J Today-3/12/10

We had a new nurse named Karen come today. Apparently, she's the expert. Lisa, the person who comes from Child Life at Cook's, has been requesting Karen be scheduled to start the IV. We were very happy with her. She used the LMX cream to numb two different sites before she started the IV. Through all of this, we have had conflicting information about the numbing cream. The nurse who has started J's IV does not like to use it, b/c she said that it "makes the veins disappear". I guess Cook's Hospital has a new pain mgt. policy where it's standard procedure to use the cream for every IV stick. Because of this, those nurses are accostumed to using it. However, Cook's Home Health does not have this policy, so the nurses are not convinced about how it makes the process much simpler. We are definite believers after our experience today. Karen got the IV in one stick with absolutely no drama. It also helped that Lisa brought her new I-touch for J to entertain himself with throughout the infusion. He was almost completely oblivious to everything that was going on. :) We were glad for that.

This has been extremely tough on all of us. My stomach has been in knots all day. It is just now finally relaxing, and it's been 2 hours since she got the IV started. I think J was experiencing the same thing. Ugh. I think I'm a much bigger baby than I ever thought I was. Seriously, when this whole process started, I thought I was really good at handling tough times. It's not like Paul and I haven't gone through some extremely tough times during our marriage-not b/w the two of us but in circumstances outside of our control. I've always been able to "manage" my emotions, leaning on the Lord through it all, but definitely keeping it together. This has been an entirely differnet situation all together. I'm still leaning on the Lord, of course, but my need to do it is so much greater. I can't get through this without His help and Paul being such an amazing husband and father. The Lord has blessed us with one another and has also given us such a fantastic kiddo in J. The nurses keep talking about what a "dream patient" he is. He really is. Today his teacher sent me an email about his strength and faith and how he was talking about it with her in such a confident way. The school nurse also loves J, watching how he handles all of it, talking about the details of what he's facing. I'm so proud of him. He's so much stronger than I am through all of us. Like I've said before, I'm pretty much a wreck! :) Thankfully, God loves us "wrecks" completely, filling in the gaps where we are lacking.

Signing off for today. Honestly, I'm praying that I don't need to do another post until Monday after our appt. with the rheumatologists.