Intercept What?

It started out as a normal Monday.  Jordan woke up, had some milk, some oatmeal, played a bit and then took his morning nap.  Andy got a nice text message telling him to come in on Tuesday instead, so he stuck around (tender mercy).  I did some work for BlueSky.  Andy did some p90x.  My mom invited us to Tokyo Wako with the my extended uncles, aunts and cousins who are in town from Taiwan.  Jordan woke up.  We got ready to go.  And here's where it all went sour.

I know it's common to blame a misbehaved child on lack of sleep or hunger.  Likewise, Jordan is never unhappy when he wakes up.  He usually can't wait to eat and play.  But this was different.

He didn't want the bottle.  He cried when I tried to feed him his favorite little fishy Chinese rice and carrots (that my mom makes for him).  He whimpered when I changed him.  And then he started arching his back.  Erratically jerking around.  Screaming vehemently.  I didn't know what was wrong, and when I put him in front of his table top toy, he fell to a sitting position and continued to cry in pain.  Something was wrong.  That much I knew.  I called my mom to tell her we wouldn't make it to lunch.  Meanwhile, Andy told me to call the doctor.

When your husband is a medical student... you listen to what he says with a grain of salt.  Most of the time, he has no idea what's wrong and will tell you to just go see a doctor.  When he says in a stern voice to call the doctor now you know something is not right.  It was 12:15 PM, the doctors were at lunch until 1:30 PM, did I want the doctor paged for me?  All of a sudden, Jordan was vomiting.  Projectile. Chunks.  of.  oatmeal.  Still screaming.  And then tired.  Dozing off.  Lethargic.  Barely there.

At this point, Andy was yelling at me to get dressed to go.  He grabbed some oil and gave Jordan a blessing and told me, we were going to the doctor's right that moment.  He kept patting Jordan's face, repeating his name over and over as Jordan looked like all he wanted to do was sleep.  Jordan!  Jordan!  Jordan!  That's all I remember hearing as we raced out the door and to the elevator.  And before the elevator even got called, he told me to dial 911.  At some point, I heard him say Jordan wasn't breathing.  It's all a blur of slow motion now.

We got downstairs and Jordan opened his eyes slowly, only to vomit again.  The 911 operator was asking me where I lived, telling me to stay calm, Andy was repeating Jordan's name over and over, and all I could think was... what if Andy wasn't home?!  I made a silent commitment to take a CPR and first aid class after all this was done.  What if Andy had to work today?!  


Do we stay in the lobby?  Walk out to the parking lot?  Andy, what do we do?  Where do we go?  Is he going to be okay? 

The next thing I knew, the fire truck pulled up to us as I motioned to them that this was for us.  They asked some questions, and we began recounting the events' that we would then repeat over and over again to every nurse, doctor, and technician we ran into.  The ambulance came.  He vomited some more.  Jordan's doctor called me back.  She listened to me repeat the playback and suggested we go to the ER.  Andy, unsure if he'd stop breathing, decided to ride in the ambulance with him to the ER.  I drove the van.  Off to the ER we went.

After some more vomiting of bile and interjected screams of pain between short naps, they told us he might have an intussusception.  That means his intestines in his bowels have turned into a telescope on itself as seen here:

Andy went over the options with me and told me he thought they might be able to inject barium into his body with an enema (in other words, for us non-medical field folk, putting this small tube up his butt to get the colored air up there so they can see it on the screen with an x-ray).  If that didn't work... he'd have to have surgery, which would freak me out.  We waited.  And waited.

And finally they took him for an ultrasound.  They put jelly on his stomach and I told him that's what they did when he was inside of mommy's stomach.  He didn't seem to understand.  After they finished a brutally long ultrasound, he vomited again.  We tucked away the towel with the vomit so we could show the ER nurse.  

And then we waited some more.  And some more. Andy had a good feeling it was what they said.  The intercept whatever you call it.  And after a couple more hours, they came to tell us it indeed was.  

We waited some more for the procedure to be done.

And finally they took him for the barium enema.  A radiologist did it (which was neat to me since that's the specialty Andy is going into) and I sat nearby and took photos of the screen.  

After the process was completed, Jordan was admitted into the pediatric wing.  A nurse gave him a happy face orange ball as we were walking over, and he loved it.  That and his little jail crib.  He could not sit still.  Climb over here.  Grab something there.  Pull up.  Sit down.  Crawl around.  We didn't have confirmation from any professionals yet, but we could already tell the procedure worked.

I went home to collect some stuff, came back and poor Jordan had an IV on his left hand.  For anyone who's had a kid, IVs HURT.  My heart ached a little but I was glad I didn't have to hold his hand (thank you hubs) while they inserted the fat needle.  It looked like a little cast and he loved banging it on things to make noise.  He couldn't eat anything in case the intestines weren't completely separated and he needed a more invasive procedure... so he had to wait until 10 PM (that's 12 hours!) for 3 ounces of formula.  To distract him, we facetimed with Andy's sister and parents, called my mom and listened to many of the Church's Children's Songs.  He wanted more food so badly... but we couldn't give him anymore until 12 AM.  And then we only gave him 5 more ounces.  

The night shift began after 11:30 PM.  That's when Andy went home since he had class this morning.  It was absolutely dreadful.  It's not that the sofa bed was uncomfortable, because it actually wasn't bad (and we brought our own blankets).  It was the fact that I had to listen to muffled cries and screams from other children all throughout the night.  It was a bittersweet feeling to know my own son was sound asleep and on the road to recovery while hearing the moans and whimpers not too far away.  

He slept through the night with a few murmured groans, but I woke up everytime someone came in to take his vitals and sporadically in between to make sure he was still breathing.  

In the morning, he had enough.  He wanted out and to crawl around and eat.  Since I couldn't let him crawl on the hospital floor, he cried in rebellion.  

 But I thought he was pretty cute with his little IV arm.  

At one point, he fell asleep and so did I... but he woke up due to some poop and started to bang the IV stand against the crib to get my attention.  Smart boy!  

They monitored him for half a day before we were allowed to leave.  What an experience.  I am grateful for so many things from today.    

I'm grateful my husband has the priesthood and was able to bless him before we left.  

I'm grateful for tender mercies and Andy staying home from work on Monday instead of Tuesday (also his doctor texted him to come in Wednesday instead because he had meetings all Tuesday afternoon).  

I'm grateful for our insurance which is no longer high deductible.  Bring it on ambulance costs.  

I'm grateful for the power of prayer, as I know many prayers were said for Jordan and for us.  

I'm grateful for the flexibility of my other job, which allowed me to still get my work done despite being in the hospital for the last day and a half.  

I'm grateful for Andy's medical training which expedited our trip to the hospital.

I'm grateful for the spirit which guided and calmed us.  

I'm grateful for Jordan not knowing what was on his arm and treating it as a new toy instead.  

I'm grateful he's sleeping soundly and that his intestines are a-okay now.  

I'm grateful for tubes that go up butts to help spread telescoped intestines.