Month: November 2014

Last night we had a call from Dr. C. He said that the hospital didn’t have enough beds, so we would postpone my first surgery unless he could find a different bed for me. And I was like, “well, why not just put me in a regular room?” And Mom was like, “because they have to monitor you after surgery given what they are doing.” In my mind, I really wish that some miracle would happen to some sick kid so that I could just have a bed in the ICU.

So this morning I got up early at 6:45 am just for the heck of it. Mom was like, “why are you up so early?” And I was like, “just cuz.” I wanted breakfast SOOOO badly, but I couldn’t have anything after midnight last night, just in case it happened today. I’m still REALLY hungry, but I’m sucking it up. Or trying to.

-Titanium Girl

Well, today was _supposed_ to be game day… The day our little girl went in for her scoliosis surgery and started on the path to becoming Titanium Girl. The first surgery was supposed to be at 8 (It’ll be easy, they said. Just come down to the hospital, they said) today, November 10th.

The first call came a couple weeks ago, where the surgeon had another procedure to help someone else, and they needed to push us back to 11am. We weren’t happy, but hey, we managed to push the envelope on things because we really really needed it, so who were we to complain when someone needed to push us back a little bit because they really really needed help?

The second call came last week — the thorasic surgeon also had a schedule conflict, and wouldn’t be available until 1230. Ok… if there was a bright side to all of this, we wouldn’t need to even be at the hospital until 11… we could get boy child on the bus in the morning, do the pre-op scrubdown in the morning, take a little bit of extra time, and not be bleary eyed at 4am.

Then the call came in tonight. The surgeon called us personally. The hospital did not have an ICU bed for girl child, and the surgery tomorrow (today?) was in jeopardy. DW could tell from the sound of his voice he was flat flying PISSED about the situation. He readily admitted he had shared some very unkind feedback with the administration of the hospital, since this had been planned for months, and lots of us had rearranged our lives around this moment.

DW has had contact with some folks who are currently at the hospital, one of whom works there. It sounds like the hospital is completely overrun with flu and the D68 enterovirus that’s kicking the crap out of kids in a big way. There’s kids in the ER that can’t get a room in the pediatric ICU. It’s seriously backed up, to the point where they may not be able to squeeze us in.

At this point, we’re fully expecting that tomorrow will be waved off, and we can only hope to get the first surgery in on Tuesday. That’ll at least keep everything on plan. Past that, and the second and third surgeries will need to be pushed back as well, which will be bad, bad news. Even that isn’t a guarantee… from the sounds of it, it’s going to be a little bit of time before the hospital starts breaking free… especially given it’s that time of year, and kids are getting sick early and often.

So, we’re on hold, pending a call this morning. Tomorrow morning should be interesting.