Good to be Home

In the last post I was worried about Susannah being sedated for her MRI. It turned out that it was the most merciful part of the whole day.

On Tuesday our appointment was at 3 p.m. and I wasn't allowed to feed her after 10:30 am. (I could give her apple juice until 12:30 pm but guess who doesn't like apple juice?) It was pretty awful but Susannah--although looking very bewildered--held it together.

It got a whole lot worse when they finally called our name at 3:45 pm. One of the doctors felt she needed to be observed overnight in the hospital and wouldn't start the MRI until the paperwork to get her on the pediatric floor had been completed. We were told this would be an outpatient procedure so obviously somewhere someone screwed up. I'm crying, Susannah's really crying, even Ben is on the verge of tears and having pointed discussions with the NYU staff. (The word unacceptable was used several times at rising decibels.) Finally at 4:30 pm the paperwork is finished and they start the MRI by putting a little mask over Susannah's yelping mouth to put her to sleep. We couldn't see her again for two hours.

I don't know if I can describe to you what it is like to see your baby coming off an anesthesia. She looked so lifeless.... I really don't want to go into it. After about 10 minutes she woke up and I got to nurse her. She ate well, which was not easy considering that the heart monitor, catheter and iv were all still attached.

Luckily all that was removed once we got upstairs to the pediatric wing. It was a miserable room we were in with three other patients, one of whom was at least 16 years old and would moan I'm in pain, I'm in pain, every two hours, which would send in the nurses who turned on the lights which woke everyone else up. Ben left about 10 pm and I slept on a fold-out chair next to her crib. The one positive thing I have to say is that we had a nice view of the East River and the top of the Chrysler building.

The good thing is that Susannah woke up to feed every 2-3 hours, so she was hydrated enough this morning to be discharged. We got home about 10 am and have since been much happier. She was a little sleepy and grouchy today but otherwise is terrific.

We hope to talk to our urologist Thursday to review the MRI results and make a plan for the next step, which will probably be a surgery on her left kidney.

We hesitate to post this photo, but it is a fairly accurate representation of what little schnookums endured. She is a tough cookie, tougher than her moms that is for sure.














And here's a little reminder of what she's like the other 99.98 percent of the time.