Bright Eyes

 

If you ask my Dad, he will tell you how much I truly HATE roller coasters.

I used to cry and cry when we'd go to Disneyland because I knew that Space Mountain was coming.

I'm a wimp sometimes.

And being a Mother, has only heightened my fear of all things fast and high.

I'm not a fan.

 



And this roller coaster never stops.

It seems to go on and on.

 

 

Last Saturday night at 2am, Bradley's pulse ox machine started alarming.

I uncovered him and noticed he was shaking horribly.

I touched his skin, which was icy.

I picked him up and pulled him into bed with me.

I covered him up and started rubbing his cold legs, trying to warm them.

He started making noises that I make when I am cold.
Shivering lips.
Shaking.

And suddenly his numbers plummeted.

He was in the 60s.

And I turned up his oxygen and turned on the lights and started packing my hospital bag.

I went down to change the laundry and suddenly I heard Tom calling my name.

"MARY! COME LOOK AT BRADLEY!!"

I ran up the stairs, and peered over Tom's shoulder and noticed Bradley's eyes and lip twitching.

I dialed 911.

They had to transfer me to Henderson.

It took FOREVER to get someone on the line

and when she finally was there, he had stopped doing it and was in the 90s

I told her not to send an ambulance, that we would go to the hospital on our own.

And it was gone.

And he was breathing normally again.

And I laid down on the bed and realized how tired I was. I had only slept an hour. 

And I told Tom we would go in the morning.

 



 

At 9am Tom's Mom came to be with the big kids.

And Tom and I took that drive down to Sunrise again.

When we got there it was quiet and they let us right back to get him on their oxygen and off our tank.

And he had a fever and they gave him more Tylenol.

And they started trying to get blood, which they never got.

And they took an x-ray.

And we waited for a flight nurse to come try to get the blood.

And she came and even she could not get the blood.

And after her second try the doctor came in and said he had pneumonia.

And I said "WHAT!?!?"

 





 

And she said she compared the x-rays from the last stay and he had infiltrates.

And I told her the pulmo had just suctioned his lungs in a scope two weeks ago.

And I told her, no one was sick. No one had congestion.

And I told her he hadn't eaten by mouth for 6 weeks!

And then I remembered the GI had said something about aspirating reflux in the swallow study

and I realized he said we could feed him slower if we had problems controlling that.

And I called the GI when she left and told him I thought we were indeed having problems

controlling the reflux aspiration and that I would take the pump back.  

And the pulmonolgist said that the cultures

of the secretions from his bronchoscope show food aspiration.

And that he thinks Bradley is aspirating reflux too.

And so I got the pump back yesterday.

And I'm feeding him VERY slowly all day long,

so that his tummy is never full and he never has the chance to reflux.
And he's on antibiotics and steroids for the pneumonia.
 



 

And today his eyes are the brightest I have EVER seen them!

They are the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen.

And he sat on my lap and tried to pull away from me all day.

And he's been pulling off his cannula today too.

 

 

My hopes have been renewed today.

I have hope that he WILL DO the things in this life
that I intended for him to do when I decided to create him.

 

Thank you God, for today.

It was SO sweet.

 

Those high scary parts are well worth the calm sweet parts,

full of his beautiful bright eyes.