Clinic visits are getting slightly easier these days; I guess we’re all just getting used to the routine and what goes on while we’re there. When we went on December 15th, Jacob did really great and seemed almost cheerful as we checked in and got his weight, height and blood pressure. He contentedly played Angry Birds nearly the entire visit (surprise, surprise). He was even playing while walking to the elevator on the way out. I had to guide him by his shoulders as he walked since he was watching the screen and not where he was going. We saw his doctor who laughingly commented, “I’m glad he’s not driving” (while playing Angry Birds).
Primary Children’s Hospital has lots of gifts donated at Christmastime and Jacob got to pick one out of a big box by the blood pressure machine. He picked the game “Cooties” and we set it up and played while he had his infusion. He also watched “King Fu Panda” and ate Oreos. It was a pretty easy visit and like I said, he was happy. It was such a relief to me, so different from some of our other visits. I think it helps that he hasn’t had to go under anesthesia these last few times. Also, I’m meeting some of the other moms and making friends with people in similar situations which is nice and even therapeutic.
Jacob holding up his new Cootie toys while still watching “Kung Fu Panda.”
After leaving the hospital Jacob & I decided to get something to eat, by the time we’d ordered our food at the Carl’s Jr. drive-thru he was starting to feel queasy. He never ate his chicken stars. Once we reached Grandma’s house to pick-up Isaac and Elizabeth, he was full-on nauseated. We stayed at Grandma’s a bit to break up the drive-time. He was feeling pretty rough. He held his little barf bucket the whole drive home, but never needed to use it. He actually slept for some of the drive, holding the bucket to his face all the while. Poor little guy.
At bedtime he felt like he had a slight fever but it was right after he’d taken a hot shower (his nightly routine these last few months—the shower, not the slight fever). Scott and I figured that we’d wait a while to see if it was really a fever. At midnight Jacob woke up screaming and hot. He did indeed have a fever and we needed to take him into the ER. I remember Scott calling the on-call oncologist and saying, “Could we maybe wait until morning?” Nope. Off to the ER at 1 AM; always better safe than sorry. We decided it would be best if Scott just stayed home with our other sleeping children and I took Jacob to the ER.
The car ride to the Emergency Room at our local hospital was surreal. There was not another car on the road (it was 1:30 in the morning) and Jacob was completely pleasant. He was chattering away about his favorite scenes from “King Fu Panda”—not generally how I picture one driving their child to the ER. He was quite content even when we got to the hospital, until they accessed his port, that is.
Being poked with a needle is always awful. It’s worse at 2 am when you’ve been previously poked that day.
It all went downhill after that.
The nursing staff and the doctors were very kind and helpful—we may have been the only patient there at that time of night (morning). But Jacob was miserable. When we tried to give him Tylenol for the fever he gagged on it and threw up all over himself and me. Thankfully, the aforementioned kind nursing staff found me a spare pair of scrubs to wear. Jacob was fine discarding his shirt and just wearing jammie pants—it was mostly me that was hit anyway. But he just felt rotten. His little tired eyes were all blood-shot as he stared at the TV watching the completely ridiculous cartoons they play at three in the morning.
The good news was he likely just had some viral bug and after the precautionary antibiotic we could go home. We wouldn’t need to to up to Primary Children’s that night—what a relief! Somewhere between 4 and 5 am we got home and went back to bed.
It was a long night but I am extremely grateful for the wonderful, sweet friend and neighbor who came over to watch my kids later that day so I could sleep some more. And a thoughtful husband who set that up. Thank you everyone, we so appreciate our incredible support system.
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