's kid losing an arm due to some stupid accident? Funny thing about those stories; for some people those aren't stories about someone else's kid, they're about their own child.

Daddy M and I are now one of those people you here about. I can honestly say right now, in my 36- hour sleep deprived brain, that I would never want anyone to experience what we are going through.

Friday night we went up to A's Grammie and papa's house to stay overnight and play in the snow.

Friday night is when it all started.

My little man and I went to bed like any other night. Except he and I didn't sleep. He screamed, I tried to feed him, but he could barely latch over the pain. When he did sleep, he was snuggled on my chest and I'd pound on his back to comfort him. My night with him was filled with little restless whimpers, endless crying and sore wrists from patting his back for hours on end.

When morning finally came he and I were pretty spent, so daddy took over for a second. We gave him a blessing. I held him in my arms while his daddy and papa blessed him. By this point, it seemed to us like he was either reacting poorly to my breastmilk or he had the flu. The rest of the day consisted of me and A hanging out inside with Grammie while my other children and daddy played out in the snow.
 W
Our day ended with us playing card games with family around 5. A still slept on my chest, struggling to relax. Daddy would switch with me when my arms, wrist and hands began to hurt from continual rocking and back patting. After 4 hours of unrelenting crying from him, no matter what we tried, we took him to the instacare.

It was 9:30pm on Saturday by this time.

After telling the instacare his symptoms, they sent us to the ER without even seeing him.

We were admitted right away. What a blessing an empty ER is. They got us in a room, weighed him, measured him, and asked us what was going on. We told them he was still screaming and worsened whenever someone touched him. He was extremely pale. His breathing was shallow. He was still unable to latch to eat. And he experienced these jolts of pain that would rock through his body. Daddy got really good at knowing when they were coming and would hold him tight just as they hit his little body. It helped a little.

It must have been 11pm by the time the doc ordered an x-ray of his chest and abdomen. A was exhausted and it hurt my heart to have him be put in this arcaic contraption for his x-ray. He had to sit on this bicycle-like seat, they made us lift his arms above his head and positioned these curved plastic pieces around his chest. He was so tired he could barely hold his head up or keep his eyes open. So we tried to hold him in this sitting position while he deliriously cried.

Once we finished I held him close, desperately trying to comfort him.

We waited a little while for the doc to read the x-ray. He saw nothing concerning, telling us it was colic, but he still had to wait for the radiologist to read it before we could go home.

It was midnight. We were exhausted. It took the radiologist an hour to finally read his x-ray. Apparently she was picking up her spouse from the airport in SLC, an hour away. I was pissed. While we waited they tried to draw blood samples from him. They couldn't find a good vein and wouldn't stop stabbing him. He was poked on both hands, both elbows, both feet, and his scalp. Screaming in pain every time. It was torturous to watch. At one point they got one in his head and in order to get blood from it they actually wanted him to cry. ---uhm, no. Leave my baby alone.--- he doesn't bleed very well, so the nurse was actually massaging around the I.V to get it to bleed.

After they finishedshe poking him, they wanted a urine sample and straight cath'd him.

My heart was breaking for him. My greatest desire at this point was to hold him and make all the hurt go away. And possibly take out some mean nurse's for poking my baby over and over.

Someone read the x-ray and didn't agree with the doc. Something didn't look right. They thought it
was a telescoping bowel. An ultrasound was ordered.

1am.

Ultrasound didn't look right. But a telescoping bowel didn't fit what the tech was looking at. We're sitting there watching her take pictures of his abdomen and after about 10 minutes of her doing this she looks at daddy and I and says, " I don't want to freak you guys out, but you're going to find out anyway. There's a mass in his abdomen. I can't say more than that because I don't know more."

I honestly tried my best to NOT freak out....but come on. The first thing that popped up in my mind was --cancer-- my beautiful little baby has cancer. This can't be happening.

When she was done, I took him in my arms and held him close. And cried.

We went back to our room and tried to absorb the information we'd just been given. Unfortunately for me, I had to go home to pump. It was quite the miracle that I made it home considering I was worse than a spewing faucet and had zero visibility through my tears.

I wasn't home more than 10 minutes when the phone rang. Daddy called, "they're transferring him to Primary Children's, you need to grab what you think we need and get back here as soon as possible."

My insides were numb. My thoughts were numb. My heart was broken. I couldn't think.

Girl Problems

I have to say this is a first for me and my boys. Or at least for my 3-year-old, E.

Both my older boys are in school right now and as result, they are exposed to all sorts of other children. A loves it and socialized with everyone! Especially the girls. He loves them. This will be cause for concern in later years I'm afraid. I mostly just wish he had SOME fear of girls- it might keep him away from them longer.

E on the other hand, is terrified of girls. They can be his age or older than him. He's especially scared of them if he seems smitten by them. If you've ever met E (and you're a girl) and all of the sudden our loud, rambunctious, teasing 3-year-old gets really quiet around you and starts smiling like a doofus-- it's probably because he likes you. Whatever that might mean for a 3-year-old.

Daddy M told me a little story of what happened to E at his pre-school yesterday, involving *GASP* a girl!

He took him into class and went to help E hang up his backpack. As soon as E walked into the room, a very cute little girl classmate of his walked up to him.

"Hi, E!" She said cutely, while showing off her shoes, "Do you like my new church shoes?" As Daddy put it, she was trying very hard to get his attention and was being as cute as she could about it.

So ... I'm not really sure when the whole liking boys thing starts. I don't remember it starting when I was 3 or 4, but maybe it did. So, E like most other boys had a very boy-like reaction to this cute little girl.

He was completely oblivious to her desire to get his attention.

Either that or he was completely terrified of her and decided to ignore her rather than stop to have a conversation.

As soon as his backpack was hung up, he zoomed passed the little girl as fast as he could without looking at her or acknowledging the fact that another human being was talking to him, and sat down on his class' playmat with all the other kids.

The little girl, unperturbed by his behavior, walked over to the mat and sat down next to him. I have a feeling that, like my oldest son A, this little girl might be trouble when she gets older as well. :)

So, my son, if you want to keep the girls off you, you're going to have to get rid of your rugged good looks I gave you.

I know it's going to be hard, but you're going to have to hide your sensitive side

  as well as those bulging muscles!