MRI Day

This has been an exciting few days for Kalea and us. On Friday Dr.Cooper called us after her office hours, to ask some more "general health" questions and she said to me, "I'll re-submit this so they'll probably look at it on Monday and then it'll be in the next few weeks that they call", sounded great to me. Steve was going to Ft. McMurray for the week, so I figured, "Oh good it'll still be a few weeks, so we don't have to worry." I was wrong. I got the call last Monday around lunchtime "Hi, is this Kalea's Mom? We'd like to have you come for her MRI tomorrow, is that okay?" Of course it's okay, but after I got off the phone I was in a bit of a daze, but snapped out of it pretty quickly when I realized Steve would need to come home. We did joke around before he left that he should probably just stay home since with our luck they'd call while he was away, I just didn't realize that our joking could possibly be a reality. We are feeling like a bit of an anomaly in the health world because of the speed at which things are going, but I think it's another evidence of God's care and concern for us in this particular situation, and we are so grateful. There have been, and continue be small miracles in this situation every day. It was really important to Steve and I that we both be there for the major parts of Kalea's treatment, I can do the doctor appointments on my own, but dealing with her when she's scared is more up Steve's alley, since he's not a super emotional person. We appreciate that he was able to turn around and come home almost as soon as I had gotten off the phone with him. Our appointment was made for lunchtime on the Tuesday, which made me nervous because Kalea loves to eat and snack throughout the morning. We tried to fill her up on Monday night and then she was cut off from clear fluids at 9 a.m. Tuesday morning. I was relieved that Brynlee woke up quietly and I was able to get her fed without Kalea being awake. Kalea slept in, I was actually scared that she'd sleep past 9 and not get her apple juice in, so I sent Brynlee to wake her up at 8:45! She NEVER sleeps in that late unless she's really sick, so we were sure happy to have time to get things organized and ready to go that morning without much complaining about hunger. She didn't really notice that she was hungry until we went to drop Brynlee off at our friends' house, so that was pretty awesome, and it was easy to tell her "You'll get a popsicle at the hospital" and distract her from the hunger pains.

She was pretty funny that morning, she insisted on bringing her little dear and her pocket-size Book of Mormon, in fact, she was pretty attached to both those things and she made me run inside before we left so I could grab her book. It's amazing to me how kids get so adamant about bringing specific things with them sometimes, but I'm glad that those specific things helped her feel calm. They were both great distractions while we were waiting and she was really serious about weighing and measuring them and obviously took her role as "nurse" quite seriously. We had explained to her that she would be receiving "magic fairy dust" to help her sleep so the doctors could take pictures of her brain and her eyes, so the idea of that was pretty neat to her. She was pretty enamored when Dr. L (the anesthesiologist) came into the room to prep us. Nurses in scrubs don't phase her, but as soon as he came in and started talking everything was "Yes doctor" and "Um, doctor can I have a popsicle?" etc... Somehow she was able to discern the difference between him and the nurses and she was willing to do whatever he asked. He told us that it might be a traumatic experience- and I've had friends see their kids get put to sleep for different procedures, so I kind of knew what to expect, but not really. At the doorway of the anesthesiology room, Kalea stopped and said "Um, no thanks doctor, I don't need magic sleepy dust, I'm fine" which was our first indication that she knew something was up. She wouldn't lie down on the table, so we sat her on the edge, close to the equipment so she could see what it was, etc... I haven't ever seen her so scared, her whole body was chattering, I've never seen her knees knocking quite so hard, and when she saw the mask? Forget it. They had her choose a "flavor" to coat the mask with so it smelled nice, but you wouldn't know it from her reaction. It took a nurse laying across her legs and Steve holding her arms to get her still enough to get the mask over her nose and mouth and she freaked right out. That SUCKED. If I had to do that without Steve there I would've been a hysterical mess. It only took 3 huge screams to knock her out, but then she was making these awful noises that they warned me about but are nothing close to what I expected. And then you give your kid a kiss on the cheek and walk away? It was the most awful feeling in the world, except that I trust all those people who I was leaving her with immensely. So I cried a bit on my way out the door, but Steve was awesome and just kept me moving which helps the tears go away since I didn't want to be walking around the hospital crying when, to the best of my knowledge, my child isn't sick like so many other peoples' children at the Children's Hospital. It's a really sobering feeling, to think of what so many families are going through there, and yet, you see all these happy faces, even the obviously very sick kids have the HUGEST smiles on their faces. So it didn't take me very long to snap out of that sad moment. On our way out they gave us a buzzer- you know, the kind you get when you're waiting for a table at a restaurant- so that made us laugh. We had a decent lunch and played a few games and went back to wait. The nurse who helped hold Kalea's legs was just heading out when we sat down so we chatted for a bit, and she gave us an update on where Kalea was and helped me feel better about the tears, haha. Nurses are great. We were so excited when our buzzer went off- way ahead of schedule from what they had told me on the phone. She spent a bit longer in the scan than they expected so they woke her up- they usually wait until they start waking up on their own, so that was pretty funny, I asked her how that went and she said "Oh that was fun, she definitely didn't want to wake up". Kalea loves her sleep that's for sure.

She was totally out of it when we got to the recovery area. No eye contact, very lethargic, in a completely different world that's for sure. She would randomly snap out of it though and say things like "I smell watermelon!" "Where's my flip flops?" "Where's my book?" etc... so we had some great laughs. She also refused to recline, so she was leaning quite a bit- you could really tell that the room must've been "spinning" in her mind. She ate her popsicle slower than she's ever eaten anything, the longest, slowest licks- she usually chomps them down really fast, so that was new for us. We had to remind her to keep eating and eventually the nurse was like, "Well Ms.Kalea, I think I'm going to trade you the popsicle for some apple juice to take home, you've been here long enough" LOL We were definitely happy to leave but Kalea was 100% uncooperative, she didn't want Steve to carry her at all and refused to sit in the wheelchair, so after writhing and wiggling through the hospital, Steve set her down to walk on her own. I haven't had much experience taking care of drunk people, but I had flashbacks to a few moments in life where the person really wants to walk and you're trying to just make sure there are no obstacles in their way and guide them on a fairly straight path back to the car. It was sure stressful! She also went through all the drunk emotions, super out of it then really nice, then super uncooperative and angry, then she wanted Brynlee so desperately she started crying, then when we picked Brynlee up she wanted nothing to do with her, etc... then we got home and she screamed that she didn't want to come home and screamed "I want NANA'S HOUSE! I am SO MAD!" The rollercoaster of emotions lasted until about 45 minutes after we got home, party. I was so happy when that was over. They said she'd be mellow for the rest of the day... ahem... she was completely back to normal once her emotions leveled out, I was happy but sad that she didn't want to cuddle with me.
That's pretty much MRI day in a huge nutshell. The doctor will probably have results this week and hopefully we have our appointment moved up so we don't have to wait until August to find out how things went. Thanks for all the love and prayers and offers of help, we appreciate it more than we could ever express.