Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Friday, November 20, 2009
Ok, race fans...I mean ‘Elena’ fans...
Here is the latest & greatest skinny from one of your most favoritest 2-yr old’s Dad's you've ever met...or not met...or maybe just prayed for...
Geepers crow...where on earth do I even start?
Do I start with "Whew...this has been quite a Hurricane Katrina..." or maybe..."Gee whiz, we sure have learned a lot of stuff this past month..." or how about, "You never think this kinda thing is ever gonna happen to you..." or maybe this reaches through that black rectangle or square you're currently staring at & comes through the screen & grabs you "3-D like" by the collar in your cozy comfort zone & says..."Stop! Look both ways before crossing...the highway of life...and figure out what YOU can take away from all this." Who knows?
Quick recap for those of you that missed the “Screamin’ Eagle” Roller Coaster ride the past month:
1. Mon, Oct 19th, Elena was admitted to Cape Fear Valley Hospital w/a 104.5 degree temp, a cough, elevated respiratory rate & a Right lung full of pneumonia & some fluid. (It was communicated to us by more than one medical professional that if we had waited any longer to bring her in, "it wouldn't have been good, if you know what I mean.") They told us they were gonna have to admit her immediately and I asked, "You mean like overnight?" To which they responded, "Uhh, no, more than likely for a week or two." (Not quite the kinda response you're looking for as a parent.)
2. Thurs a.m., Oct 22nd, fluid in R lung doubled. Inserted chest tube around 6pm that night.
3. Thurs, Oct 22nd, post-op, elevated heart rate & respiratory rate, so intubated her, rushed her to Pediatric ICU & put her on a ventilator. Her original I.V. was failing, so they gave her another one in the groin area.
4. Drained 300cc’s of fluid w/the newly inserted chest tube, which is about the amount of a soda can. (A bloomin’ LOT for a little 2-yr old.)
5. Sun, Oct 25th, some of the fluid that was not drained turned goopy & began to harden, so conducted a thorocotomy. A thorocotomy is where the surgeon made a 4” horizontal incision from her right armpit to just under her right nipple to go in between the ribs & physically scoop out a cup full of goop that was undrainable…b/c of the goopy consistency of the goopy-goop. (“Goopy-goop”…I know…my “Doogey-Hauserish-medical-protégé-ness” comes out & gets a little complicating for some of you “less educated” types. I will do my best to “dumb-down” my fairly extreme medical “prowessness”. The month I was up in the PICU…I was repeatedly accused by the nursing staff of being the very much younger version of the Chuck Norris Of The Medical Profession…a.k.a.: CNOTMP…uh huh, das right…that acronym was for all my military peeps reading this…had to give ‘em a quick “shout out”. For you civilians that ever want to connect w/us military types…a good acronym works every time. Just like you saw me do in the sentence before the last sentence.)
6. Sun, Oct 25th, during the thorocotomy, the surgeon inserted a second chest tube & placed it in another location in her right chest cavity to clear out more drainage. Yippee…more tubes protruding from my innocent little 2-yr old! (Can you smell the putridness of my sarcasm from that one?)
7. Sun, Nov 1st, she was extubated! That means they removed the plastic ventilator tube that was threaded down her wind pipe. That also means they allowed her to finally wake up after being in a medically-induced coma for 11 days. (That was about the most anti-climactic climax we’ve ever experienced before. We were all jacked that she was gonna get to wake up! We wanted to see her beautiful little brown eyes again & her gorgeous little smile…heck…we could barely see her face w/all the tape she had all over it & the plastic tubes sticking out of her nose & mouth and the little sticky foam plastic hexagon-shaped pads that went across her forehead to monitor her brain activity. We were ready to have our normal kid back, right?!? Wouldn’t you be?!? Well…they did remove the tape from her mouth & face…and the sticky foam plastic hexagon-shaped pads that went across her forehead to monitor brain activity…and at least the ventilator tube coming out of her mouth was removed…and her beautiful brown little eyes did pop open from between the shade of her long little eyelashes…and then…began the crazy withdrawal symptoms of being on more sedatives than the druggy living under your local bridge…with the 1,000-yard stare and the convulsions and the silent shrilly screams that sent shivers up & down your spine and that also caused all the hair on the back of your neck and arms to stand up worse than the 14th version of the latest Halloween flick. It’s awkward and uncomfortable enough to watch an adult convulse and silent scream due to withdrawals…and a whole other experience seeing your very own beautiful little 2-yr old earth-angel go through all of that hell. And as her parents…for Elena to be looking right at you, but not seeing you or recognizing you & seeing the agony she was going through. Wow…I thought the “Pneumonia Phase” of this Ranger School was bad…the “Withdrawal Phase” of this Ranger School sucked just as many golf balls as the Pneumonia Phase.)
