1 Del Taco + 4 Fire Trucks = 2 Surgeries
When Cody was six months old my ex was transferred (by choice) to Valencia, California. Cody and I stayed in Ohio to attempt to sell our house while my husband went to start his new job. After a while Cody and I went to visit for a week, or at least that was the plan.
The day before we left I went to visit a friend, we didn't know at the time but her kid has RSV (a very contagious upper respiratory infection) and Cody was already a physically weak little guy (see "Why Health"), so he got it. By the time we were a day or so in California, Cody was at a doctor's office and being rushed to an ER. Within a few hours of being admitted, Cody was intubated and in the PICU. They had to isolate him at the hospital because of the RSV so it was a quiet, lonely room.
I remember being in Cody's room. They always keep the lights low so the rooms have a very still, peaceful feel to them. Cody's dad was working and I was alone with Cody in this soft, gray room in a hospital in Van Nuys, California. I remember looking out the windows of his room to the main floor of the Peds unit. Everything was still, quiet, gray, and I remember thinking "you have got to be freaking kidding me." So I called my dad. I remember his happy-to-hear-from-me, "hello there Mairdith"..."hey dad, Cody's in the hospital." As the words left my mouth it was as if I was saying it and hearing it all at the same time, as if until I said it, it hadn't been true. It wasn't like he hadn't been in and out of the hospital in the previous months, but there was something about him being in the hospital in California. There was something more unfair about it, something more sickly about it. In Ohio, being at the hospital was the way it was, but in California it was suppose to be different some how...and it wasn't. He was still sick, he wasn't going to be different no matter where we moved to, and somehow, it became a reality at that very moment, Cody was sick, and he was going to be sick for a long time to come.
Cody stayed in the hospital in Van Nuys for a week. They filled him with antibiotics and fluids, supported his little body through the sickness and off we went, back to our hotel to finish our visit.
At that point, Cody and I were planning to return to Ohio, that was, until I got hungry...
I left Cody and his dad at the hotel and went to Del Taco for some sub-Mexican fair when I saw the fire trucks. From where the Del Taco was I could see 4 fire trucks, 5 police cars and an ambulance or two racing to the hotel. I impatiently waited in the drive thru, and rushed back to my family. When I got to the hotel, Cody and his dad were in the parking lot. He quickly said "everything is ok, the fire alarm went off so I grabbed Cody and we got out fine." I mentally scanned what he had said and asked "did you unplug him, he was 'eating?" And he said "no."...... shhhhhiiiittttt...
Cody ate through what is called a G-tube button. It is a round button on the outside of his stomach that has a whole in it, the whole is where a tube plugs into to allow formula to go into his stomach. The piece that is IN his stomach is a plastic "stick" that has a balloon that inflates so that the "stick" doesn't come out (like a catheter for his stomach). This is where the shhhhiiiitttt comes in, because if he didn't unplug Cody, that meant that the balloon just ripped through the little incision in his stomach as his dad grabbed him out of the crib to save him from the non-burning hotel.....shhhhiiiitttt......
So we called the hospital.
They said we had to take him to have the button surgically reinserted (what, not so much like putting in an earring?) Kill me!!! I JUST GOT HIM OUT OF THE HOSPITAL A FEW DAYS AGO!!!
We took him to the doctor that helped us with the RSV situation and they refereed us to a pediatric surgeon in Encino, California. Did I mention that 14 years ago there were only about 500 pediatric surgeons in the USA? Anyway, we took him there and they reinserted his button. In, out, done.
While we were at the hospital the surgeon asked to do a bronchoscopy on Cody to look in his lungs. I was 24 years old, this was a "look under the hood" guy, so I said sure. As the surgeon was coming into the waiting room to tell us how everything looked, he got a "SURGEON GET YOUR BUTT BACK TO THE OPERATING ROOM" page. I can tell you what the walls smelled like at that moment. The floor came up to meet me and I just knew it was bad.
He came back. He explained that while Cody was in surgery, his heart rate went to 300 beats per minute and they had no idea why and that they were having difficulty with him coming out of anesthesia and that is why they had paged him back to the OR. "Ok, so is alive? Is he having a heart attack? No, Ok."
This was the moment when I realized that these doctors and surgeons and surgeries and procedures could kill my son. This was when I think it hit me that all this crap that they were doing wasn't fool proof.
Cody and I ended up staying in California for about 6 weeks. We saw all of our packed boxes arrive and get delivered to our 2 bedroom apartment in Valencia, California. We met some really great people, fell in love with California and looked forward to our life there.... we never went back... My husband needed brain surgery.....
