Down scope

Well some of you might be interested in the latest medical developments at our house. If you are not, you are in the wrong place. Toodle loo.

Today was the day for Jared's endoscopy. Even though I have been working ridiculous hours that have left me with the energy of a wet noodle, I manged to feel stress/anxiety/concern over yet another medical procedure. I hate it when life's little/ginormous worries make their way into my dreams/nightmares. So not fair. Sleep should be a safe haven, but alas the sub conscience says it isn't so.

Because the procedure would involve anesthesia and because the medical system takes pride in poking me in the eye as often as it can, Jared had to be NPO starting at midnight last night. For those of you who did not go to medical school NPO stands for Nil per os, which in English means nothing by mouth, and in Jaredspeak means Nothing Pleasant Out of his mouth, once he woke up this morning.

I gathered all I could think to take with us to the hospital, which was pretty much my whole house including the kitchen sink. I kept throwing things into the back seat of the car as we were preparing to leave. The lap top, the heating pad, my gospel doctrine manual, and so on.

After much groaning and moaning and wailing, I had him in the car and we backed down the drive way. A minute later I remembered I had forgotten the movies to watch on the lap top. So we did a u-turn and I ran in to get something to occupy the hours of waiting.

It was at this point that I got a lovely call from my daughter at her school informing me that it was picture day. I mentally thought about what she had worn to school. Nothing ripped, stained, or unflattering, good news. But I had not filled out the form and sent a check. So we made a quick pit stop at the school in which I ran in, filled out paper work, and wrote a check. It was my last check, how life did not decide to spit on me by my check book already being empty was nothing short of a miracle. And the first blessing of the day.

The other good news was that I was spared all of the drama that picture day usually brings. No complaints that her hair wasn't right or she didn't have the right outfit. I have decided that I wish it would be this way every time. Surprise picture days totally rock.

So we were off to the hospital. Did I mention that it was our third hospital since this whole medical crisis first began last July? I suppose before he is totally recovered, we will have attended all the hospitals in Vegas. But I am not setting it as a goal or anything. Do you hear that universe? I will be content with just the three hospitals we have visited. Although if we do go to all of them I could write a nice little book reviewing all of them. Kind of a medical Zagat rating system, if you will.

This hospital is called Summerlin hospital, and guess what? They had valet parking. This was totally awesome because the little picture fiasco had delayed us a bit and we were a few minutes late. So when I saw "Complimentary Valet parking" I was all over that, like white on rice.

This is where it got a little embarrassing, as the valet guy had to wait while I stuffed all of the contents of my back seat into a tote bag. He kept trying to close the door and race off to park my car, and I kept saying just a minute, I need this one more thing. Anyone thinking of the valet parking guy scene from Ferris Bueller's Day Off? I hope that did not happen, but my car is not that exciting to drive.

We wandered the halls for a while until we found where we were supposed to be. Then the fun of filling out the forms and co pays. A nurse came by, and Jared asked if there was any way he could lay down. So she took him right back, while I finished up.

The nurses there were very kind and could not believe all that Jared has been through at such a young age. He was finally able to get the public Wifii to work and kept himself busy with the laptop. I listened to my hospital play list on my mp3, which consists of songs that soothe my aching heart. Also I took advantage of some time to read my lesson for Sunday.

They started an IV and took his vitals. I answered questions from the nurses and anesthesiologist. Before I knew it, it was his turn to be wheeled away. As long as I live, I don't think I will ever get used to the way my stomach feels when that moment comes. I know he will be fine, I know that it is no big deal to have an endoscopy. But I also know that last summer I came close to losing him and I hate not being right by his side at every moment. I some times wonder if at any moment I will just loose my ability to hold it all together and just turn to a puddle of liquid on the floor.

I went to the waiting room and enjoyed the laptop and checked up on some blogs. Before I knew it, the doctor was back to talk to me. He said that everything went well and that he could see nothing obviously wrong. He handed me a nice picture of a pink esophagus and stomach.

This is suppose to be good news. But it means that there is still no explanation as to why he is having stomach pain that is keeping him from school and continuing on his road to recovery. They did take a biopsy and we go to get the results of that next week.

Soon after that they called me back to recovery. This was very funny, because Jared was feeling pretty happy by now. They let him have some juice and he was saying the funniest things. Good news he did not swear. The nurse told me that most kids swear when they are waking up, even if their parents think they don't swear. So apparently even sub consciously Jared does not have a language problem. Good to know.

He told me Happy Birthday and he kept asking the nurse the same questions over and over. It was pretty hilarious. He even asked if there was anyway he could spend the night at the hospital. That can't be a good sign when he wants to be at the hospital rather than being at home.

And before you could say supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, we were being wheeled out to the car. We arrived at 9:30 and left at 1:00. I have had longer stays at the ER and urgent care centers.

So best of all it is over. Now that I will be done working, I will go back to working on getting him healthy enough to get back to school. So far in 4 weeks he has only gone 4 days. I will get him signed up on home bound schooling which will mean a teacher will come to the house. I have to get him back to physical therapy 3 times a week, because we have taken a break for the past 2 weeks.

Next week there is a list a mile long of things I have been putting off for the past three weeks. I know I will be glad when I deposit my check and pay my bills I will be even happier.

So we survived another encounter with the medical system and lived to tell about it.