The Day Tayler Rode In A Wheelchair.

This post was originally written and posted on March 2, 2010.

I'm becoming more acquainted with hospitals than I'd like to be.

Most especially Primary Children's.

Tayler gets a lot of UTIs (urinary track infection).  In fact, the only time she doesn't have one, is when she is currently on antibiotics for on. This has, unfortunately, been going on for over a year, and possibly even a few years. That's far too long to have an infection.

Our pediatrician sent us to Primary Children's to do an ultra sound on her kidneys and a VCUG to see what her urine flow is doing.

I'll define the VCUG here in a sec.

Tayler was pretty proud of her fancy hospital bracelet and come to find out she likes to crack a lot of jokes (like her mom) when she finds herself in the hospital.

The ultrasound turned out fine. Tay was a little weirded out by the fact that she could "watch her guts on TV", and focused on the rotating pictures they had playing on the wall instead. After that was her VCUG. They put a catheter in and fill her bladder with a contrast liquid. They take MRI pictures, and then put a bucket/bowl type thing under her and tell her to pee the liquid out so they can take pictures of what her urine does. Because she's only six, and because catheters are very invasive and a bit (okay, a lot) on the uncomfortable side, they sedated her. Not causing her to sleep (until later) because they needed her cooperation, but causing her to have a temporary amnesia of the incident.

She knows we went and did it, but she can't really remember the details of it.

While we were waiting for all of this to happen they let her play with Polly pockets,

(we just thought the ceiling was cool, it's like this all over the hospital)

and gave her a token to get a toy out of the toy machines they have in the waiting rooms. She picked a sticky eyeball.

 It was kind of creepy, I'm not going to lie.

They had her change into hospital PJ's,

 gave her pictures to color and crayons to keep, and gave her a hospital buddy to decorate.

This right here is an awesome service project if anyone needs an idea.

They have these plain dolls in hospital robes or PJ's and they let the kids draw on them with markers.

Tayler named hers Sara.

Tayler is fine.

We learned she's not emptying her bladder when she pees so we need to re-train her on that, and have put her on a three month program of antibiotics for now. Then we go back to the pediatrician to find out what should happen next.

We're hoping she'll just grow out of this.

Tayler was still pretty drugged from the anesthesia when it was time to go home.  She had been sleeping it off on a recovery bed while we waited to make sure the pictures were good.  She was pretty glazed over and slept for a good four hours afterwards. When it came time to leave, Tayler was so unfocused she could barely stand up.  There was no way she was going to walk to the car so the nurse brought me a wheelchair to take her to the parking lot. There was no way I was going to be able to carry her limp weight all the way out.

I'm thankful for a hospital that caters to kids.

That makes "big" things a little less scary and stressful.

And that understands that popsicles makes everything better.

Burnt Pork Chops For Dinner. Nightly Recap.

The fact that my house smells like burnt pork chops is a clear indication that I've lost all motivation.

Well, burnt dinner might not actually be an indication for that, it's more of an indication that I was sucked into the Duck Dynasty episode that the girls were watching (that show is so stupid and yet I couldn't walk away...) and forgot about dinner until I smelt it...

But for real.

Today burnt me out.

Tayler has had a tooth ache for three days.  She woke up this morning with swollen cheek.  She has also developed the signs of another UTI.

Today I made it to work long enough to help my boss's wife pull of a surprise party for my boss's 50th birthday.  And by help her pull off I mean telling her when she could come and making sure everyone in the office knew about it.  My boss showed up a half hour before he was supposed to after a meeting and from there I was giving him one lame excuse over another until finally he tells me, "I don't believe anything you're saying."

From there my co-workers started making up urgent issues that needed his attention while his wife finished setting up in the back of our office and then in a grand finale a lawyer tells him one of our investigators is in a huge fight with one of the federal lawyers and they're both quitting the case and he needs to come intervene.  We rush down the hall to where everyone else is and "surprise!"  there's no fight after all.  Have some cake.

From there I left and took Tay to the dentist who was baffled at her mysterious toothache.  As far as he could tell everything looked perfectly fine and perhaps it was just the fact that her permanent molars were pressing on the baby molars and things were getting ready to fall out and grow in and something may be hitting a bit of a nerve somewhere, but that theory wouldn't lead to swelling...?  He didn't know.

So we left with some confusion and headed to the doctor where it was confirmed that she did indeed have another UTI (I had no doubt, at this point in the game we know what's going on when it comes to that) but then looked at her cheek as well.  Turns out it had nothing to do with her teeth, so the dentist was right in his theory of why they might be aching, but in addition to that Tayler has a blocked gland in her cheek.

He prescribed sucking on sour candy to get the glands working and hopefully getting rid of the blockage.

I've never even thought half the things these kids come up with were even possible.

But there it stands.

Several trips to the store later, a few hours of boutique emails, and a few rounds with the pharmacy, and you have one tired momma.  And burnt pork chops for dinner.