Take Me Out to the Radiology Department, Take Me Out to the Crowd

Opening day at Fenway so we had to be where the action was: Childrens Hospital! Everything went fine, even the no breakfast part.

I guess I was a little confused about the whole sedation/anesthesia thing. I am smart and I try to follow the doctors but sometimes they're just too fast for me. What they intended all along was to put Charlie to sleep with some light sedation drugs in an IV. The bag mask thing was just in case he had trouble breathing under sedation--they wanted to be sure they could put an oxygen mask on him. So right when we got there, they took X-rays of Charlie's jaw. "It's hard to tell from the outside, especially on babies--which you are not, anymore, Charlie--exactly how the jaw looks on the inside," Dr. Mason the chief anesthesiologist told us. The X-ray people gave Charlie a dozen stickers--Nemo, Tonka trucks, Thomas the Tank Engine. He stuck them all over my jeans.

From the X-rays, Dr. Mason could tell that Charlie's jaw was not too recessed or too crooked for the bag mask; she told the techs to proceed with the scan.

Dani the tech, a hip middle-aged woman in scrub pants and a funky batik top, took Charlie's vitals and let him rummage in a plastic treasure chest filled with germ-covered choking hazards. The whole time, Charlie was nervous, covering his ears with his hands and crying over the blood pressure cuff. I kept assuring him that we were only taking pictures of him. Of course, then came the needle.

Dani stuck Charlie in the foot very quickly and though Charlie cried, it wasn't too bad. He seemed more upset that Dani had taken off his "ock" (sock). I carried Charlie into a CT scan room decorated to look like Fenway Park, with Tim Wakefield's autograph on the green monster. They gave me a lead apron and wrapped a warm blanket around Charlie. We sat in a rocking chair and soon Charlie was asleep, though he had the hiccups and was still breathing in sobs.

We laid Charlie on the bed of the scanner and then the nurses and doctor left the room. They waited a minute for the sobbing to subside. The bones of the middle ear are so tiny that Charlie had to be perfectly still--not even a hiccup--to get a good picture of them. The bed moved electronically, gliding Charlie into the mouth of a giant baseball (how's that for a mixed metaphor). Inside the baseball, cameras began spinning. The actual scan seemed to take around ten minutes.

Then they wheeled him down to recovery. Around 15 minutes later a nurse woke Charlie by rubbing a wet cloth on his face. He wobbled his head up, took some sips of juice and a bite of a saltine with his eyes closed, and dropped back onto the bed. The nurse told me to take him home. She said he might sleep for up to six hours! I laid Charlie in his stroller and walked out of the hospital. He didn't wake up. I sat him in his car seat. He opened his eyes, but went back to sleep. We drove home past Fenway Park. The sidewalks spilled fans onto the street; it took 20 minutes to inch a quarter of a mile past the park. At home, I moved Charlie to my bed; he didn't wake up. Finally, when I picked him up to put him back in the car to go and collect Summer from school, he sat up and opened his eyes, cheerful and starving. He inhaled a bag of mini Pringles chips and kept going--orange Jell-o, Clifford Crunch cereal, water, buttered roll, milk, chicken cacciatore, chocolate cake.

I was so busy trying to make sure Charlie was safe and comfortable, I forgot to ask when I'd  hear about the results of the scan. Obviously I'll post here as soon as I know anything. Thanks everyone!   

Comments

[Michele]

I am so glad that everything went well. I hope you hear soon so you can stop focusing/worrying/obsessing on it. (At least, I always focus/worry/obsess on things like this. Maybe you're not?)

[shaina]

wow, sounds like quite a morning...that room is awesome! if i ever need a CT scan i'm totally going there just so i can see it...
i'm glad charlie's ok and y'all got through it with no problems.
<3

[Beth]

*waves*

Hi there! Long time lurker, first time commenter. I've glommed onto your blog because of a couple of reasons - you're interesting and well-spoken, and I'm a pediatrics resident. Hearing about what you're going through with Charlie helps me to keep my focus when dealing with my own patients. It reminds me that there's more to the story than the kid and that I'm taking care of the whole family too.

I have to say I'm incredibly jealous of BCH. I love going to work every day, but if my CT suite looked like The Fens, I'd probably love it more.

And glad to hear Charlie's doing ok - hoping everything turned out fine with the CT.

GO SOX! (Well, except for getting no-hit tonight...that was just wrong.)