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.

X-Rays and Wedding Dresses

Yesterday was kind of... crazy. 

In a matter of three hours I:

made and frosted a three tier cake for our church wedding dress fashion show

took Tayler to the doctor to check for a uti (more history on that here)

ended up going to the hospital for x-rays on her guts

where her gown was too big

and so was the table, in my opinion

I tried to plan dinner over the phone with Cas while at the hospital, but it wasn't working out and I had to resort to telling the kids to just grab frozen burritos or ramen

I stopped at the pharmacy for a very long wait to just drop the prescription off for Tay

West sent me a text saying Cas wasn't going to the fashion show because she was now grounded

I got home and talked to West about Cas's grounding.  I wanted to support him but Cas was the only girl small enough to fit into three of the dresses and if she weren't there those ladies weren't going to have their dresses shown.  She really needed to go out of commitment to others.
So Cas got grounded for the next day (today)

Cas and I ran pell nell, as much as we could with a three tier cake, to the church to get there on time to get ready for said fashion show

Maybe it really wasn't a lot, but by that time, I was tired.  And feeling stressed with a bit of anxiety.  I didn't expect to end up at the hospital, even for x-rays, and I certainly never enjoy conflict, especially with my man.  I hope that I showed him I support him while still explaining the situation was more than he realized.  And I explained to Cas that the only reason she was going to the fashion show, was because other people where relying on it, but I stood firmly behind The Man.

At the church we found out that half our girls were no longer coming which put a small strain on the situation and made me so grateful that Cas was there.  We worked with the girls that did show up to have them wear more dresses than they were planning on.  We didn't want to let anyone down and so much work had gone into the night.

Talented women were there doing hair and somehow (?) I ended up doing make-up.  We primped those girls up and sent them into the wedding dress room with other leaders who were in charge of that chaos.

I went out and found a seat to watch "the catwalk."

And I watched as the young women that I've come to love paraded out in wedding dresses to stories of the brides who'd worn them before and the funny things that had happened on those wedding days.

Can I just say it's a little surreal to see your daughter in a wedding dress?

Come on, I'm just getting used to the idea of her first boyfriend...

So today Cas gets to be grounded.

And hopefully today we get to hear about Tayler's x-ray results.  The doctor is hoping she's "backed up" because that would explain her wetting the bed and her constant uti's.  Plus, it's an easy fix.

So here's to hoping?

Also, today is my one year mark at being at my job.  This means good things as far as progressing and training. We've just been waiting for my year probation to be up.  So if I'm not fired by 5:00 today... I'll be moving on to slightly bigger and better things here.  Which I couldn't be more excited about it.  My boss has already sent out the email to HR and to his boss about getting things rolling for me so I'd say my chances of keeping my job past today are pretty good.

Plus, the new season of Vampire Diaries starts today and if you saw the season finale for season 3 then you know the cliff hanger we were left with... ah! I can't wait!

Here's to a less chaotic and anxiety filled afternoon than yesterday.  Besides, it's Thursday, and Thursday is the best day of the week.  It's Friday eve :).