Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Little J-Bean Goes to the Hospital or Too Much Doctor Time for the Brighams



If only curious George were here to keep her company. Our little Josephine the Bean (J. Bean for short) has a non-functional kidney draining system on her right side. Some day I will write the details of this crummy condition in a post that will be titled 22 lbs (it's 70% written in my mind already). But today I don't have the energy for that. Suffice it to say that Josie has more medical intervention planned in the next ten months of her life than Mitch, Lucy, or I have had in our entire time here on Earth.

Unfortunately the hospital shenanigans started this weekend with a kidney infection and a trip to the UCLA med center emergency room. Josie and I have been hanging out here in the UCLA pediatrics ward having a good old time (NOT), ever since. Josie has an endoscopic surgery to puncture her ureterocele scheduled for sometime tomorrow. Grandma Jo is arriving into LAX as we speak to provide general assistance and Lucy wrangling. Yay Grandma Jo!! Big thanks to Grandma Jo for leaving the peace and tranquility of her home in Colorado to enter the craze of southern California. Big thanks to Grandpa Jim for loaning us Grandma Jo.

Lucy had her first visit to Josie and I at the hospital today. She had a great time riding a tricycle up and down the hall and pushing a doll in a doll-sized wheelchair. Josie is currently napping and is blissfully unaware that she will soon be having yet another venipuncture since the freaking surgeons and the pediatricians can't get their games together enough to figure out how much blood, and for what tests, they are all going to want together. Instead, we get to have a venipuncture for the pediatricians at 2:3o and a venipuncture for the surgeons at 5:00.

In addition to all of this wonderfulness, my good old Dad is going to see a radiologist on Wednesday (same day as Josie's surgery) to see about his radiation needs. So we Brighams are pretty much not feeling the medical intervention love these days. I mean, in a way we are. We'd rather be here than dead but really, we'd rather be eating ice cream on our sofa watching a bad action adventure film. So in the grand mood ring of life, we're currently somewhere between blissfully happy and mired in misery.

Josie is holding up like a champ and thankfully she won't remember any of this. We walk the hospital halls together, her in the baby bjorn, me in my dirty clothes and dirty hair. And Josie smiles at all the people we go by and they can't believe that she is a patient here because she looks so healthy (except for that I.V. coming out of her foot that, by the way, took 6 tries and 3 blown out veins to put in).

So just in case any of you were wondering if my posting on a Tuesday at 3 PM indicated that I was violating my no posting at work rule, you can rest easy knowing that I am not, in fact, at work.

Good luck tomorrow Grandpa Tom and Little J. Bean. Your mom and dad (or daughter and son-in-law), curious George, and countless others are all thinking of you.

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