Monday, August 21, 2006

having sick children sucks

so it's almost funny to me now that I see the last time I had written was at the beginning of what proved to be two sick weeks with Lukas, which included eight nights in the hospital, and now it's all over and done.
I would not have guessed the last time I blogged that Lukas/ two day fever would slowly creep to 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 days of fever topping out at 104.4. Oh also a three day rash in the middle. And a night in the hospital whie they tried to figure it out and pricked his body for test tubes.
this inexplicable condition(later called "randon virus") left poor LL's immune system shot
and ripe for the attack
of a nasty bacteria that blew his eye up to the size of a golf ball. Boy had his eye glued shot. Looked like he had been knocked out in round one by some giant baby boxer.
All kinds of tests, blood tests, urine tests, Cat Scan. You name it. Damn eye refuses to buckle to antibiotics. We had a scary few days where we wondered how much more the infection would spread. The pediatric opthamologist and company had to basically pry open his eye and hold it open with these torturous calipers. Yes they used numbing drops. No I don't think they worked because I've never heard him sream like that and he had me crying.
Finally on day three his eyeball began to appear once again. Never so glad to see an eyeball in my life.
Had me shacked up with him at Hotel St.Vincent's( as I referred to my stay) ...Swear I was getting bed sores from that damn twin cot we shared. Yes he had a crib. No he did not sleep there.
Pretty great view of the West Village from our suite. Seventh Avenue rarely has traffic and WEst 11th Street looks like a forest from above are my newfound conclusions. It's really nice to get daytime visitors because mostly people are usually at work and it's a loooong day since they are basically checking his temperature around the clock
Hospital food left me looking like I need to be fed and no I wasn't going to be ordering $ 10 minimum delivery three times a day. Had my hour of parole when Pablo and Luna would visit in the evening. THen I'd take Luna for a stroll so we could do a little motherdaughter bonding and I could leave the eighth floor.
Haven't watched that much daytime TV in my life. i now have a newfound addiction to Oprah, The View AND becoming their new host. Call Barbara Walters now.
On the brightside,
we did do some serious bonding, Lukas and I. As much as I wanted to read my paper or magazines, Lukas would only let me at it for 15 minutes or so before his rotation of crib toys thoroughly bored his ass. So mostly he'd just hang on the bed with me. WE cuddled. Boy did we cuddle. That was the best. He's so damn cute. And in a twisted way it was nice to just disappear and not have to deal with the day to day nonsense and just be holed up in a hospital reading Star magazine and spending serious QT with my Lukis
And it was wild to take note of this killer maternal instinct aimed at every person that approached my child. I scrutinized their hands and took note of their personal hygiene. Requested they scrub up if necessary .
THe whole hospital sociology is enough material for a doctorate thesis so that was pretty interesting to witness and observe. THe pecking order of nurse assistants, nurses, residents and doctors...never mind that all the residents appeared to be younger than I and so their manner and tone was generally just weird...
The best part was when I scolded the res and told her I didn't like her bedside manner. Ok I'm clearly rambling.....
POint of it all is Luna's on rotation now at the infirmary which is my house. SHe's got an ear infection. So now each of them is taking two different medications that need to be administered at different times of day in different doses over different periods of time and I swear that that in itself is a full-time job. Like I need to make a huge chart/timeline of it all and stick it on my wall.
On another note I am so very priviliged not to have to worry about hospital fees, doctors rates, or the climbing number of sick visit co-pays I've accumulated this August. I have good health insurance. I am in the finicially stable position of being able to stay by Lukas' side for eight nights in the hospital. I have a partner that helped me with Luna and could turn to for emotional support.
And there goes two weeks of my life because really Ive done nothing else except manage their health and try to stay sane in the process. Children replace you as the most important people in the world. And that is a joy . To love so much. Gotta go wake up Luks. Time for his meds.....

1 comment:

mEg said...

hi gazelle,
just happened on your blog, it was "next" after mine, which i just started the other day. like your musings muchly. we have some parenting philosophies in common though you are a much more positive person than i to be sure! that illness with lukas (i have a lucca -- strong name, love it!) sounds mighty scary. they called it "radon sickness"? was that a reaction to the vaccines or related to the house restoration or??? (was thinking vax reaction as i read -- have always been a bit paranoid and separated and/or delayed most of them...) glad to hear he pulled thru. illness does have a way of slowing us to a crawl and giving us little sacred moments while the healing happens. have you ever heard that illness often precedes a large developmental leap? i find that to be very often true. my two oldest and i had a 10 day flu two years back and got in a whole lotta togetherness time. we duked it out and avoided the hospital and IVs thanks mostly to breastmilk. afterwards, the 1.5 year old was speaking in complicated sentences. pretty cool. here's to their health. cheers!