Our first full day in the hospital, was so hectic there were twelve people including us in our tiny room, I think the nurses would have kicked out some of our visitors if not for the fact my sister bought two of those party packs from Rubios. OMG so good. Everybody wanted to be there for us, my sister got to the hospital at seven that morning after driving three hours from her house, my other Bestie drove two hours. I am so happy my twin sister was already in California, because my mom was having part of her thyroid removed in four days, so she was able to be with us; she even extended her stay by another week to be with Gage.
Those first few days are still such a blur to me, I think it was on our second day in the hospital Gage was scheduled for a bone marrow retrieval. Because of Gage’s platelet count was so low (normal is 125,000-300,000 Gage was 8, yes, I mean 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 no more) they could only numb the area they were going to take the marrow from, no pain medication or putting him under. I can still hear him screaming from the treatment room, which was on the other side of the pediatric unit, with the door closed. I don’t know how the Hubs was able to be in the room holding him down. I guess one of the attending nurses had to leave the room, it’s hard watching a baby go through all that, even for the professionals.
Those first days were oddly normal, other then the fact Gage was walking around with an IV sticking out of his arm, we played in the playroom, walked laps around the pediatric unit Gage riding along in a wagon, or driving the Little Tykes cars (he loved that) it wasn’t long before the nurses fell in love with him
We spent those days waiting, waiting for news from the doctors, waiting for lab results, waiting to wake up from the nightmare we found ourselves in. Finally on Friday we were going to have surgery to have a portacath implanted on the right side of Gages body under his on kind of on his ribs. The pre-op people came and took Gage down to the pre-op (obviously) waiting room, we sat there for an hour with Gage, talking to him holding him, petting his head and giving him kisses; I must have told him I loved him a hundred times in that hour. Finally when they took him, I could not hold back my tears and I quietly cried as they wheeled him to the operating room with all of his stuffed animals to watch over him and make sure everything goes alright. After about two hours the doctors came out looking all happy to say everything went perfect and we could see Gage now.
playing in the playroom before surgery
Gage after the first port surgery
Love Heals Gage 