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Continued from last week: I don't remember what time we finally arrived at the hospital that day. We actually still had a bit of light though, I remember seeing the sun setting as we approached the Hospital. The whole day went by in slow motion. I felt like I was living in a nightmare. When we walked into the hospital, I had no idea where we were supposed to be. Did they tell us where to go? We didn't have her room number or anything. "Are you being admitted?" the front desk lady asked. No turning back now, she sent us to the admitting office to fill out some papers, take our insurance, and put some bracelets on Anna and gave Jason and I our parents passes. That was it, we were a patient"s parents at Children's Memorial Hospital. Up to 6 west we went with all of our papers now. I still remember them saying, "follow the train tracks to elevator A and your going to the 6th floor." It didn't feel right that we were there. We went from being a happy carefree family with a perfect brand new edition, to this? This didn't happen to people like us. How are we going to deal with this, how much is this baby girl going to have to endure? We approached the nurses station with our papers, and then we were shown to our room. It was a double room towards the back of the unit, but it was just us at first. I was a little upset to think that we would have to share with another patient, this was hard enough to deal with, it would be nice to have some privacy. Well, at least for right now we were alone, I thought to myself. Alone my butt! There is no being alone in the hospital. I can't remember how many different people we saw that day, and we had a lot of questions for them. We were told Anna was scheduled for an ultrasound first thing in the morning, then we would meet with Dr. Alonso who would do the biopsy. After things quieted down a bit, Jason left for his parents house, but promised to come back first thing in the morning. Thank goodness, Jason's parents only lived 15 to 20 minutes North of the hospital at the time. If he tried to go home and drive into the city in the morning, it would have taken at least an hour and a half, if not more. Traffic into the city in the morning is always horrible. Jason got there the next morning before we headed down to ultrasound. The ultrasound took a while, it was very silent and uncomfortable in that room. I had been up all night and I remember wanting to crawl onto the bed with Anna and fall asleep. There was a bubbly fish lamp in there that Anna enjoyed watching. She was such a good girl! Usually two ultrasound tech's perform an ultrasound. I remember the first one looking for Anna's gallbladder, and not being able to find one. In between tech's, I remember Jason saying that maybe that was the problem. We had no idea that with Biliary Atresia the child doesn't usually have a gallbladder. We were looking for a way out, any other explanation than Biliary Atresia, because from what we have heard about it so far, it did not sound like a pleasant disease. The next tech came in, but wasn't in for as long as the first guy. Then we were done. We had to wait for transport and they needed the room, so they kicked us out. There we were, waiting in a hallway. After waiting for a good thirty minutes (yes, just for someone to show us back to our room. Like we couldn't walk up there ourselves), Anna's IV machine started to beep. Not knowing what was going on, we got scared. We didn't know why it was beeping, and no one could explain why. We tried to get someone to help us, they blew us off. They seemed too busy to want to deal with us. Jason got upset, and so did I. We demanded someone come get us, or for them to let us walk upstairs by ourselves. What did they think we would do? Steal our sick child out of the hospital? I don't remember what we ended up happening. I do remember that all it was, was that the IV machine battery was low, and needed to be plugged back into the wall, but how the hell were we supposed to know that. It sounded scary to us, and nobody down there knew what to do about it. When we got back to the floor, we meat with Dr. Alonso, who did the biopsy. They were able to do it right there at bedside, but Jason and I had to wait out in the hall. It was so quick, but the results wouldn't be in until the next day. More waiting, that is what being in the hospital was all about. I am patient, Jason is not. He hated sitting there waiting, so I told him to go on home and get some rest, "just make sure you come back early in the morning." I hated having talk to the doctors on my own. I always felt like I wouldn't understand what they said, but when it came time to relay the message to Jason I would forget. I wouldn't remember to write down questions. There was so much information to take in, we were so new to this it was very confusing. So, after we saw the docs for night rounds, Jason went back to his parents house. It was nice for Mary to be able to see him. I missed her so much already, but I needed to be there with Anna. We got neighbors that night. As much as I thought I would hate having neighbors, is as glad as I was right then to have them. I got to talk to the mother about our situation, and our uncertainties, and she told me about themselves. It was a little girl, about two years old. I don't remember what she was in for, but she had been in recovery for a surgery on her kidneys, and was able to move to the floor that night. Poor sweetheart had a ruff night. Although she had a crib, she slept with her mommy on the pull out chair. You could tell these parents were used to being in the hospital stays. That was going to be me, I thought. Always in and out of the hospital, this place was to be our second home. More knots in my stomach. I prayed to God that the biopsy would show all was well and Anna would be sent home with a clean bill of health. God, please help her, I prayed, heal her, make her better. Next week for Monday Memories: The results are in, and Anna's Kasai. Links to other Monday Memories (If you participate, leave your link in the comments and I'll post it below) Running 2ks Allison Shelli Rowan Snickerdoodles |
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