When I got back to the hospital late yesterday afternoon, I found a little boy sitting up playing! It was so nice to see him acting more like his normal self. He was very glad that Mommy was back.
He was allowed to eat a normal lunch, but they came and got him for x-ray
so he missed his chance for that. Bryan gave him a z-bar and a banana to
tide him over, and ordered the dinner as soon as it started. It got there soon after I did, and I think he was almost as happy to get his first real meal as he was to see me. Asparagus is his favorite vegetable so he was happy to see that. This is the first person I have ever seen who was so thrilled by hospital food. Of course he loved the airline food too, which is usually pretty nasty in my opinion.
John watched some Bob the Builder DVDs and then he said he wanted to take a nap. He rested for awhile and at one point he dozed off. He also got some visitors who brought him some fun gifts. Maybe because I gave the visitors a briefing on how he was doing, he shut down and didn't respond much. When his godparents were saying goodbye, he started to cry. I think he was afraid I was leaving too, since I walked him to the door. He does love his godparents and he tried to give them his family photo album to take home, which is a very special thing to him.
Being in the hospital really triggered a lot of the insecurities that we struggled with early on, and he gets so very scared in a medical setting. The nurses eventually figured out how to tease him and get him to interact with him, but the norm whenever anyone came in the room was for him to just freeze and become almost non-responsive. He told me, "I no want you to go." I told him I was going to sleep right next to him. This is how we spent a lot of the night. He could not go to sleep unless I was holding his hand, so he could be absolutely sure I was there.
I found that it is even more difficult to get sleep in the hospital when you are a parent than when you are a patient. For one thing, you don't have any drugs to help you, and for another, that plastic chair that folded into a bed-like shape was really uncomfortable. It sloped downhill and had gaps in the cushions in just the wrong spots, not to mention it had a stained vinyl covering that made me stick to it with sweat. That isn't even to mention that they came in every two hours to do a vitals and do a neuro assessment on John, which made him an unhappy little man. The machines beeped and there was a child in a room near ours that screamed and cried for most of the night. It was quiet from about 2-4 AM, but that was the only time. Hearing other kids crying made John very nervous. He figured they must be hurting kids and he would be next. It wasn't quiet in the daytime either, since we were across the hall from a sort of playroom. It was a handy place for parents from the whole floor to bring crying kids to try to distract them. Our windows overlooked where the helicopters were coming in for a landing. In spite of all that, we did get a few naps in, and John was pretty happy when we woke up.
I managed to wash my face and was glad I had thrown a clean shirt in my bag, since I felt and looked like someone who had been sweating on some vinyl cushions for too long. I even put on some makeup, and John said, "You so pretty, Mama." At least someone appreciated my efforts to freshen up. I wore a necklace that he loves, made of paper beads from Uganda. (You can get your own here.)
Right after breakfast, before we could brush our teeth, a transport guy came with a wheelchair to take John to get his scans. He hates the CT and had his usual reaction. He cooperated but stared straight ahead and refused to talk. He was much the same at x-ray, but was slightly cheered up by them giving him 3 stickers.
Back in the room he watched some TV and then the neurosurgeon came in to tell us that she had looked at the scans and everything looked great. She said if he was OK after getting up and walking around, we could go home. The nurse took out all his IVs and took off the monitors. She figured out that if she asked him to help her, he would snap out of his shutdown and start getting happy. He was pretty cute and funny, and he was really glad to get out of bed. He roamed around investigating all the equipment and then entertained himself a long time pushing the buttons on the bed. Then he put the stuffed monkey his godparents gave him yesterday on the bed and gave him rides "in the sky", and back down. I didn't realize hospital beds went that high. Maybe it comes in handy if they have a doctor who is a giant. If that bed doesn't work next time they try to use it, it is because a 4-year-old boy wore out the buttons.
Mr. B was on his long drive to take Therese for her second set of casts, so we called him to tell him we were getting out on parole. John talked to Daddy and I took a picture of it. He especially wanted to talk to Therese and Fermin, so they all said "Hi" to each other for awhile. Literally. That was about all they said, but each kid said it to each of the other ones, and that seemed to be what they needed at the time.
We got home about 1:00, hungry and sleepy, so we had a quick lunch and naps. The cold I have been fighting got worse over the last few days, so it will take me awhile to get this house back to where it should be. Right now it looks like some really messy people live here. The Christmas tree is still in the middle of the living room waiting to be taken down, there are three cases of catheters sitting in the entryway, and just tons of messes including the usual accumulation of yellow liquid in the grout around the toilet. Hopefully we can dig out of the mess a little while resting up too, but the important thing is that our family is all together again under one roof, and our little John has the pressure in his head relieved.
