They Dun Broke Our Grandson

Our oldest and only male grandson was bitten by a dog last Saturday and when I say bitten I mean attacked.  I know the phrase”attacked by a dog” sounds pretty harsh but if it is your son, daughter or grandson that’s been attacked, and then it’s dead on accurate.

Apparently said grandson, age six, was running the neighborhood with his posse when they went into of his pal’s back yard and startled the mutt, the mutt who had never bitten anyone, and mutt being the breed.  The dog grabbed the arm and then moved to the face.  The first our son Matt knew of the attack was when the neighbor came running down the alley with a bloody, crying boy child. 

Grandson chilling giving the thumbs up before the repair work.

The owner of the offending dog and my kids have handled all of this like the responsible adults and neighbors they are, they are all to be commended to this point.  The dog wasn’t a dangerous breed running loose on the street, the dog wasn’t a bitter, it was, it was a terrible accident.

Grandson went to the emergency room which, thanks or no thanks to Marty’s numerous trips, our family understands.   We know how to do the ER.  He was examined, cleaned up and dismissed with orders to report back later in the week to have the wounds closed surgically.  They didn’t do the suturing immediately in deference to potential infection.

The grandson had the gluing and stitching done yesterday.  He came through like the tough little kid he is and looks a little bit like he’s been in a fist fight.  

I went to the hospital in Dallas to offer what moral support I could to grandson and his parents.  When I told Marty I was going she said, in no uncertain terms, “Get him a toy.”  She still knows not to go to the hospital empty handed.

Grandson’s other grandmother and I spent a few hours together in the pediatric surgical waiting room.  While being in a surgical waiting room, particularly a pediatric surgical waiting room is a colossal and frightening drag I couldn’t shake the feeling that I bet our reason for surgery was a lot better than some of those parents.  

Sick kids, dangerously sick kids, kids with heart problems or long problems or any serious problems are the absolute worst.  Matt and Erin both had hospital experiences and they simply suck for kids and parents.  

I remember as they wheeled Matt off to surgery on two different occasions.  I felt completely powerless, out of control, scared, angry and scared some more.  It is impossibly hard to believe you are making the decision to send your loved one, your totally vulnerable child, into an operating room to be anesthetized, sutured, patched, bandaged, and maybe saved by strangers.

Situations like this always drive home how much I, how much my whole family really misses having the large and in charge Marty.  The large and in charge part could be a bit over powering at times but I really miss her intellect, her problem solving, her knowledge of the medical process, her questions, her answers and her passion.  

I miss it, so do our kids, and so do our grand-kids whether they know it or not.  

I can state unequivocally, I missed it when it was her in the hospital and I was the one in charge.

But, in a sense Marty was there. 

She taught me, she taught her kids how to do what needs to be done.  Marty’s influence was with Erin when she called me and told me I needed get myself to Dallas, Marty’s experience was there when Matt and Sarah drove grandson to the ER, and Marty was with them when they talked to the nurse and the doctor until they had a thorough understanding of the care and treatment of the post surgical grand-kid.

Marty, through her life, through her illness, taught us how to do the crises in our lives.  She modeled the caring, compassionate, in-charge behaviors for our children enough that maybe, just maybe her presences was felt through the whole incident from bite to stitch.

Marty didn’t get to drive to Dallas the Saturday the attack occurred, believe me when I say, nothing would have held back the old Marty.  Marty didn’t get to actually sit in the hospital while a six year old baby was being put back together.  Maybe it doesn’t matter that she wasn’t in the room; maybe the most important things, her influence and her guidance and her confidence were there through her family.  I can’t tell you how good that makes me feel.

Oh….and #2 granddaughter’s cat died….Marty would have been all over that too.

Making A Call

I never really know who to call or if to call anyone.  I know to let our children know, I know to let my parents know, but beyond that, I’m never sure who to call and say we are in the hospital again.

Part of my reluctance is that I really don’t want to bother people, part of it is I never know how long or serious and one event is going to be and a big part of it stems from my west Texas machismo, that I don’t need support because support means weakness and real west Texas men don’t need and don’t do weak.  Mostly I just don’t know how much others want to know.

We went for 3 years without being in the hospital.  When Marty went in February it was different so I reached out to some of our friends.  Since then, since last night, this is our third visit and I just don’t know if people want to know every time we darken the doors of Providence.

We went to the emergency room to have Marty checked out Saturday, mainly because she was really fatigued and my anxiety level was in the red zone.  We spent seven hours getting blood tests, urine tests and x-rays and essentially found nothing.  My anxiety went below the red zone, but not by much.

I went to Dallas Sunday during the day for my middle grandchild’s 2^nd birthday celebration.  My daughter Erin said I seemed tense; my response was “ya think?”  When you have lived with someone and watched them as long as I have cared for Marty you just get a sense of things, it’s hard to explain, but my “Marty-sense” was tingling all day Sunday.

By the time I got home Sunday evening Marty’s blood pressure had dropped and we piled into the van to take Marty back to the ER.  By the time we got there her BP was still too low and she had started to develop a rather ugly red rash, great.  I sent a text to our Great and Wise as we waited for a room.

There are a limited number of things that the rash could indicate.  A couple of things are not good at all, but it’s most likely a reaction to an iodine IV administered when she had a cat scan on Saturday.  The tech had asked me if she had ever any reaction to the iodine, I didn’t know and rolled the dice to get the x-ray.  Marty got the rash, that’s somehow not completely fair.

