Will's Week in the Hospital

Tuesday should have been a blue-skied, sunny day complete with singing birds. But apparently the weather didn't get the news that our little William was coming home from the hospital at last. So, after a week of dealing with my son being in the hospital, I joyfully drove him home under gray skies. What had started as a cold and pink eye somehow turned into bacterial pneumonia and a lung abscess, going undiagnosed over the Thanksgiving holiday as we took Will to Urgent One instead of his regular doctor whose office was closed.

When we were able to see Will's pediatrician, I was stunned and terrified that our "baby" had to go to the hospital. And he was so pitiful going through everything - not feeling well and not understanding what was going on. It's so hard to have your little one screaming your name while you vainly try to comfort and reassure him. It tears a parent up inside. Many tears were shed by all of us over the course of the week. Will was hooked up to an IV for fluids and antibiotics, and had his blood oxygen levels monitored on his toe. He had blood tested and x-rays taken. On the fourth day (Sunday) he had minor surgery to place a central line/port in his chest so we could take him home but still administer antibiotics by IV four times a day. He went through the surgery very well, and by Tuesday afternoon, he was fever-free and ready to go home.

Now we are dealing with giving him the antibiotics every six hours around the clock... flush the line, hook up medication, run the pump for 30 minutes, flush the line again with saline solution and then with a blood thinner to prevent the port from clotting up. It is easy, but also nerve-wracking when you consider all the things that could go wrong if we mess it up (though there is a nurse on call 24 hours a day for us). This treatment will continue for four to six weeks in order to clear out the abscess completely. Will now manages to sleep through the midnight medication, but protests the most at the morning dose when we have to wake him up. Other than taking the antibiotics, Will is behaving like his normal impish, happy little self again, which of course is a joy to see.

It's funny, as a parent, how you know you love your kids and you take care of them and do what you need to do. But then something like this happens where you can actually imagine the worst case scenario and you feel helpless because you can't control anything, and then you really know - and are terrified by - the depth of your love for this little person. How devastating it would be to lose them. Thanks be to God for His provision of good doctors and medication and the wonders of modern medicine and the workings of the human body.