We have had a very busy month. A couple of weeks ago, Bram caught the latest stomach virus going around. My dad kept him home with him while I went to work. The virus only lasted a few days, but it left Bram dehydrated. Since I had had little success getting Bram to drink the fluids he needed, I was getting ready to take him to Children's ER for some IV fluids when an ambulance showed up at my dad's house next door. My stepsister ran over to let me know that the ambulance was taking my dad to the Greenville hospital. It looked like my dad had caught Bram's virus - but it had hit him a lot harder.
Bram and I headed up to Greenville hospital instead of Children's. Bram ended up getting fluids in ER room 9 while my dad was being treated in room 1. Bram responded really well to the fluids and started feeling better after only a 200 ml drip. My dad, however, needed to be admitted. He was released after three days but still needed a few more days to truly feel better. He is now fully recovered.
Two weeks later and spring break has arrived - just when we needed it most. Hooray!
Bram and I are really enjoying our time off from school. We just acquired a new dog/puppy today. She is ADORABLE. For those of you who may not have known, we took in a beautiful little puppy when we moved into our new house. We found him wandering the neighborhood street and had no luck finding his owner. We took him in and planned on keeping him. Unfortunately, he kept getting bigger and bigger. The vet told us that he was part Australian Shepherd. Apparently, he was also part Great Wooly Mammoth.
During the course of his puppyhood, Sully managed to do hundreds of dollars worth of damage around the house. Still, we knew it was a puppy phase and figured we could ride out the storm. Unfortunately, he just kept getting bigger and bigger. He was really too big for Bram and just too big for our house in general. We were keeping him penned up too much. I finally decided we needed to find him a new home that was prepared to take in a BIG dog and train him properly. We finally found him a home this weekend. Bram took the whole thing in stride. He had wanted Sully when he was a puppy, but had never really been able to play with him because Sully was so big he would knock Bram down. I had promised Bram we would get a smaller dog once we placed Sully with a family.
Well, yesterday, we found our new dog. She is a beautiful nine-month-old, spayed, obedience trained, housebroken (supposedly), pug/boxer mix. She is 21 pounds and about the height of our coffee table. She also looks like a larger version of our chihuahua/pug, Boo. We picked her up yesterday after Bram's procedure at Children's. Bram wants to call her Chewie (short for Chewbacca).
And that brings us to Bram's procedure at Children's yesterday. We arrived a little before 8:00 a.m. I had had a whopping one hour of sleep. Insomnia hit me hard Sunday night. A tear jerker movie threw my brain into worry overdrive and would not let me sleep. I let my fears about Bram's future overcome me. It's something that hits me once in a while, and when it does, I just have to ride it out. I'm all better now.
When we arrived, Bram had to have an IV placed in his hand. I was concerned because the IV placement at the Greenville hospital two weeks earlier had not been easy. After getting a vein finder (I forget the actual name of the special light used to help the nurse find the vein), the nurse still ended up having to move the needle back and forth under Bram's skin. It seemed to take her forever to "find" the vein. Bram did really well, but it hurt quite a bit.
Luckily, Children's is a completely different ball game when it comes to placing IVs in children. First of all, they used a J-Tip to numb the skin. It's a little air-powered device that shoots a numbing agent into the skin. After they used the J-Tip, I distracted Bram by showing him a light display out the window and across the interstate. We identified the changing colors of the display until the nurse was done. Bram didn't even realize that she had started placing the IV. He hadn't felt a thing. Hooray!
They administered the two drugs that were supposed to stimulate HGH production. One of them was L-Dopamine that can upset the stomach. I had asked for Phenergan for Bram. The nurse got the doctor to order it but wanted to wait to see if Bram would need it. Now, when Bram was going through treatment, this wouldn't have flown with me, but we've been out of treatment for almost three years now. I also had no experience with and consequently no expectation of the side effects of L-Dopamine. I didn't push the issue and just repeatedly asked Bram how he was feeling. He made it through the first 90 minutes or so with no problem.
Suddenly, he said he didn't feel well and immediately began throwing up. The nurse had left NOTHING for him to throw up into so he ended up throwing up on himself. Since the hospital had ordered nothing but water after midnight, poor Bram had nothing but stomach bile to throw up. I called the nurse but she was nowhere to be seen. I called out again, louder. Still nothing. She finally showed up TOO LATE with a container. I was a little upset. I took Bram to the bathroom to clean him up. I had to take off his pants and rinse them out. He was upset because he was stuck walking around in his underwear. I asked the nurse for some pants, but she said that they didn't have any. Now, we're regular visitors to the Pavillion at Children's Medical Center. I was well aware that there was an abundance of hospital pants in the building, if not in her actual department. I got Bram settled back into his chair and watching his movie. I then went downstairs to the lobby to explain what had happened so that I could get some patient pants. Having succeeded in my quest, I returned upstairs and put Bram in the hospital pants.
The nurse then told me that she had given Bram his Phenergan. I'm pretty sure the look I gave her was less than complimentary. I mean, he had already thrown up. The Phenergan was ordered so that he WOULDN'T throw up. I'm not sure he really needed it anymore, but maybe it kept him from throwing up again. As usual, it made him very groggy. We made it through the rest of the growth hormone study and headed out.
I made sure and thanked the nurses for everything, for despite the Phenergan fiasco, the day had gone rather smoothly. I was extremely pleased with the way they had placed and removed Bram's IV. The procedure was over, and Bram and I were on our way to pick up our new dog.
We stopped for some lunch at a little Greek restaurant in Carrollton. It has become our custom to get a gyro whenever we go to Dallas for a Children's appointment. Bram really loves them (as do I). We normally got to Kosta's, but since the puppy was in Lewisville, I had located a Greek restaurant in Carrollton. The gyro was pretty good, but I still have to say that Kosta's has the best gyro sandwiches in DFW. Anyway, Bram ate some much needed food and then we headed up to Lewisville.
We met the little dog and fell in love with her. After picking up the dog from Lewisville, we began the long drive home. The dog's previous owner said that she did great in the car, and she did - for the first 45 minutes, but Lewisville to Greenville is a long drive. Bram, who had fallen asleep in his car seat, suddenly called out, "Hey!" I looked back and saw him looking at his arm and pointing to the dog. I thought the dog had simply licked him and woken him up. It turned out that the dog had thrown up on him. Poor Bram. First he throws up on himself and then the dog throws up on him - all in one day. Luckily, it was just a treat that the dog had recently eaten, so it wasn't completely disgusting. I pulled over, cleaned up the mess, and moved the dog up to the front seat with me.
The remainder of our trip was uneventful. We made it home and introduced the new dog to Boo. At first, she wasn't super excited about the intruder to her domain, but she now seems to be accepting Chewie. She even seemed tempted to play with her at one point. I think she's going to warm up to Chewie, and they'll become fast friends.
Well, that's about it for the update. I'll try and update more frequently so that the entries are shorter. I'll be sure to update the blog as soon as we get the results from the HGH study.
As always, thank you for your prayers and support.
Alayne (Bram's Mom)
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