Day Four - Good & Bad

Well, day four post op started out great!  We were moved out of the PICU the night before and into a regular room.....with a great view!  Daddy spent the night at the hospital with John and I was able to get a good night sleep at home.  

The night went smoothly and the day was progressing wonderfully.  We gave him a sponge bath, lathered him up with lotion, put clean PJ's on him and let him choose which new pair of socks he wanted to wear.......he choose one "Cars" sock and one "Dr. Seuss" sock.  He ordered a chocolate chip cookie for lunch......totally my kid:)  And every time he sat it down he said, "Momma don't eat any of my cookie!"

After lunch (and PT) he took a long two hour nap and awoke to some fun visitors......two of Mommy's good friends and his sweet little friend, Lily.  They brought cards and balloons.....and John was beyond thrilled to see them.  Lily and John told each other knock knock jokes for a good ten minutes.....and were cracking up the entire time.  It was WONDERFUL to see my boy laughing again.  They even performed their own version of, The Fresh Beat Band.  Lily sang and they both clapped along to the beat......and even took a bow at the end.

A wonderful afternoon it was!

And then......

The nightmare began.  Around 3:45pm he was given Lortab (Tylenol with Codeine) and exactly an hour later he was given Valium because he was still in pain (we have been doing this regimen for three days now without any problems.)  I am actually thinking  a lot of his pain/discomfort is constipation.  He hasn't had a bowel movement in over five days.  Anyhow, the nurse handed me the syringe with the Valium and I administered it via g-tube.  While pushing the medicine through his g-tube I thought to myself....this dose seems a lot more than the previous doses.  

We gave it a few minutes to take effect but he clearly was in a lot of pain.....so I climbed in bed with him and together we played his Leapster Explorer.....trying to get his mind off the pain.  After about ten minutes I noticed he was sweating profusely.....and then the alarms began to sound.  His heart rate drop to 48 and his face was turning blue.  I screamed for the nurses to come help me.

I repeatedly shouted, "Do something!"  I mentioned that the Valium dose that the nurse gave me looked more than the previous doses and in seconds the Dr came in, started an IV (took two tries) and gave him a full dose of Narc-an....an extremely strong drug used to reverse what was given to him (with HORRIBLE side effects.)  Per a close family member of ours (who is an RN) they definitely overdosed him because there is NO WAY they would have given him Narc-an if they didn't.....it is a drug they give heroin addicts when they overdose.

So, as mentioned, the side effects of Narc-an are terrifying.  He was trashing around uncontrollably...tore his IV right out of his arm...arching his back, flailing his arms and legs, twisting in all directions.....and all of this days after major surgery on his spine (with strict instructions to lay flat with no twisting of the upper torso.)  This went on for fifteen LONG minutes....before they gave a hefty dose of Morphine straight into his arm muscle:(

In the mist of all of this I called Jamie panicking.....not sure he even understood what I was saying but he knew it was serious and was out the door in minutes.    Thankfully our parents are close by..... and my awesome next door neighbor ran over to get Hope until our Moms could get there.  I cannot even imagine the flood of emotions Jamie was feeling as he was flying down the freeway trying to get here.....brought him right back to the horrible NICU days I'm sure.

We then were transferred back to the PICU and that's where we remain today.

In all honesty we have been very pleased with every part of this hospital.  It is kid friendly, family centered and the best cafeteria around:)  We've been treated with the up most respect from everyone.....not to mention, our Neurosurgeon is the BEST (bed side manner and all.)  It's unfortunate that a potentially deadly mistake was made by one person....but we do not fault the hospital at all.

I cannot even put into words how scary this all has been but it's over and thankfully he is okay.....AND we are headed home TOMORROW.

Oh and in all the chaos of moving us back to the PICU, we lost our camera.....that had the video of John and Lily dancing on it:(