For astute readers of my last post, you will notice that I stated that M has been hospitalized 6 times, but I only shared 5 incidences  Well, admission #6 was this summer.  I will never forget the date --July 15, 2013.  She had contracted pneumonia in June so we did not do much for the first bit of summer.  Once she was feeling better, I decided that our family should go to the beach--Baby E's first  trip to the beach and a fave destination for M. After much ado, we decided to drive to one about an hour away with another couple and their baby in tow.  We were there for about an hour when I realized M. was just lying on our blanket, not doing much.  She was not interested in building sand castles or swimming with mommy, two activities that are usually show stoppers.  M. stated she did not feel good, ended up throwing up and progressively got more and more ill within a span of a very short time.  As we were rushing to the hospial (with me smelling like vomit--bringing back such vivid memories) Mikah's eyes closed and I was unable to rouse her.  Just as I had hubby pulling to the side of the road to call the paramedics she finally woke, but barely.  

In the emergency room, she was triaged as #2 in the priority line--behind a guy who had fallen off a ladder, landed on his back and his feet were now tingling.  Hmmm...I was OK with home going ahead of us.  Throughout this very brief span of time, I had assessed (and googled) that M had appendicitis.  The hospital personnel were a little skeptical of this mommy diagnosis as it is highly unusal for a 4 yr old to have appendicitis.  Also, it is supposedly excruciatingly painful when the dr palpates (pushes down on) your belly if you have appendicits.  When Mikah's belly was palpated, she just flinched.  However, the x-ray showed an inflamed appendix.  Just call me Dr. Mom.  They wanted to operate on  her in this small-ish hospital as after all, 20% of their surgeries are on peds.  Umm, doesn't that mean that 80% of their surgeries are NOT on peds? Hullo?  Also, um, they wanted to use instruments that were too big for her as they did not have pediatric sized surgical instruments.  Hullo?!  I insisted she be transferred to the children's hosptial int he city (Normally about a 2 hour drive with good traffic).  The emerg doc did not like this and voiced his not-so-welcome opinion loud and clear to me.  

The ambulance transfer was arranged extremely quickly (she was not stable enough to airlift as her appendix could have ruptured).  With lights and sirens blaring we were off, while my precious little girl was stoned on 1.5 mg of morphone and clutching the gift bag that I had hurriedly grabbed at the gift shop. Shockingly, she still remembers watching Finding Nemo on the paramadic's cell phone during that ambulance ride.  How?!  I experineced a trauma in that ambulance as we drove down the shoulder of the highway all the way to the city.  As we passed through neighborhood where I grew up, the ambulance had to come to a full stop as the cross traffic would not yield to it.  Are you kidding?  Where does anyone have to go that is more important than getting a patient to the hospital in the back of an ambulance.  I will never forget looking out the front window watching the traffic drive in front of the ambulance, holding my breath that my precious girl's appendix did not burst.  To this day, I have flashbacks when I hear sirens. 

We made it to the Children's Hospital in one hour--during rush hour.  She was under the knife within hours of her arrival.  Discharged the next day. In between, she got lots of freezies, attention from child life specialists, volunteers, and lots of souvenirs to bring home including stuffed animals.  I wish I could say that is the end of that chapter of her story, but alas, it was not meant to be..

Wow!  It has been 3 yrs since I have last posted on this blog!  In all honesty, in the midst of all of the chaos, I forgot about this blog.  Actually, I was considering starting a new one in the past few weeks, with no recollection of my previous blogging.  So imagine my surprise when I looked onto blogspot to look at my daughter's classroom blog to find my handle and blog!  Rather ironic...To catch you up on the last 3 yrs, M has now been hospitalized 6 times (and you wonder how I could forget about a blog?!)--3 for Celiac Dx (hark--a diagnosis!), one for food poisening and another one for pneumonia--all before the age of 2 ys.  Reckoning that all of this chaos was behind us, since M is now 4 yrs and has not needed a serious medical intervention since the occupational therapist was discharged at about age 2.5 yrs, life marched on.  I had another baby--on the same date that I had M, no less!  They are three years and one hours apart.  He was a planned c-section (if you have read my previous post on the birth of M you totally understand why) and I was negotiating his delivery date with the OB.  She wanted to do the c-section the day after M's birthday.  I just figured 2 kids in 2 days forever more--the birthday madness might kill me.  So the OB rescheduled the surgery for the following week.  Then, I went into labor.  However, it did not hurt, so I actually thought the contractions were Braxton Hicks and went to bed.  They (whoever they are) weren't kidding when they said induction hurts a heck of a lot more than a natural birth.  When the contractions woke me at 3am, I knew it was the real deal.  My bag was not even packed this time as I was not scheduled for my c-section for another week.  Nothing like breathing through a contraction while instructing the hubby what to put in your bag.   An hour later (we had to wait for the grandparents to come and take care of M.), we were on the way to the hospital (a 30+ minute drive) with the contractions 5 minutes apart.

As I discovered after my first c-section, I am allergic to tape.  I was given an allergy band which was then cut off by the nurse who was going to insert the IV into the same hand.  However, she did not read it before she cut it off.  My hubby stopped her from putting the tape on me when it was less than an inch from my skin--thank-goodness!! I have enough scarring from the tape they put on me the last delivery....Well, my beautiful baby boy was born at 6 lbs, 11oz.   I had a nurese in the recovery room who understood Fibromyalgia and I got stellar after care, unlike my first experience which was at what was supposedly the top birthing hospital in the country...However, when I managed to rip my c-section when I bent down to talk to M., I had no medical support from the hospital.  I ended up being chauffered to the GP every 5 days for Oxycontin as the pain is excruciating.  Since there was recently a change in legislation, I could only get 5 days worth at a time.  Sigh....After 2 wks of this schlepping, I just got fed up and stopped taking it cold turkey.  Oops! I learned the hard way that you can be physically addicted, without the psychological addiction.  I had the shakes, the sweats, ---detox hell.
But, once again, all worth it in the end.