More Drugs, Less Clowns Please

Maggie is doing much better today. Thank you for praying. Yesterday she was in rough shape. I told my mom that it's different when you are watching your baby in the NICU because they are so small they don't really cry or show much pain. Yesterday was much harder. Maggie looked at me in tears as if to say, Help me!" It just broke our hearts to see her hurting.

The only hiccups we've had is that yesterday the NP was really hesitant to give her morphine because of her lung issues, but I kept insisting that she was in pain and needed more than Tylenol and ibuprofen. (They gave her codeine in the recovery room but the rest of the afternoon was just the Tylenol and ibuprofen.) I'm sorry, I know I am not a doctor, but if I had stomach surgery I think I would need more than over-the-counter meds. The child was screaming all day and the NP kept insisting it was just her waking up from anesthesia. Maybe so, but I know my own child and I have learned to trust my instincts and they were right on this one (with a little encouragement from my doc sis-in-law). By four pm I guess I had harassed them enough that they started giving her morphine every two hours and when the surgeon came in this morning he couldn't believe they didn't give her any all day yesterday. So that was upsetting to say the least. But she's happy now and I'm glad that all our hospital experiences have taught us to really stick up for your child, even if you get push back from the staff. Because in the end we were right - she needed more meds. And she was much happier for it!

Second, and this is kind of funny and tragic at the same time, after we met with the surgeon post operation, we were sent back in to the waiting room until we would be called back to Maggie's room. They said it might take 30 minutes or so. But an hour passed and I got nervous and Justin went and asked the person at the desk what was going on. They called up to recovery who told them Maggie had been awake for 20 minutes screaming. They said they sent someone down but since there wasn't any staff at the desk, they didn't call for us. So we rush up to the recovery room and find Maggie writhing in pain. And to make matters worse, standing over this poor baby was none other than the resident hospital clown , who was making silly faces and singing loudly in an attempt to calm her down. I mean, seriously? You can go find the clown but you can't find her parents who are sitting in the waiting room with baited breath? Oh well. If in a few years Maggie screams horrifically at the sight of a clown, we will all know why...

Besides that, this is a wonderful hospital, I promise. Our hospital expereinces have also taught us that there are incompetent people at every hospital and that they shouldn't take away from the really wonderful and talented people that do work there. We have had great nurses and the NP (nurse practitioner) is much better today. Everything is so extremely organized and coordinated which of course I like. They have these wound ostomy nurses that come teach us how to care for her button and how to feed her. And we are very blessed that God led us to such a respected pediatric surgeon. If anyone ever needs a general surgeon for their child, Dr. Murphy is incredible. I can't tell you how many people have told us how great it is that he was our surgeon.

We are near the Troy Aikman wing where there is a huge playroom with video games and Foosball, and a whole hallway of all this Dallas Cowboy memorabilia. Mary Lawrence would love it all but she's in Little Rock all week with her grandparents. And there are these volunteers (mostly endearing old ladies) who come ask you what your needs are and push around a toy cart and hand out toys and activities to the older children. It's really neat to see what all they have going on here and how they serve the families who are going through difficult times. As much as I have an aversion to hospitals, I am so thankful that they are so wonderful to my child.

I took this video a few hours ago - you can see she is feeling much better. She learned how to wave "Bye Bye" last week so she likes to do it all time. I don't want to be an obnoxious mother who thinks every little thing her child does makes him or her a genius, but I can't help being so proud of her. A milestone so insignificant to most is so huge to us: