God is present

We survived another day in the hospital. Elijah did amazingly well. He hadn't eaten since 6:00 last night, and by 1:00 this afternoon he hadn't complained once about that. We really do have a good little boy. We are so proud of him.

As we waited for anesthesia to come talk to us about what would be happening, I started to feel some serious anxiety. I kept wondering if this was the right thing to do. There is likely nothing "wrong" with Elijah's brain or spine, so is it right to put him through trauma yet again? I said to Dan, "Are we doing the right thing here?" He said yes, but I was still unsure. And then! One of those God Moments happened. We know this anesthesiologist at Children's who we absolutely totally completely love and adore. He took care of Elijah during his last open heart surgery, his hypospadias repair and I think maybe a heart cath or two. This doctor is the definition of wonderful. Really, he has everything you could ever ask for in a doctor, especially a doctor who is going to be by your son's side every second he is in surgery, or in today's case, getting tests done.

So, back to the God Moment. At the height of my anxiety, Dr. Altman entered the room and I couldn't believe it. OH THANK YOU GOD OH THANK YOU THANK YOU. He sat down and talked to us and within minutes I knew this was good, it was the right thing, and everything was going to be ok. Dan mentioned to him that E's neurologist wanted bloodwork taken while he was sedated and Dr. A said that it was not on the paperwork anywhere. So this amazing man called our neurologist and asked him to send in the orders so we could get this done. Some new guidelines had been implemented two days ago that requires ONLY doctors to be able to write in orders for tests, so we needed the neurologist to be available promptly. He was, but there were some problems with getting the orders into the system, so Dr. A took it upon himself to write the orders out himself, as if he were the one requesting them, so we could get this done. This is not something most doctors would be willing to do, and he even told us that. We were so thankful for his willingness to go around the system a bit. He said to us, "There is no way I am going to make a two-year-old come back to the hospital, fully awake, to go through the trauma of getting bloodwork taken when we can take care of it while he is sedated." THANK YOU DR. A! Oh man, we sure were thankful to have him as a part of our life today.

The MRI went well. It took about two hours. Elijah woke from the anesthesia just fine. We met him in the hallway (being held by a nurse, he wasn't just roaming the hallway alone) after the procedure and he was happy to see us. After his heart caths he is always grumpy, so it was nice to see a smile when we walked around the corner. We had to sit in the short stay unit for about a half hour and then we were sent home. Elijah was starving. Within about an hour and a half after leaving the hospital, he had: three boxes of apple juice, a huge ziploc bag filled with chocolate teddy grahams, a stick of string cheese, a huge slice of pizza, a cup of milk and about a zillion mandarin oranges. I guess he made up for what he missed today!

Elijah went to sleep well and was in good spirits this evening. The sedation has made him just a tiny bit hoarse, but otherwise all is well! We hope to get the results of the MRI in the next couple weeks. He was clearly upset whenever nurses were near him, but otherwise, he did really well today. We have such a strong, amazing little man.

We had a little detour on our way home from the hospital. As we were walking through the skyway out of the hospital, Dan and I were practically skipping. I think I said, "Wow! That was the easiest discharge we've ever experienced. This day is AWESOME!" We got into the car and started to drive away, when....thunk thunk thunk.. Uhhhh, is something wrong with the car? I got out to look at the tires and sure enough, the right front tire was totally flat. Oh ugh.

We have these stupid hubcaps on our car (they came with the tires) that make it so you cannot access the lug nuts (forgive me if I get this terminology wrong) with a normal tire iron. So dumb. So Dan and I just stared at each other like, what in the world are we going to do??? He looked in the trunk, in which I believe God had placed a bottle of Fix-a-flat. Dan pumped it into the tire and we quickly drove away, in hopes of finding tire help before it deflated again. Children's Hospital is in a very sketchy part of town, so I was biting my fingers as we drove. Please God, please God, don't strand us in this part of town. We thankfully came upon a tire shop, and we were totally blessed to meet an amazingly nice man who put on our spare tire almost immediately, and for FREE. I think we will go back there and bring him cookies and any other treat he might like.

I loved how we handled it all, though. I was proud of us. We could have freaked out and handled that situation poorly, but we kept humor in it and handled it lightly and I believe that was a good example for Elijah to witness. It was a good day. Everything went as well as it possibly could have and we are so thankful for that. God was with us today and it was so obvious. It's amazing what you see when you keep your heart and eyes open!

Thanks for checking in. Pray for good MRI results for our brave little boy. We already know he is just perfect.