Last week we celebrated New Year's, Mr B.'s birthday, and John and Therese had the full series of MRIs. We went to Mass on New Year's day, since it is the Octave of Christmas and the celebration of the circumcision of Our Lord in the old calendar. Mr. B. and I are usually in bed sleeping when the new year comes in. I remember the year I was pregnant with Thomas, about the size of a manatee at that point, and I was awakened by someone running up and down the block at midnight yelling, "whoo-eeeee!" If I had gotten my hands on whomever that was, they would have never, ever done that again in the same county where a miserably pregnant mommy was trying to sleep. But, I digress. This year Mr. B. and I happened to be awake for the new year because we got into an interesting discussion about pre-Vatican II Bible translations. It was fascinating and we found some interesting articles online about the old Confraternity edition. No one ran around screaming outside at Midnight, and we went to sleep soon after.
On January 2nd, John had his MRI series. They almost refused to do them since he had to be sedated, and he had a bad, wet, cough. I told them we wanted to do it anyway, and they had to explain all the risks, that he could get pneumonia, and that if he was wheezy when he came out from under the anesthesia that they would have to admit him to the hospital. We waited two months for that MRI and I was so concerned about his head that I told them we were willing to risk it, and Mr. B. agreed with me, so they did. John was very sweet and cooperative, but he was clearly nervous when I carried him in to the MRI machine. He wouldn't let them put the mask on him but agreed that it would be OK if Mommy held it. So I did, and he got very heavy and sleepy, and I laid him down. Mr. B. and I didn't want to sit in the Radiology waiting room, a windowless room with unyielding chairs where there are signs about no food or drink. We found a comfy couch near some big windows near one of the hospital entrances, and settled down to wait. I did some cross-stitching and some laps up a nearby stairway to stay awake. Mr. B. got some coffee and we ate z-bars, my favorite travel food. (I took a whole case of them to China with me!) About 3 hours later we went back to see our groggy little boy. He smiled at everyone, and especially at the popsicle the nurse brought him. He couldn't grab it because of the IV but he opened his mouth wide for me to feed it to him. I thought his nurse was going to try to take him home, she thought he was so sweet. When someone brought him a toy, and said, "here you are, baby," he opened his eyes wider and said, "I not a baby!" They warned us not to leave him unsupervised the rest of the day, and they weren't kidding. He couldn't even walk across the room by himself for several hours. His balance isn't very good on a normal day, and with anesthesia in his system he was a hazard to himself. He didn't wheeze or get pneumonia, but his cough got worse and stayed that way.
On January 4th, Therese had her MRI series. We felt like old hands at this, got her checked in, I settled her on the machine and they gave her some gas. She is so tiny it didn't take much. She looked so very small lying there asleep with her little feet bent inward. We found our same couch empty and did the same thing as before, including the same flavor of z-bars. She woke up very quickly from the anesthetic but she didn't feel very good. I think she felt sick but she answered no to every question the nurse or Mama and Papa asked her. Her little mouth was puckered out in a pouty face. The nurse was afraid to let her go until we could see whether she would be sick or not, and finally decided to offer her food. When she saw a graham cracker being unwrapped, she perked up right away. She was groggy and sleepy but didn't have much of a balance issue once we left. All those days of going to bed late and getting up at 5 AM wore me out. I had to take a nap, but I don't know if the kids did anything but giggle and whisper in their beds during naptime. I was too soundly asleep to hear it.
