The Tentatively Happy Ending

This is the final chapter in our tale. At least until next week, when we head back for the recheck. Again, if you haven’t checked around the house for button batteries that aren’t secure, please, please, please go and do it now. Our story has a happy ending so far, but a quick Google search will show you that every story of children who accidentally swallow button batteries does not end so well.

Later in the afternoon, we get to have our first check to be sure that there’s no air in D’s chest, which would clue us in to there being a perforation. The resident told me earlier in the day that if that was clear, they’d start him on liquids, then soft foods, in preparation to go home. By this point, I was starving because I didn’t want to eat in front of him and couldn’t leave him and he wanted something to drink more than anything in the world. The tech told me before we left the room that she couldn’t see anything that looked like air, but the doctors would have to verify to be sure. I was waiting on pins and needles, hoping to be able to give my poor little man a sip of something for his sore little throat.

A couple of hours (yeah, I said hours) later, a new resident comes in to let me know that the xray was clear, but they decided that they want to hold off and do a barium swallow in the morning just to err on the side of caution. So no drinks, no food until he has that done. Great. One of the aides came in and asked if I’d eaten and shooed me out of the room to the cafeteria, promising to watch him like a hawk while I took a break. I stumbled downstairs, found the gift shop and bought him a stuffed Blue’s Clues puppy, then ate a few bites of a chicken sandwich in the cafeteria. I went back upstairs and resumed my post.

I brought myself back a large cup of iced tea to sip through the evening, hiding it behind the curtain, so as not to tempt D with it. Of course, he caught me taking a drink and ended up in hysterics. Just about that time, one of the nurses came in to do vitals and finds the both of us just sobbing all over each other. He was thirsty and confused and upset, while I had simply just broken down. The events of the past 36 hours had just taken their toll and with only about an hour of broken sleep under my belt, it all got to be too much. She called in the GI on-call, to see if there was anything he could do to make the two of us more comfortable, but he couldn’t get the head doctors to change anything and I was a bit beyond consolation due to simply being overwhelmed and exhausted. I think by the time he left, we were all feeling a bit defeated. Eventually, we both settled down and got things back under control.

D had slept quite a bit through the afternoon, so he was wide awake and kinda bored. Dupont has touch screen TV/Computer combos at every bed, so I set him up to play some games online. The kid was a natural. Seriously, he was cruising the web like a pro, to the point the nurses were commenting when they came in to check on him. Yeah, he’s mine, what can I say. I gave him a little sponge bath and turned on Cars again for him and he settled down to sleep for the night, while I tried to get comfortable on the horrendous pull out chair thingy. Once I heard his soft, baby snoring, my body relaxed a bit and I cried myself to sleep.

My peaceful slumber was broken at about 5 AM when we got roommates. These were better than the last set, for sure, though this poor little guy couldn’t seem to keep his IV straight and kept spouting blood all over the place. His mother was pleasant and we chatted a few times throughout the day.

When the residents came around for the morning rounds, ours cheerfully told us that if his swallow went well, he’d eat in the afternoon and go home in the evening. I jumped on the phone and told Adrian to hurry on up, thinking he’d have K in tow. Thankfully, when he walked through the door, he was alone. He’d kept AJ home from school to stay with K, just in case we took a little longer than expected. That’s all we’d need is a bored 4 year old added to the mix. He’d brought me a change of clothes, so I could finally get out of what I’d been wearing for 48 hours straight. I’ve never in my life been so happy to see that man’s face.

I showered, changed and went to the cafeteria to eat, then came back to wait for them to take us down for the barium swallow. When the nurse came in for the 2 o’clock vitals check, I asked what was going on and she informs me that it was scheduled for 4. Umm…what happened to “in the morning?” Ok, whatever. At a little after 4, they come in to take him down for the procedure. Now most people kinda gag at the stuff you have to drink for a barium swallow, but not D. The poor guy was so thirsty, we had to tear the cup away after they’d gotten each image. He actually cried for more when they were done.

Now I had no idea what I was looking for, but I was staring on that screen the whole time they did the swallow, searching for any signs of a leak. Again, they said that it looked good to them, but had to wait for the doctors to review it. *sigh* Here we go again. Back to the room we headed, hoping and praying that we’d be leaving that night.

Around 5, the resident stops in to cheerfully tell me that it looked good, he could start drinking and she’d be back with the head doctor dude in a bit. I’m thinking GREAT! We’re outta here. I’m all happy and smiling and ready to leave. About an hour passes and the resident returns, but this time she has Dr Doom with her and a slightly less cheerful look on her face. We want to wait until morning before we let him go. He can have soft food and liquids tonight, but we want to make sure that he can swallow properly and keep them down. There went the wind out of my sails.

So it’s after 7 o’clock, we’re here and it’s a 2+ hour drive home and back in the morning for A. And quite frankly, I don’t want to be alone again. So I did what any self-respecting mother would do in that situation. I sobbed and begged him to stay. AJ is 15 and babysat his mom’s 4 kids overnight several times, my dad and brother are a phone call and a few minutes drive away. K would be asleep by the time he’d get home anyway and wouldn’t be up by the time he had to leave to come back in the morning. In ordinary circumstances, I’d not have left AJ alone with him all night, but these were far from ordinary circumstances.

So we all ate, slept, got another middle of the night roommate. And in the morning, we get told by the weekend head GI doc that if he eats well, we can be discharged. GREAT! Wonderful! Only, the list of things he WILL eat off the list of things that he CAN eat? Oh, this won’t be good. As I suspected, nothing that I ordered him was anything he wanted to eat. He wanted MY breakfast. So we called the resident back in and I got permission to feed him miniscule pieces of my sausage and pancakes and some cut up blueberries.

Now we wait for discharge papers. In the meantime, I headed back down to the gift shop and came back with massive Thomas the Tank Engine and Spongebob balloons. Those were a huge hit, except for the fact that I didn’t think about having to fit them in the car on the way home…whoops! We almost lost them when we opened the trunk. Finally, at a little after noon, the nurses come in with the discharge papers giving me instructions on how D should eat, what meds he needs to take and MY favorite – the orders to call on Monday to schedule a repeat endoscopy in a month to check for stricture.

It’s been a difficult few weeks since, then. D has slowly been able to add regular foods back into his diet and he doesn’t seem to be showing any signs of stricture (to me, at least). He’s still taking Prevacid daily, to keep him from getting reflux that could do any damage to the burned area and now, on the 23^rd, we go back for the curtain call. And pray that this is the end of the most nightmarish time in our entire lives.