8. Mon, Nov 2nd, they moved her to a step-down room that’s still part of the PICU. Thank God! Withdrawals continued, but they were different now. They increased the “weaning” drugs to counter the withdrawal affects. So, rather than doing the convulsing cat and the kickin’ chicken AND the 1,000-yard stare…she just ended up with the 1,000-yard stare and the occasional convulsion. She began getting visited from all the “therapists”…physical, speech & occupational.
9. Thurs, Nov 5th, moved to a regular room.
10. Fri, Nov 6th, the doc said we’ve got another 8-days in the hospital so Elena could finish out her antibiotics. Just when we thought we were hours from leaving, the doc dropped that dime…or man-hole cover on us. Then, a few hours later, he came back & said they looked at some other options w/her meds and we’d be able to bring her home Saturday, Nov 7th!! God is so good!
11. Sat, Nov 7th, around 3pm, we were able to take our kid back to the casa!
Ok…now I’m at a crossroads…just typing the re-cap has me emotionally exhausted…it probably took you about 5 min to burn through the above “quick recap”, but it took me about an hour & 15 min to type it & relive it!
12. Sat, Nov 7th. Can I honestly explain to you the feeling that was exploding inside of me to hold that little bundle of warmth & angelic-ness back in my arms as we were walking to the car?!? My heart was pounding like a Hawaiian base drum; my blood was racing around inside of me faster than the Daytona 500 Sprint Cup series; my eyes welling up to where all I could see were two mini-waterfalls; my nose trying to inhale as much of Elena’s little 2-yr old baby hair scent as I could fill up in my lungs as I squeezed her ever-so-delicately-but-firmly to my chest. Are you kidding me? I almost don’t even remember the walk back to the concrete cave of a parking garage b/c I was so in-the-moment w/Elena.
13. My body almost erupted with thankfulness & gratefulness to God and to all the medical staff and to all of you amazing friends, family & prayer warriors. I so wanted to just wrap my arms around the hundreds or thousands of you who were there with us in the PICU minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour, day-by-painstaking-day, from one end of the globe to the other and just pull you all in at once…for one moment in time…and have a great big giant world-wide ‘big-daddy’ hug…the way only my Dad and I can give ‘em…right there with Elena in the middle of all of us…so all of you beautiful people could be there in the moment with us…standing there next to our little SUV on the first floor of that cold parking garage w/my amazing warrior queen wife and our little victorious princess of the hour…all holding each other…and thanking God for His wonderful grace & mercy w/our little Elena. To all of you, I just say “Thank you”…which, again, is such a poor pittance of an attempt at conveying how I feel in my heart about each and every one of you that shot a prayer up to the Creator of the Universe like an arrow from your powerful compound prayer-bow.
14. Those first few days back, she was incredibly weak & lethargic. She had to be on the “weaning” drugs for another week. She was on methadone, valium and omnicef. The omnicef is the antibiotic. She had difficulty even sitting up straight or lifting her head. Those first few days back it felt like we literally had a “new-born” 2-yr old that needed to be re-trained to do stuff: eat, crawl, walk, etc…
15. She was absolutely terrified to be put into her crib at night. She would scream bloody murder as soon as we walked out of the room after doing the much-anticipated “rocka-rocka” and singing her favorite Top 40 “Twinkle Tah”. You’re gonna have to read some of the previous updates to know what “rocka rocka” and “Twinkle Tah” are…ok, ok. “Rocka rocka” is what Elena says when she wants one of us to “rock” her in the rocking chair just before going to bed. “Twinkle Tah” is her song request for “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” or “TTLS” for the military moms. So, rather than hear her screaming bloody murder…we “caved” & put her in the bed w/us. Of course, her hard-core daddy, was incredulous at the thought of “compromising” & having his 2-yr old cuddle bug curled up to him at night! Bummer. What was the world coming to? :-)
16.) It absolutely ROCKED having that little kid in the bed between us. Not sure if there was a more secure, comforting feeling having my two favorite ladies cozy-cozied up to me at night. Fortunately Elena’s drug doses were heavy enough to keep her asleep amidst the logs that were getting sawed by her big papi. :-)
17. Also, those first few days, she weeble-wobbled like those little 4” elongated oval long egg looking things that have a weighted base that sit erect, unless flicked, and then they just topple over or wobble. That’s pretty much what Elena was like, except it was mostly a gradual teeter…that eventually led to a topple.
18. She was also pretty emotionless, too. No expressions. Nada. Zilch. Zeroooo. We’d attempt to get her to laugh or just do something…show any kind of expression at all. Despite all of our attempts, she’d pretty much just sit there & look at us w/a blank expression or even a glimpse of “Uhh, ok, Dad…Mom…check this out…I’ve been in a pseudo-coma for almost 2-weeks. I’m on some serious chemicals and I just don’t feel like doing a flippin' thing for awhile.” It was kinda like trying to entertain a phlegmatic. J No offense to you phlegs out there! (Again, from the book “Personality Plus” by Florence Littauer.)
