Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Great News!

Here's how Monday's MRI went at Primary Children's Hospital. His appointment was at 10:30 am, so I was told that I couldn't nurse him after 6:00 am, but could give him Pedialite until 8:30 am...not such an easy thing to do for a baby who usually likes to nurse every 1 1/2 - 2 hours during the day. He wasn't such a huge fan of the Pedialite, but I kind of pushed in on him so his stomach wouldn't be completely empty. I picked up the babysitter (bless her heart for being so willing to take on three little boys! haha), then Owen and I met Jason at the Primary Children's Hospital in Riverton...coincidentally only one block from Jason's work :) I'm soooo glad that Jason could be there because they were running behind at the hospital, so we didn't actually start the IV and sedation until after 12:00 pm...that much longer for us to keep Owen happy without feeding him...there was no way I could hold him because he would just plant his face on me and try to nurse...all you nursing moms out there know what I mean! lol. Thankfully, Jason was able to rock him to sleep. I was really nervous about the IV part because Connor had to have an IV put in him when he was barely a year old and it took six different tries before they were finally able to get the IV in his head! It was horrible to watch. But, Connor's IV was done at an ER...Owen's was done at a Primary Children's Hospital, so little tiny veins is all they do...it was pretty quick and they got it done on the first try. I was so relieved. Next we went to where the MRI would be done and they gave Owen some medicine to sedate him. He tried to fight it off...trying so hard to open his eyes, and when they had him lay down in the MRI machine his legs were shaking like crazy...I don't know if he was scared or still just trying to stay awake...either way it was really hard for me to watch. Luckily, they got a warm blanket and put him on it and he settled down. We weren't allowed to watch the MRI being done, but had to wait by the crib they would bring him back to. About 30 minutes later, they brought Owen back still mostly asleep. I asked if I could nurse Owen, and the nurse said no that he needed to have some clear fluids first to make sure he wouldn't throw up from the medications. This shows you how hungry he was that this time he downed the whole bottle of Pedialite in about 2 minutes. I asked the nurse if I could nurse him now (I was so engorged too!), and the nurse said normally they wait, but he was so hungry that she let me feed him. He nursed until he passed out asleep again. The picture is of him after I fed him. At this point, Jason went home to rescue the babysitter. She said the kids were good and thanked Jason for letting her babysit...Jason's response was no, thank YOU! The kids loved her, and said they had a lot of fun...now whether or not she answers her phone or not the next time we call her has yet to be seen! lol ;) I got to take Owen home a couple of hours later, and he slept most of the day.
The next day I waited until the afternoon, and then called Owen's doctor's office to see if they had the results from the MRI...the nurse told me they did but that they were in a pile for Owen's doctor to review, but that he wouldn't be back in the office until Friday. There's no way I could wait until Friday to find out if my son needs spinal surgery knowing the results are just there sitting on the doctor's desk, so the nurse had the on-call doctor look at them and gave me a call back about an hour later. Obviously, by the title of this post it was good news. There's no evidence of a tethered spinal cord. Yay! Such relief and happiness :) I think even Owen could sense that something good had happened...he was all smiles yesterday afternoon :)

Saturday, June 25, 2011

MRI

Our sweet baby boy has to have an MRI on Monday...he was born with a dimple at the end of his spine and might have a tethered spinal cord. I had never heard of this before, but apparently it means that his spinal cord could be attached in some way to some fatty tissue or the spinal bones when it should be free floating. The ultrasound he has is unclear whether or not he has a tethered spinal cord, so hopefully the MRI will give us a clear answer. The hardest part will be when he has to get an IV, but then I think he'll be sedated enough to be calm for the MRI. If he does have a tethered spinal cord then he will have to have a surgery to correct it, so keep him in your prayers please. Hopefully our little guy will be doing okay, but if a surgery is needed it's good that we caught it early before any nerve damage could be done as he grows and puts stress on his spinal cord if it's tethered.

Saturday, June 4, 2011

My Little Cheerleader!

Owen started to cry, so I said, "What's the matter? You want to eat?" Then Aidan looked at Owen and said, "You wanna EAT?! You gonna get a breast." Like he was explaining the process to him. Hahaha.

I had just started to feed Owen when Aidan looks like this...

and shouts, "He's BREASTING!" Like it was cheer! I couldn't help but laugh. Just when I thought I was having a rough day, I'm glad to know I have my little cheerleader around to keep me laughing!