When we saw the pediatric ophthalmologist, Dr. Tufty, he said Easton has an intermittent strabismus. The cause of it is what determines the course of action. It's never a good thing when you hear a doctor say, "I have no idea." when talking about what is causing the problem your child is having. To look into it further, Dr. Tufty ordered an MRI of Easton's brain and eye orbits. Friday we were at the Sanford Children's Castle for the MRI.
Upon arrival, we were pretty impressed with the Castle (Mike and I had never seen it before). In short order we were in the pediatric outpatient wing where they brought Easton toys and let him run around and just play for a little while. Poor Easton had no idea what was coming...
A little apprehensive about his new pants at first.
Our goofy little boy!
After a little more playing and a visit from the anesthesiologist, the nurse took us downstairs to the MRI room. Mama got to ride on the hospital bed with Easton to make the ride a little less scary (not sure if they meant less scary for Easton or less scary for Mama :) ). When we arrived at the MRI room we met the MRI tech and the others who would be involved. The anesthesiologist said we could stay with Easton while the mask was put on and as he fell asleep. I absolutely wanted to stay with Easton as long as I possibly could. I couldn't stand the thought of him going to sleep in a strange/scary place surrounded by people he didn't know. Mike isn't a fan of seeing any medical procedures (regardless of what they do or do not involve), so he did not want to watch Easton be put under anesthesia. The nurse had told Mike she would take him to the waiting room before they started. The anesthesiologist got on the MRI bed and held Easton on his lap. Easton was being such a good, happy little boy, and everyone kept saying how good he was and how easy their jobs would be if everyone was as good as Easton was being! Then the mask was put on his face, which didn't seem to phase him one bit (I'm sure his neb treatments helped prepare him for that). Mike and I watched, and I held Easton's chubby little hand as his blinking became slower and his eyelids got heavier. After a matter of a only few seconds Easton was sleeping soundly. Mike and I both kissed our sweet little boy and then they escorted us to the waiting room. When we got to the waiting room Mike commented, "So much for not watching Easton go under anesthesia!" (In the nurse's defense, she DID ask Mike if he wanted to go to the waiting room right before they started. Mike later said he didn't realize they were doing the anesthesia when she asked that). The MRI tech said it would probably take 45 min - 1 hour. So when 70 minutes had gone by, I felt like I was going to go nuts.
After about 1 hour 20 min we could hear Easton's cough, but we couldn't see anyone/anything. After hearing him cough and cry a few times the anesthesiologist finally came and got Mike and I from the waiting room. Seeing Easton broke my heart because my poor baby looked absolutely miserable! He could barely hold his eyes open and he was coughing, wheezing and gagging/dry heaving. I was able to hop onto the hospital bed again and hold my sad, miserable little boy while they wheeled us up to our room. After arriving back at the room, the nurse did everything she could to try to make Easton comfortable and happy. Nothing was working. He would fall back asleep for less than a minute and then start crying again. The nurse gave us a blanket and I rocked him in the rocking chair, but he would still cry then fall asleep for a few seconds and cry again. The nurse brought us a big, warm blanket and that seemed to help him rest most comfortably for the longest amount of time. However, the IV in his arm was bugging him, as was the oxygen monitors on his big toes, and the blood pressure monitor on his calf. Not to mention the fact that I'm sure he felt weird and was confused about what was going on and the way he was feeling. The nurse removed the oxygen monitors from his toes and moved one to his finger and removed the blood pressure monitor. He was still coughing, wheezing, and gagging/dry heaving and his oxygen saturation levels were in the 70s, so the nurse said she was going to check with the anesthesiologist to see if we should do a neb treatment. She also brought Easton some juice in a sippy cup. When we asked Easton if he wanted it, he adamantly cried, "NO!" I took the lid off of the sippy cup because that sometimes makes a drink more appealing to him, but he still hollered, "NO!...NO!" and pushed it away. He also screamed, "NO!" to a food pouch (he rarely says no to those!). Finally, he was offered peaches and juice with a straw and he nodded and sadly muttered, "Uh huh." That was the first glimpse of our true little Easton that we know and love. With every sip of juice and each bite of peaches, Easton became more and more himself. It was SUCH a relief to see Easton starting to feel better. His oxygen saturation levels returned to the high 90s and his spirits began to rise, so the nurse was able to remove the IV from his hand. Every passing moment had Easton feeling better and better. He even ventured out into the hall to open the little doors on the nurses station that have tiny scenes created with toys behind glass. Shortly thereafter the nurse brought us our walking papers and we were finally able to leave! I was surprised that we were there for over 4 hours total, but it ended up being much more of an ordeal than I thought it would be (it's a GOOD thing I didn't know that Easton was going to have such a hard time when he woke up from anesthesia because I would have been even more nervous about the appointment than I already was!). I'm not sure if I've ever said more prayers in my life than I did that day, and I thank God for answering all of them!
Everyone at the Castle was absolutely amazing! We could not have asked for better people to be taking care of Easton (and Mike and I) while we were there - nonetheless, we were very relieved to be leaving! Easton walked all the way from his room out to the van, and never glanced back once...not that I can blame him!
Of course after going through all of that, we had to let Easton have just about anything he wanted...first thing on the list was a new toy turtle.
It's no coincidence that Easton's newest word is "turtle" after this weekend! :)
We also had to let Easton indulge in some strawberry cheesecake frozen yogurt
with real strawberries and cheesecake chunks from PeachWave! YUM!
Then we watched some fireworks from our hotel!
(lucky for us, the Canaries had Fireworks Friday).jpg)
Now the only reminder of the MRI is the mark on Easton's chest...
And of course, the anxiety as we wait to hear the results of the MRI. The nurse said that most likely if there was something extremely serious showing up in the MRI, we would probably have been told before we left the hospital, especially if they wanted to do more tests right away. We have not heard anything yet, so we're praying that no news is good news until we find out the results sometime this week.
"Go out tonight and celebrate life, realize how lucky we are to have our healthy children that love us. Don't dwell on the negative. Life is short." ~Unknown
**5/21/13 UPDATE: We got the MRI results back yesterday morning and they were completely normal! YAY! Thank God! Now we have a follow-up/second opinion all-in-one appointment with Dr. Nixon on July 29. Hopefully we find something out about what is causing it to happen because Easton did it 11 times tonight :(
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