I had a lovely weekend away on my Mom's Retreat and the boys had a chill weekend at home. Unfortunately, I only got one night in my own bed before Eric's (planned) hospital admission! A planned admission makes all the difference to how pleasant our hospital stay is. We can prepare with all our comfort items, lego, preferred food and since Eric is not sick we are not on contact precautions (isolation) so we can actually leave the room!
Day 1
Our appointment wasn't until 1pm so I had the morning to prepare, thank heaven! On an admit day, you have a clinic appointment and wait over there until the inpatient ward is ready for you, usually around 5pm.
We arrived at 1pm and learned that some of the Canucks players were coming in for a visit at 2pm. We were lucky enough to meet and take some photos with Evander Kane, Jake DeBrusk, P.O. Joseph and, of course, Fin! Also, we learned that Jake DeBrusk is into Pokémon and collects the cards still.
Eric's team wanted him to get an ECG prior to starting the new treatment. Since he wasn't admitted yet, the heart center likes us to come to them. We were going to go before his appointment but then realized we had the whole afternoon to sit around so may as well go then. As soon as the Canucks left, we headed down there. It was quick and we stopped at the coffee shop to get a chocolate milk for Eric. We were back in Eric's room by 3pm and just waiting to go over to the ward. Eric brought an old Ninjago set that used to be Joel's and built that in less than 2 hours. He finished before our room was even ready.
We moved over to our room about 5pm. It is the first room we were ever in on T8 and, unfortunately, it does not have a fold flat couch bed. So this is what I am sleeping on all week.
It is about as comfortable as it appears, though I get a sheet and a blanket. I did ask if we could change rooms, and there were two available but one had the same bed and the other is specially designed for patients on airborne precautions. The Charge Nurse said we could have that room, but if someone came in needing it, then they'd have to move us. I agreed and we took our stuff over there, but the way that room is designed, the tv is off center from the patient bed and a little hard to see. Eric was so upset that I asked to move back. An embarrassing trip back to the Charge Nurse, but she was very understanding.
We settled in and I gave Eric his secret Lego surprise that I had saved for this visit - thank you Grandpa Bob and Grandma Claire! It is Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. Eric started building it and we watched the original 1971 Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory with Gene Wilder. Eric says its better than the Johnny Depp one.
Eventually he was ready for bed, way too late, but he was having trouble falling asleep and I guess wiggling his loose tooth with his tongue. At about 10:40 he exclaimed and I bolted out of bed. His tooth was so loose that it had spun around and got stuck at a weird angle (barf!) He was eventually able to pull it out and, of course, it was bleeding pretty badly. We called our nurse and got some tranexamic acid (TXA) on a gauze for Eric to bite down on. Luckily that worked within about 20 minutes. His platelets were low, but since he was going to be inpatient and not bleeding, he hadn't had a transfusion yet. I could have done without this excitement at 11pm, but Eric was pretty chipper about it.
Day 2
They do bloodwork along with the 4am vitals, which woke Eric up. As he was going back to sleep he put his hand under his pillow and found the Tooth Fairy had left him a toonie! This morning, Eric had an appointment with his hospital/homebound teacher to set us up school-wise for the week ahead. After that he built Lego and watched movies from about 10am-3pm. During that time he had a platelet transfusion. Around 3pm one of the inpatient Child Life Specialists came by with a "scavenger hunt" for him. They hide laminated pictures around the ward and the kids go find them. Eric enjoys hunting for them and is quite good at it, so they usually try to hide them pretty well. We did the scavenger hunt and then Eric hid one for me to find that he says is quite challenging. We had only just started on it when the Charge Nurse let us know they were going to be able to move us rooms - yay! We headed back to the room to pack up our stuff for the big move across the hall. We were all ready to go, but it took them quite awhile to clean the room we were moving into. We got settled in our new room and I happily grabbed my mattress topper from the car.
We are both super tired after not a lot of sleep last night. Eric started to complain of a headache around 7pm, which could be a side effect, or could just be that his hemoglobin is getting a little low. Other than that, he is feeling great. He just had his third dose this evening - 2 per day, 12 hours apart. We learned that Eric is supposed to take this new medication on an empty stomach, which is a bit of a challenge. So far, we're pretty boring, which is just the way we like it in the hospital!
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