She's Back

Here's our sweet Rowan, spending her Christmas break from school in Cardon Children's Hospital at Banner Desert. Thankfully, it was just a few days, but that was three days more than we wanted. Between the sickliness on Monday, the multiple doctor appts on Tuesday, and the hospital stay, the week was pretty much gone before it started.

The pediatric opthamologist she saw on Tuesday referred her over there on Wednesday after a couple of doses of antibiotics Tues and Weds morning didn't seem to be touching the infection. In fact, she was getting rapidly worse.

The pediatric emergency room got her in pretty quickly (within an hour), and she went straight to a triage room. There, she was showered with gifts by the nurses who were sad (along with Rowan) that she was spending her 7th birthday in the hospital. I was sad too. It was pouring cats and dogs outside while we sat cooped up inside the emergency room floor with no windows to the world. We were kind of sad and lonely together. And super bored.

Miss Rowan was very brave as they stuck her vein with a big needle and drew lots of blood for testing. Only a few tears were shed. They started her on IV fluids and gave her some Motrin for her fever. They took her in for a CT scan of her brain, which showed infection and swelling in her soft tissues around the eye and her sinuses, but no absessess of infection behind the eye or any foreign matter.

Then we waited and waited and waited for a couple more hours in this room on the emergency floor with all the patients who'd already been through triage too but were waiting on the next step. Waiting with six other families of sick kids and babies and siblings of those kids....in a room too close for comfort for six families. In a room filled with some lethargic kids hooked to IV's, some crying babies, a couple kids running around in only a diaper while their parents looked on, the smell of McDonald's fries and chicken nuggets about to make me toss my cookies. In a room where I was the only one speaking English and where the cartoons playing non-stop on TV overhead were making me nutty.

Until...the nurse finally came in and took a look at my face and knew that I was going nuts. She kindly said, "You know that Rowan's already been admitted, right? We're just waiting for a bed to free up." Nope, no one told me that. Thankfully, we only had to wait a few more minutes before she took us to a private room in the ER where Rowan started her IV antibiotics until her room upstairs was ready. Rowan and I were starving by then and had already eaten through my purse stash of granola bars and emergency crackers we stashed before leaving the house. Ryan came to the rescue with some food, and then we finally made it up to Rowan's room around 8:00 or so that night.

We loved our surprise visit that night from Bishop Uncle Jim. What a treat for Rowan! Rowan showed him her IV attachment to her arm, and Bishop told Rowan that he had one of those attached to him for EIGHT MONTHS while he was in the hospital with his cancer treatments. Rowan's eyes got big as she processed eight whole months...we were so grateful we were only there for a few days!

Here's our cutie pie sporting her IV on Thursday, with her eye looking marginally better.

The kids all came over to visit for a while on Thursday morning, and were happy to see that she was being well taken care of. Easton loved the "nourishment" station out in the hall where he could get awesome hospital ice to snack on, not to mention little cartons of orange sherbet ice cream from the freezer. Nice. Barrett and Afton and I cruised down to the cafeteria while Ryan stayed with Rowan, and they were duly impressed with all the food selections we had to choose from. In the world of a kid, those things are pretty cool.

After we were both sick of watching TV, we tried to kill time in the room by doing crafts. Grandma Cheri brought over some wood ornaments for Rowan to make and she also played with the fashion stencil set, courtesy of the nursing staff. Grandma Cindy, Corinne, and cousin, Lily, also came to visit and bring her birthday presents, as did our primary president and super awesome neighbor, Louisa LeSueur. (I think Rowan secretly enjoyed all the attention).

We put a puzzle together (actually, it was pretty much all me killing time while Rowan watched Disney Channel). Thanks, Grandma Cheri, for bringing it over. I texted her a picture once I was done, and she offerred to bring me some Buzz Lightyear puzzles she had in her stash. But I declined and decided to bust out my new Baldacci book, Hell's Corner, that Ryan got me for Christmas.

The hospital food was pretty so-so (and some pretty nasty), but at least the breakfasts were good. It's kinda hard to screw up breakfast...

Rowan and mom with matching wrist bands...

We were super thrilled when Rowan's nurse came to check on her around lunchtime on Friday. Rowan had finished eight rounds of IV antibiotics and the doc said that she was looking great and that we'd be able to leave that day! Hooray! Hooray! Heading home for New Year's Eve!

Before we left later that afternoon, the nurse took Rowan to this awesome toy closet (which looked like a toy store) so Rowan could choose a couple of parting gifts. Super sweet. She went home with a full nail polish set and of course, a giant stuffed orange shark because, really, who doesn't need one of those?

We spent New Year's Eve at home with the family, eating Tia Rosa's take out, watching Rowan open her presents, and playing a bunch of games. Rowan had a full on melt-down that evening as I'm sure she was exhausted from the lack of hospital sleep, just like me, and not feeling herself with all that medication in her body. She's still such a peanut - only 46 pounds. Thankfully, she crashed early and after 12 1/2 solid hours of sleep Friday night without a peep, she woke up Saturday morning like a new woman.

Now she's on oral antibiotics for two weeks, but she is doing fantastic. Looking great, feeling great. No more fever. No more swelling. The redness is gone. Smiles. A little sass. Just the way we like it :)