Home…. Home…. Home… I just love the way those words sound to me. This has been by far the longest hospital stay we have ever had. I’m estimating our bill at the fine “Hilton Inn” to be around $200,000 if not more.
Let me back track the past couple days so you can see how we got to where we are. On Sunday Justin call me and said “Honey, tomorrow after work why don’t I come up there and I’ll take the night shift with Tucker and you can go home and get some sleep.” I loved this idea, I LOVE my husbands willingness to trade with me and take over for a bit. So Monday rolled around and we went for our RTU experience… and let me just say that was an interesting experience. Now there are many of you saying “hey Amber, what’s RTU and how is it different?”. Ok, RTU stands for Rapid Treatment Unit- this is like “same day surgery” but… not really… this is a clinic where quick little tiny procedures can be done, a procedure that only takes a few minutes but that the kids need to be put to sleep for- like a Spinal Tap. A spinal tap is not a “surgical procedure” so we don’t have to go into surgery but we still need to put our kids asleep so there is an option of RTU. It’s quick, in & out and you have an anthologist there the whole time. The benefit is Tucker gets a better “mamma said knock you out” type of drugs- drugs that he has a quick wake up experience from- not the “hey mom, you’re a robot” for 20 minutes. The down side is they don’t let you (the mom) be with him in the room- that I don’t like so much. Anyways onto my experience, I was under the impression that we were getting a spinal and a bone marrow biopsy done and that’s why we were in RTU instead of our normal spinal in clinic- well Tuck and I get down there and all the nurses had wrote down was a spinal tap- I told them that must be wrong we can’t be here for just a simple spinal, we do all those in clinic- I thought for sure we were in for a bone marrow biopsy. So the doctor came in- I mean the Physician’s Assistant- and I told him please call and check with Dr. Afifie I’m sure we needed a bone marrow done- he came back like 2 minutes later and said he had confirmed with somebody else, a name I didn’t recognize, and said he just needed a spinal- WAIT let me set the scene- the Physician Assistant marched into the room 2 minutes later, looking highly annoyed, and said “I talked with so& so and they agreed that only a spinal tap chemo is needed!” and he whipped around and marched right out of the room before I could even take a breath! There were 2 other nurses and the anthologist still in the room- and it was very very quit- you could have heard a pin drop… they were waiting for me to react. The nice nurse looked at me and asked (in a whisper, as if not to provoke the animal) me if we just wanted to go back upstairs, I said No, we have come this far is 2pm and Tucker hasn’t ate all day- (I snapped at all of them) DOES THE DOC ALWAYS JUST MARCH OUT OF THE ROOM IN MID CONVERSATION??? I STILL HAD QUESTIONS!!! I looked at Tucker who looked just pathetic, I know he was hungry and had been such a good sport about not eating- so I looked at the nurses who looked afraid to move and I said- JUST GET IT DONE, NOW. They all just hopped into motion then and took Tuck out of the room. Now, there is so much of this stuff that I’m ok with and I can handle it very well- except for when he is taken from me in a place I can’t follow in a situation that is already emotionally charged- I mean, people this procedure was like 10 minutes long, if even that! And I started crying and I was pacing in the hall way- you would have thought he was getting open heart surgery or something. But soon the doors opened and I was allowed to hang with Tucker while he woke up. It was like mamma bear being reunited with baby cub- I just relaxed and it was all ok. Other than that Physicians Assistant being a complete Ass, turns out only a spinal was needed- this happens a lot up there- all of the doctors talk and leave me out of the loop. Well Dr. Afife caught up with me later and told me the spinal was ok without the bone marrow.
We get back up to our room and we look outside and the storm started rolling in- the wind, the snow- it was NASTY. We are on the 4th floor and we had ice/snow build up on our window! So I called Justin and told him to just stay home- its not worth the travel I’m ok for another night.
Well he took yesterday off of work so he could finish up Tucker’s new room…. As for me in the morning IN MARCHED IRISH- OH MY IRISH! Life just seems not so bad when you’re our nurse! Turns out he was “assigned’ to originally work on the 3rd floor, but when he found out that Tucker was still “in house” he went, pulled some strings and got switched to the 4th floor and demanded to be Tucker’s nurse. Can I just say I love that man? Our night nurse Rick, every night that he hasn’t been tucker’s nurse but has been working would make sure to “check in” with us and let us know he was there if I needed him…. I love these guys!
Anyways… Yesterday morning I went down for coffee and I came back up and my little nurse helper that Irish is training, Erin, came in and said the doctors came in while I was gone (ALWAYS COME WHEN I GO TO GET COFFEE! ITS LIKE THEY HAVE THIS 6TH SENSE- HEY THE MOM IS GONE! QUICK LETS ROUND IN HER ROOM WHILE SHE’S OUT!) and they started throwing around the “H” word….. I SAID….YOU MEAN THE “HOME” “H” WORD?! And she said- yep that’s the one! I had to sit down! I said ERIN, DON’T MESS WITH ME… REALLY? THEY SAID THAT “H” WORD?! And queue IRISH walking in with that HUGE smile- and he said FOR REAL- GOING HOME!! YOUR GOING HOME!!!! So I did what any mom in my situation would do- I started to cry… and Irish just chuckled… Erin looked like she dind’t know what to do (remember she’s a student)… and Irish just started to get Tucker worked up about going home… Tucker smiled- he almost laughed… he looked SO HAPPY to go home! Home!!!! I called Justin and said HEY, you ready for us? He said.. no, what do you mean? I said THEY ARE SENDING US HOME!!!! He was like REALLY? I HAVE SO MUCH STUFF THAT I NEED TO GET DONE!!!!!! And off he went frantically trying to finish Tucker’s room before we got home. I know he was so excited to have us coming home and secretly I think he was relieved he didn’t have to spend another night in the hospital.
This is a long post already- I’ll send another one later today about coming home.
Love you all- Amber
Aunt Charity, Uncle Scott and Tucker on Monday February 7, 2011
Going home smile February 8, 2011
Irish, Erin and Tucker
Hey, I just ran across your blog from a friend's. Tell your Tucker that many people are thinking about him. My younger brother had leukemia for 5 years, which also relapsed in his CNS, but he is well today! We also have many pictures of Irish. What great people they have taking care of those kiddos! Wish him all the best in his recovery!
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