Sometimes our life feels like we are in the middle of a dodge ball game. There are always a lot of balls being thrown at us, and most of them miss, but Wednesday night we got hit. Gav started a fever when we went to the pool and has had an on/off again sinus infection for the past month. Not thinking too much of it, we trotted home and called the pediatrician. Throughout the night, he seemed to get worse as we watched him close until morning and called his nephrologist.

She confirmed what we already knew, time to take him into the Emergency Room (for some reason I always need to hear that we should go there, since I can’t imagine going there willingly). While I appreciate the Emergency Room, because it is there in your time of need, it’s like practicing medicine on the freeway and you often get stuck on the ramp unless you have a body part that is dismembered or something that looks like a contagious rash/alien exiting your body. So we waited an eternity and they began checking all the balls in the air…liver, kidney, blood all the variables that frequently plague Gav’s well being. Finding that there was an infection, but not finding where it was coming from, they finally put him on a general antibiotic and admitted us…this is the first time a year from transplant that we have had to go inpatient. We’ve been lucky, but needless to say I haven’t missed it.

Poor Gav, they had an atrocious time getting an IV placed (four times, and a working IV that fell out prior to his IV dose), and was yelling, “I want to go home”. He was hitting away stethoscopes that lunged at him in every direction like I do in the summer with mosquito’s. In the end, the doctors won and Gav subsided for a promise of a little gum if he complied…he’s such a good kid, quite remarkable after all he’s been through.

He continued to fever through the antibiotic and laid on his bed for most of the day eyes glazed over watching cartoons (some new hideous one with a dancing cow and penguin). It was hard for him to fall asleep as people often neglect that sleep can really benefit sick children (a major annoyance of mine). In the afternoon, we finally heard that there was a growth on his blood culture.

This is a new experience for us, and they think that it may be a staph infection. It will have to be repeated to see if it was a false positive or if it is a true staph infection. Other than that, they are treating him for a possible sinus infection that hasn’t cleared up with some IV antibiotic. They think, at a minimum, that we are stuck here for three more days (its been over 24 hours and I am rapidly losing sanity and sense of humor and reasoning abilities with my over the edge almost three year old). We feel a bit like pediatric refugees since the hospital is so full. We are in some off set area of the adult clinic. I’m not commenting further on it, other than, we are trying to get back to the children’s hospital. I can tell that Gav is getting older because he has so much more fear this time than he ever had before. He’s doing well, but everything is definitely more traumatic for him…he makes us cover his IV with a shirt and then a blanket and then a pillow, for triple coverage so he doesn’t have to see it. If he does see it, he cries and tells me how much it hurt when they did it.

As for Lulu, she is awaiting to lose her first “canine” (she’d apparently be the first one in class to lose a canine, since the other teeth have been taken) and is looking into trying out for an extra part in a local play, (she asked if she was going to get paid…a working actress…Jay loved her train of thought, now he just has to get her some disability insurance in case she falls while acting) and loving hanging out with her Grams who is of course, spoiling her like crazy while Jay and I stay with Gav and await more news…please pray that its a false positive and a quick recovery and that we can get out of here sooner than they expect. Missing the outside world (even if it is 10 degrees!)

Although we ended up getting nailed by the ball, it will not stop us from playing the game.

Jill