The day before we left I went to visit a friend, we didn't know at the time but her kid has RSV (a very contagious upper respiratory infection) and Cody was already a physically weak little guy (see "Why Health"), so he got it. By the time we were a day or so in California, Cody was at a doctor's office and being rushed to an ER. Within a few hours of being admitted, Cody was intubated and in the PICU. They had to isolate him at the hospital because of the RSV so it was a quiet, lonely room.
I remember being in Cody's room. They always keep the lights low so the rooms have a very still, peaceful feel to them. Cody's dad was working and I was alone with Cody in this soft, gray room in a hospital in Van Nuys, California. I remember looking out the windows of his room to the main floor of the Peds unit. Everything was still, quiet, gray, and I remember thinking "you have got to be freaking kidding me." So I called my dad. I remember his happy-to-hear-from-me, "hello there Mairdith"..."hey dad, Cody's in the hospital." As the words left my mouth it was as if I was saying it and hearing it all at the same time, as if until I said it, it hadn't been true. It wasn't like he hadn't been in and out of the hospital in the previous months, but there was something about him being in the hospital in California. There was something more unfair about it, something more sickly about it. In Ohio, being at the hospital was the way it was, but in California it was suppose to be different some how...and it wasn't. He was still sick, he wasn't going to be different no matter where we moved to, and somehow, it became a reality at that very moment, Cody was sick, and he was going to be sick for a long time to come.
Cody stayed in the hospital in Van Nuys for a week. They filled him with antibiotics and fluids, supported his little body through the sickness and off we went, back to our hotel to finish our visit.
At that point, Cody and I were planning to return to Ohio, that was, until I got hungry...
I left Cody and his dad at the hotel and went to Del Taco for some sub-Mexican fair when I saw the fire trucks. From where the Del Taco was I could see 4 fire trucks, 5 police cars and an ambulance or two racing to the hotel. I impatiently waited in the drive thru, and rushed back to my family. When I got to the hotel, Cody and his dad were in the parking lot. He quickly said "everything is ok, the fire alarm went off so I grabbed Cody and we got out fine." I mentally scanned what he had said and asked "did you unplug him, he was 'eating?" And he said "no."...... shhhhhiiiittttt...
Cody ate through what is called a G-tube button. It is a round button on the outside of his stomach that has a whole in it, the whole is where a tube plugs into to allow formula to go into his stomach. The piece that is IN his stomach is a plastic "stick" that has a balloon that inflates so that the "stick" doesn't come out (like a catheter for his stomach). This is where the shhhhiiiitttt comes in, because if he didn't unplug Cody, that meant that the balloon just ripped through the little incision in his stomach as his dad grabbed him out of the crib to save him from the non-burning hotel.....shhhhiiiitttt......
So we called the hospital.
They said we had to take him to have the button surgically reinserted (what, not so much like putting in an earring?) Kill me!!! I JUST GOT HIM OUT OF THE HOSPITAL A FEW DAYS AGO!!!
We took him to the doctor that helped us with the RSV situation and they refereed us to a pediatric surgeon in Encino, California. Did I mention that 14 years ago there were only about 500 pediatric surgeons in the USA? Anyway, we took him there and they reinserted his button. In, out, done.
While we were at the hospital the surgeon asked to do a bronchoscopy on Cody to look in his lungs. I was 24 years old, this was a "look under the hood" guy, so I said sure. As the surgeon was coming into the waiting room to tell us how everything looked, he got a "SURGEON GET YOUR BUTT BACK TO THE OPERATING ROOM" page. I can tell you what the walls smelled like at that moment. The floor came up to meet me and I just knew it was bad.
He came back. He explained that while Cody was in surgery, his heart rate went to 300 beats per minute and they had no idea why and that they were having difficulty with him coming out of anesthesia and that is why they had paged him back to the OR. "Ok, so is alive? Is he having a heart attack? No, Ok."
This was the moment when I realized that these doctors and surgeons and surgeries and procedures could kill my son. This was when I think it hit me that all this crap that they were doing wasn't fool proof.
Cody and I ended up staying in California for about 6 weeks. We saw all of our packed boxes arrive and get delivered to our 2 bedroom apartment in Valencia, California. We met some really great people, fell in love with California and looked forward to our life there.... we never went back... My husband needed brain surgery.....
god why does dad ruin everything ;)
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