Halloween at the Hospital

Well, Caden started coughing at the end of our Destin mini-vacation, but we just thought it was a cold. He came home from school on Monday with a fever. We took him to our pediatrician and he was borderline with his oxygen levels. Our pediatrician let us go home because coincidentally, we had a follow up appointment with the pulmonologist we had been seeing at Shands the next day. So...we loaded up the car and went to our appointment. Needless to say, the doctor would not let us go home - Caden had pneumonia again and his oxygen levels had dropped dramatically since the day before. We were very unprepared! He was really acting kind of normal, but that could have been as a result of the steroids our pediatrician put him on. So, Caden and Mommy checked in to Shands at about 7pm and Daddy went home to get clothes and take care of the dogs.

We checked in to a regular pediatric room, but a few hours had passed and his breathing was pretty labored and he had constant wheezing, so off to the pediatric ICU we went. And pretty much stayed there for the next six days. Poor little guy seems to get hospitalized around holidays...if you remember, he spent his first thanksgiving there and we spent Valentine's day of this year there.

Aunt Jen, Nana, Kaley, and Mommy's friend, Terri, all came over to visit us Saturday so daddy could go home and get some more supplies as we were running out of clothes and other things. Luckily there was a washing machine and dryer there for families to use, but it was getting old...And special thanks to Uncle Andy and Aunt Marilyn for bringing us dinner one night, because hospital food was getting really old, too.

On Halloween morning, our nurse, Monica, came in dressed like a bumblebee. It wasn't before too long that Caden wanted her costume instead of his...

From 2011_10_30

Then, she was determined that he needed a good bath before we went to Halloween Party down on the pediatric floor...and he really did need one! All of our potty training went out the window with this hospital stay. The doctors said it was normal. He refused to get out of bed and use the potty, so he stayed in pull-ups. Notice that his dinosaur and his tiger were also getting a bath...

From Collages

Then he put on his costume. He was the cutest T-rex. That day was really the first day he had really gotten up and walked around, so he was roaring at all the nurses in the ICU. Then we went for a wagon ride with all of his equipment down to the Halloween Party.

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(That's a T-rex footprint on his head)

Finally, after six days in ICU, they moved us down to a regular floor. They had tried to move us before and we ended up back in ICU a few hours later, so they were leary of moving us back down.

It really is a world of difference at a pediatric hospital - they had dinosaur bandages to wrap his IV port in, and then delivered art supplies to our room since we had to wear a mask anytime we were out of the room.

From 2011_10_31

The paints kept him entertained the last few days...well, that and watching Cars 2 15 times in a row.

He was not a fan of the nurses when they first came in. Always shaking his head and saying no, but then he would always tell them thank you when they left. They all laughed and said what a polite little boy we had. We got to know quite a few of the respiratory therapists and nurses in our 9 day stay!