After we were in the bed in the PICU, things get fuzzy. It's amazing to me how similar this whole situation was to giving birth. Time was stretchy. I thought we had been there for a week, but was corrected, we had landed only 48 hours prior. I was convinced that the nurse was wrong, she wasn't.
One of the first things they did was take his weight using the bed scale and the weight was too low. I tried telling them several times that his meds are based on the wrong weight. Over the course of the prior three days, my home scale, the Urgent Care scale, and his pediatrician's scale weighed him at 29.5 lbs (I remember being excited that he was going to break the 30lb mark soon). But they weighed him at 25lbs, and they had to go by what their scale said, not word of mouth. I think that is why they had so much trouble keeping him under. He keep coming in and out of consciousness. The nurse said that the breathing tube was keeping him alive and he could NOT pull it out. If he did, they might not be able to get it back in. I thought, "What the hell?!? KNOCK HIM OUT THEN!" He kept coming in and out, trying to raise his arms, turning his head back and forth. I didn't think that it could get any more stressful, but I was wrong. It then turned into us sitting next to him waiting for the tube to be pulled tight, so we could hold him still, give the tube slack, and talk him into a deeper sleep. He was never awake enough to grab it and pull, thank goodness, it was just groggy protest. My husband and I were on pins and needles, terrified that he would manage to get it out. But that is normal, I guess.We had to have a consult with the attending doctor that night, Dr. Marsh. I had someone sit with Jack and told them not to be scared to hold him down if he woke up. Do what had to be done, that tube WAS NOT to come out. Not having any medical training made me more nervous, I was not sure of all the repercussions.
In the consult Dr.Marsh went over the probable diagnosis (lymphoma and/or leukemia), how diagnosis would be determined (surgery/procedure), the prognosis, and what the next steps would be. She showed us the xray and CT scan that the ER had sent them. It took up his entire chest (so it looked, I am still curious how big it was messured to be. The exact measurements didn't seem important at the time, but now I wish I had asked.) I asked if there were other possibilities and she gave the next options (benign tumor, and such). She said that she works with this a lot and she felt that looking into other options was not helpful at the time, we just needed to get to the diagnosis and go from there. She said that she had heard what happened, but if I didn't mind, she wanted to hear it from me. She said we were very lucky that the tube was put into place at the scene. Often times, when it is as progressed as Jack's was, there is no room for a tube and the child cannot be helped.Thank goodness for those paramedics, for the timing, for the resources that saved my son. And that reminded me of what the nurse had said, don't let the tube out, it might not get back in. I needed to get back to Jack. And to wait for the OR to open.