Great and Wise, bless his soul, came up to the hospital to check Marty out and in and wrote out the orders to admit us to the hospital.  There was never any real question about whether we were staying the night in the hospital.

As we sit here this evening Marty is a little doped up on Benadryl, her face, neck and abdomen are red with a rash and her blood pressure is still too low for me to feel comfortable and I don’t think we have figured out everything that is happening. 

Yes, we are back, 4^th floor east, and I’m up here wondering who I call, I’m wondering if I call, I’m wondering if people want to know, I’m wondering if you do this enough do people get a little immune to the seriousness of the situation and the call becomes a “one more time” kind of thing. 

Try as I might to get used to it, I don’t.   I still get anxious, I still worry, I still don’t sleep, and as many times as we go, as prepared as we are to go, as crazy comforting as it might be, being in the hospital is still a big kind of scary deal.  

Maybe calling some people is not a bad idea.

 

She's Sick

It’s been 34 months since we last spent the night in Providence Hospital, an enviable streak for the chronically broken among us.  

We busted the streak Wednesday.

Caregiver Nykkie came in that morning about 7 a.m. and rousted me from a deep sleep, from a sleep aided by one of the few mornings cold enough in central Texas to cool down my sheets.  It had been a good sleep.

Nykkie gently poked my bare shoulder and said, “I’m sorry, but I don’t think Marty feels good.”

It’s a lot like waking and looking at the clock and realizing you have over slept and you have 15 minutes to get to that important meeting, you get up putting your pants on and running, all of the sudden wide awake, all of the sudden moving from sleep to wide awake.  It’s an awful way to start the day.

Nykkie told me Marty had been vomiting and her blood pressure and oxygen levels were well below what is considered normal for Marty.  Puking in your sleep is not a good thing, puking for Marty leads down way treacherous paths like aspiration and dehydration.

I walked briskly down the hall pulling on my shirt from the night before, following Nykkie.  We got to Marty’s room, she was laying in her bed, pale, pallid, clearly ill.    This is an easy decision, “Let’s take her to the emergency room, now,” I said.

Nykkie, who had already, by 7 a.m., cleaned up the products of Marty’s illness,  moved quickly to get Marty dressed so she could get in a cold van and make the five minute ride to Providence Hospital.  I started the van to let it warm up, brushed my teeth, tried to tame my bed head and chased Maggie the dog down after she snuck out while I started the van.  Nykkie suggested a cap for my still untamed hair, I transferred Marty to her wheel chair and we were actually in an ER exam room with a nurse by about 7:45 a.m...

While we were waiting for the triage nurse in the ER I asked Marty is she was afraid.  I think that’s more for me than for her, I think in my own perverted way I’m looking for reassurance from the sick. 

She said, “Yes.”

I asked, “Why?” with my best reassuring tremble.

“I don’t want to admitted.”  She doesn’t want to be in the hospital.

I reassured her that it even if we had to stay in the hospital it probably wouldn’t be too long.  My hope.

Once in the ER we did X-rays, blood tests, urine tests, catheters, IV fluids and oxygen.  The chest X-ray was clear, the white count was elevated, her blood pressure was scary low.  Marty threw up once more for good measure before we made it back to the ER, but that stopped and mostly she slept through all of the needles and tubes.

Ultimately the tentative diagnosis was a stomach virus, the 24 hour kind that is perfectly miserable to everyone involved but extremely debilitating for someone in Marty’s condition.  She was very dehydrated from the puking and pooping and once they started IV fluids she started to perk up just a little bit.

By noon, sure enough we were up in a room on the 4^th floor, where the nurses flocked around her to get her checked in and Nykkie and I went into our standard hospital mode.  She went to the house to give Maggie a needed outside potty break and to get our hospital supplies; me, I gave Marty’s story to everyone that darkened our door.

Marty ate, she drank, she was given copious amounts of IV fluids and eventually her blood pressure started to even out to a normal range for a normal person.  It took several hours.

Great and Wise stopped by that evening to reassure all of us that this seemed pretty simple.  He felt good that it would be just short stay; I told him I wasn’t counting this against our 34 month non hospital streak.  

Renea came that evening to relieve her Nykkie, her sister.  I went home about 8 p.m. confidant my bride was in good hands.  We had met the night nurse and Renea, always right and always in charge, who never takes anything off anyone is the perfect person to represent Marty.

By 7 a.m. Great and Wise was back again to spring us.  We left without incident about noon, a 30 hour stay.

Since coming home Marty still feels, to quote her, “Crappy.”  We have struggled with her energy, her blood pressure and her nausea.  I have had to call Great and Wise once to get him to talk me down from the anxiety wall I was climbing.  In my mind, we ain’t done with this yet.

My experience tells me to do this one step at a time and just deal with what is in front of us, don’t try and make plans for longer than what is right in front of us, don’t try and deal with what we don’t know, don’t bury anyone yet, don’t start the eulogies.  I struggle with this many days, the hospital simply amps up the negative wave.  I know in my head not to imagine the worst; my stomach and my heart are hard to drag along.  I tend to fall back to the bad old days of endless worry about what is coming.

I don’t know what is next, I hope this turns soon and we get back to our baseline.  The best we can do is make Marty comfortable and watch and care for her in ways that make sense.  One step at a time, I keep saying it, one step at a time.