Children's Hospital for Everyone!

Today was the day that Evelyn's MRI was scheduled.  Because it was an MRI of her pituitary gland/brain, she had to be put under anesthesia for it.  She had to fast after midnight again for this lab.  When we got there, they prepped her in a small room before carting her over to the hospital (the day surgery building is connected to the hospital).  When I sat her on the bed to take off her clothes, she crawled under the covers and just stared down the nurse.  I know she could tell something was happening, but how do you communicate it to a 2 year old?

She did keep Cheep Cheep with her during the stare down!

Showing us the penguin that one of the hospital volunteers left for her.

After sitting in the Day Surgery room for about an hour, they took us to the pre-op room at the hospital.  While there, we met with the anesthesiologist who explained what she would be doing, as well as the MRI-tech who would be doing the actual scan.  They then gave her a medication to make her sleepy so that the separation from me wouldn't be as scary (can I have some of that, too, please?!). It was entertaining watching and listening to her.  As the medication really kicked in, she was trying to stay in a seated position, and was swaying all over the place.  She kept saying, "oh dear" - it was hilarious.  She finally let me help her lay down, but you could tell she was fighting it, knowing something was up.

She was a fan of the TV in that room! 

I then had to go wait in the waiting room while the carted my baby off.  The procedure lasted a little over an hour (including the time they kept her in the recovery room).  It felt like time stood still during that hour.  I can't imagine what it's like to wait for your child to have an actual surgery!  It broke my heart when she was scream-crying in the hallway when they came to get me.  I guess I hoped they would have me in the recovery room as she woke up so she wasn't scared.  They took us back to Day Surgery from there where we had to wait for her to be able to eat/drink before we could be released.

Drinking some juice

They took out the IV and released us after a little more than an hour.  On the way home, I looked back in the rear view mirror and saw that she had put the bandaid from her IV on her head.  It's one of those moments that will forever be seared in my Mommy memory because after she saw that I had noticed it, she just grinned from ear to ear...then went back to her stone face.  Precious.

While we were finishing recovery in the Day Surgery room, Dan (who was home with Lillian because Amber was sick) texted saying that Lillian wasn't taking a bottle and had thrown up.  Lovely.  He ended up taking the rest of the day off to help me (who, did I mention was dying from some sort of bronchial infection during all of this?!) take care of the girls. 

It ended up being necessary that he was there because Dr. Paez (Evelyn's endocrinologist) called with the results from her lab around 4pm.  Evelyn's pituitary glad was abnormally small and flat on the picture from the scan, which explains why she was diagnosed with GH deficiency.  I asked Dr. Paez if that can change, could it grow, and she said no.  Apparently as we start the GH therapy, it could unmask other problems like diabetes or thyroid issues in Evelyn.  This would be punch to the stomach #3.  To be honest, at that point in time, I felt like God had brought us to the edge of a cliff (yay - Missouri job, yay - healing prayer) and pushed us off.  I know that's not true - but my flesh was overwhelmed and broken in a million peices!

Lillian wouldn't nurse all afternoon, and hadn't had a wet diaper since around 8am this morning.  Around 5:00, we decided we better take her in before she got dehydrated (she had thrown up 2-3 times over the course of the day as well). 

Sweet angel - you can tell she didn't feel well!

She just let me hold her for the entire time we were there (which ended up being over 3 hours!).    While we were sitting there, the International House of Prayer posted this status on Facebook...

Like I said in my share of the post, it was exactly what I needed to hear as I was sitting there bookending my day at the children's hospital trying to make sense of what God was doing in our lives.  Around 8:30, Lillian finally nursed at the hospital.  At that point, we had been waiting for over 3 hours and still hadn't been seen.  I started praying that if this was just a bug and nothing more serious, that she would pee.  With the new "Affordable Care" (whatevs) Act, I knew we were going to be paying upwards of $1500 for an ER visit, and we had been told that Evelyn's MRI was not going to be covered as well.  Thank God, she peed!  :-)  I told the attending nurse that we were going to leave since she had nursed and peed, and she checked her vitals before taking us off the list.  Everything looked fine, so we headed home. 

Dan had gotten Evelyn in bed by then, and I was exhausted beyond belief.  Needing a good night of sleep so this mama can get better!!  And needing a kiss from God to remind us that we are in His hands right now.