I'm Free!... And What's Up With This Pink Gown?

Last night I came down with another horrible headache (borderline migrain), probably due to lack of sleep and all the caffine. That'll teach me to stay up blogging till 1am when I should be sleeping! Logan is finally sleeping soundly. Every time the poor boy finally falls asleep and gets cozy, he is woken up to get his vitals checked, change the bag & flush out the feeding tube, from the sounds of all the alarms going off, to go for more tests or from hearing the screaming of the poor baby in the same room as us, who by the way is also not a happy camper today. Long story short he needs to snooze when he can, so when the student nurse came in to change his diaper just now, I kindly told her he's fine and I would change it when necessary because no one is waking him up right now, and I mean NO ONE. He needs to conserve energy, and to change a pee diaper just doesn't seem like a good enough excuse to me to have to wake him up again. She probably thought I was one tough mom and a little rude, but I'm starting to get a little ticked off with them waking him up every 15 minutes for something.

This morning Logan was free from his continuous feeds. YAY!! Although he still has the ng through his nose, he was not being fed because he had to fast for a few hours before having the Barium X-ray. I don't know who is more excited about this, Logan or mom? We went for walk around the hospital without our faithful friend, mr. iv/feeding tube pole. I know you're all probably chuckling at my excitement over this, but you try going anywhere having no choice but to be stuck with this pole attached to you everywhere you go! It's the little things like not having this pole for a few hours, that bring a smile to my face. :) Another exciting thing is they finally decided to take this PINK gown that I've been wearing for days, off of me. Even though the pink gowns are the smallest ones they've got, daddy says who cares if the yellow & blue ones are a bit big, just get that pink one off of him! We believe even Logan was happy about this because he greeted me with many HUGE smiles when I came in this morning & began to change his gown. I love how his entire face lights up with a smile from ear to ear when he sees me, and how he grips my fingers with his tiny hand, squeezing so tightly as if to say, "I'm so glad your here mommy!" I can't obviously read into Logan's mind, but I can sense what he is trying to tell me. We'll call that mommy intuition.

At 10:45 this morning Logan & I were escorted down by a porter to diagnostic imaging. They strapped Logan down to a board under the giant x-ray camera, and fed him a contract dye through the feeding tube. This is the way the radiologist explained it to me. The contrast dye used in this test, cannot be penetrated by x-rays, the cavities of organs that are filled with the dye show up on x-ray film as having a sharp, white outline, making it possible to detect structural and tissue abnormalities that cannot be seen on regular x-rays. These contrast x-ray images are examined for abnormalities that may signal  any diseases, to detect strictures, hernia, or tumors in the esophagus; or to detect ulcers and other inflammatory conditions in the lining of the esophagus, stomach, or upper GI series. Yes, that was alot to explain and it's very overwhelming. I keep and journal and write down all these things that they tell me or I would never remember it all! Even though we've done other x-rays on both the upper & lower GI, we needed to do this specific x-ray as it provides a better view of the abdominal organs than regular x-rays do.

Now we are waiting for the radiologist to look at the x-rays, make his notes, show the team our x-rays, show the GI doctor, and then finally, hopefully our GI specialist, Dr. Zachos, will come explain them to us before the end of the day. We were told that she would see us before the end of the day to explain the results, but then again we've been told that before and no one comes. So we shall see. Bascially this will be like any other day where I spend the whole day waiting around for doctors & then when they do come they will give me all of 30 seconds of their time - barely giving me a chance to even ask them any questions. The one sr. resident literally poked his head in to tell me what's going on today, with one foot still outside the door so he could rush out of here as fast as possible, not giving me a chance to ask him anything. I was furious. On a good note, other then our one bad experience with the first nurse we from this time being admitted, the nurses have been wonderful and they all have taken a huge liking to Logan, even checking in on him through the day when he isn't their patient.

In the meantime we had a lovely visit from Jodi Smit & Tamara Brouwer (oops, or should I say DeVries!) for a couple of hours. They brought me some yummy lunch to refuel and regain strength, and of coarse got their snuggles in with Logan. You can't come here and not have a chance to hold him. He just burrows himself on your chest under his blanket and falls into a cozy, much needed snooze. As much as I know he loves being held by his mama, it has occured to me that he just loves being snuggled in general, not matter who is holding him!

I'd like to thank you ladies for keeping me company, and breaking up this dreary, November day. It is so tiring not to know from day to day what is going to happen, so we appreciate the many visits we have received, for the support, the prayers, the emails, phone calls & texts, the gift cards, etc from each and every one of you! Thank-you for understand, and not judging our decisions in what to do for Logan as his parents, for listening and for your words of encouragment, advice & experience. The communion of the saints is a beautiful thing! Just know that if we haven't gotten back to you, it is not because we are ignoring you - our inbox is just overflowing with messages (which I LOVE to read!) and right now and if I do get a moment of free time, it is an accomplishment to at least write on the blog!

I hope to write one more post this evening if we get the results from the barium x-rays. If not, then I will for sure keep you posted on that as well as the scope which is scheduled for tomorrow at 2:30pm.

 

Loving the mobile that the Child Life Specialist brought by for Logan.

 

Just hangin' out in my crib.

 

Yawn. It's pretty tiring work being me.

 

Always sucking on those fingers. It's his comfort thing.

 

Finally asleep.... AND in a yellow gown, not a pink one! :)