19. Mom, the motivator…not to be confused with the “Gibbenator”, which I am often referred to as…was very proactive in doing therapy & rehab-type stuff. Move her arms & legs. Try and get her to crawl or even stand on her feet for a second or two. The first few days it was extremely painful for Elena to stand at all. I’m assuming her joints were very sore after not using them for almost 3 weeks and her muscles atrophied. She would cry pretty fiercely when we’d work on the standing. Tues, Wed, Thurs she would stand a few times each day for a few seconds a pop. It wasn’t until Thur, Fri, Sat, that she attempted to crawl a couple paces here & there.
20. We did have a “first” on or about Wed, Nov 11th. I was sitting on our couch and Kath was sitting Indian style on the floor about 6’ from where I was and Elena was sitting in between us sort of hunched over a little bit in her fuzzy white multi-flower pajama onsie w/the little footies. We began encouraging her to move, crawl or even just reach up to the couch & see if she could pull her little body up a teeny tiny bit. Well, the way it basically worked out essentially followed a simple math formula...our “encouragement” to get Elena to move was directly proportional to her very UN-willingness to move…which eventually escalated to an all-out, full-blown, Hollywood Oscar Winning Best Supporting Actress Temper Tantrum! She literally toppled on to her belly with her hands in front of her & her legs stretched out behind her & proceeded to flail & pound her hands up & down like she was angrily milking a cow on her belly and kicking her feet up & down behind her as if holding on to the edge of a swimming pool practicing her best swimming kick and screaming at the top of her almost-as-good-as-new lungs would allow her to!! It was the funniest thing I ever saw! I was ROLLIN’! We had never EVER seen her do anything like that before…nothing even close to that little Hollywood display. Fortunately, her attempts at winning us over from her silver screen performance were brief, because if she had gone on much longer, I was either gonna laugh myself silly or jump off the top rope like Supa Fly Snuka & give her a spanking she was never gonna forget. I didn’t want to do the latter because both Kath & I figured the meds were still playing some tricks on her fragile emotions…lucky for her emotions & lucky for her little butt! Anyway…it was a “first” for all of us! :-)
21. She finished her last dose of sedatives on Fri, Nov 13th. Hip-hip-hooray! Each day after that day, she progressively becomes more & more like her normal self. It is such a relief and weight off the chest to see her little personality slowly coming back…slowly peeking out—just like when she gradually pokes her head out from behind her little blankey when we’re playing “pica-boo”.
22. She finishes her last dose of antibiotics and breathing treatments today (Fri, 11.20.09)!
23. She took her first few wobbly “Elvis Presley” steps on Sat, 11.14.09.
24. She took quite a few more wobbly “Elvis Presley” steps on Sun, 11.15.09 at the Ramsey St. River Walk.
25. She can now take little baby still-wobbly “geisha” steps fairly well between pieces of furniture in the house. It’s almost like she’s swinging from branch to branch high up above the tree tops like the old Tarzan movies, except she’s doing it on the ground w/her little geisha steps from chair to chair.
26. She’s finally getting back to her normal cute giggly inquisitive self! WOW…Praise GOD!!!
27. Let me tell you something brother…(As Hulk Hogan used to say back in the day...) (Thanks, Stacie!)…I have learned SO much this past month…but THAT, Grasshoppa, will go in my NEXT update!! My next update will contain some of the “Lessons Learned” from this no joke experience of Elena having a brief walk on the beach of death. Hopefully some of you will be able to glean something from all of this too.
28. If you wouldn’t mind, I would GREATLY appreciate some feedback on what some of YOUR lessons learned are from this experience. Please share your thoughts & insights. I would really appreciate hearing from you. I started a blog to see if it may be a better forum to share some thoughts/ideas w/each other.
29. Please never ever forget how much we love & appreciate each & every one of you. We honestly wouldn’t have made it through this if it weren’t for GOD working through all of you to hold us up in prayer during all of this. You selflessly served us through your calls, meals, visits, texts, emails & the small army of furry stuffed animals that now lovingly stand guard in our living room. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Now, please refer back to bullet #13. No, seriously. Take a quick gander back at Point #13…gracias! :-)
30. Again, for those of you just jumping into this now, if you’d like to see the visual “Elena Updates” through pictures, please go to my Facebook page & click on the “Hospital” album. You can also view many of the individual “Elena Updates” on the “Notes” tab of my Facebook page OR you can just read them all in this blog site: www.noblegibbens.blogspot.com.
31. To see the previous "Elena Updates" in this blog simply scroll to the very bottom of this page and Click on the "Older Post" button. Continue to scroll to the bottom of each page and Click on the "Older Post" button until you come to each respective update.
