Keeping up with the Connaughton's: 12/4/12

The day I will never forget, for one it was Jacks 7 month bday and it was also the day that changed our life forever! As many of you know Jack was sick for about 3 weeks and we could not figure out why. First it was a cough, that led to breathing treatments, then it was ear infection, that led to amoxicillan, then what we thought was tummy aches from the drugs in his system. When the Doctor told me to give it 2 weeks and if was not back to himself then come back. Well this Mommy knew something was wrong and I gave it 2 days and went back and demanded tests. Dr. Sullivan said she would take blood, urine, and stool sample and we would go from there. She also wanted a lower sonogram done of his stomach. When we went to get that test done, the sonographer kept asking me if Jack pees.....uh duh! He said mam' his bladder is super full, are you sure? So after all the tests I was on my way home with Jack when I got a call from his doc telling me that Jack's kidneys were in bad shape and we needed to head to Texas Children's immediately.....I almost drove off the road, begin to cry and just was not able to process what was happening. I called Patrick and told him to get home, I called my mom and told her to pack up and head here.
We got home and started rushing to put bags together.....what do I need, what does jack need, oh my God........oh my God what is happening. Katie picked Kate up from school and Patrick and I drove to Theresa's ready to head out. We drove 85 miles an hour with our hazards on the entire 1 45 minutes to TCH. When we arrived I was a complete basket case......by the time we got back to a ER room the nurse literally had to tell me to calm the hell down. They had to run all the same tests....his kidney's were at 2.7 and they should be functioning at .2-.6 so as you can see it was not good. When they did the other sonogram they found that he had some kind of blockage which was not allowing his bladder to completely empty, so they decided to cath him so his bladder would empty. I can not tell you the reaction of the nurses when they did this......Jacks bag immediately filled up. Poor guy was going on 7 months like this. When it was emptied out he started smiling and just seemed so relaxed. You see for the past 3 weeks, Jack was not sleeping, not smiling and not eating. So seeing Jack smile and relaxed finally made my heart happy. He also got an IV to pump him full of liquids to hydrate.
By this time it was 3:00 am and we knew we were in here for the long haul, so we were waiting on a room. They did not know where to put us, thinking about ICU so he would have constant care due to his kidney function, but they ran blood and sure enough his levels went down to 2.1 so they decided just a regular room would be fine. By 5:00 am we got to floor 9 (cancer floor) since they did not have any room on the renal floor. They next morning we were greeted by 5 renal docs to discuss his kidneys and the damage they have received. They needed his levels to be anywhere from .2 to .6 to be in the normal range and he was at a 2.1 they would continue to check his levels every 6 hrs and then we were to see some docs from Urology to discuss what the next step would be. After what felt like days, one doc came to our room and said Jack would be having a test done to determine where the blockage was coming from, they just forgot to explain how hard this would be for me and patrick. At one point during the test I was laying on jack's upper half singing to him just trying to get him to be calm and still.....awful just awful. After the test they took out his cath and said when we get back to the room the nurses will put it back in.......little did we know it would take 4 people to get it back in and lots more pain and screaming for Jack. Needless to say Wednesday Dec 5th was a horrible day and we were all emotionally and physically exhausted. At one point during the day I had to leave the room and have Toni (Patrick's cousin) take over holding Jack down. After all of this they finally let Jack rest, and let us alone. Patrick and I just sat in the room in silence, wondering what was next for our baby boy. The nurse came in later that night and gave us some good news, his levels came down again to 1.7 which is still very very high but again it was dropping. God was answering prayers and we were beginning to feel enough peace so we could start to get some rest as well, but if you have ever been in the hospital, you know sleeping is never the best:)
Thursday we heard from Urology and they said his surgery was on the books for Tuesday, which again seemed like an eternity for us. By this point, Jack was stable, and happy and resting well and I missed Kate so much it hurt. So I decided to make the trek home and spend a little time with Kate. Theresa stayed with Jack. The next few days we saw Jack's numbers improve even more! By Tuesday morning, they were at a .6!!!! YEAH!! Still on the "high" normal, but the Docs were so excited and very optimistic for Jack's recovery. Tuesday morning, they came in at 7:00 to get Jack for surgery and by 9:30 he was in recovery. It had been exactly a week since this all began and now we were looking at another 2 days for them to monitor him and make 100% sure the surgery was a success. Sure enough a little over 24 hrs later we were in the process of being discharged, with strict orders. Jack will have lots of follow up with the Urologist and the Renal Doc for a long time:) but all in all he is doing soooo much better. Before we left we were able to talk with Dr. Braun (renal) and I said to him, how am I suppose to "not" freak out when Jack crys or just in general. He said it is completely normal to feel more sensitive towards Jack, but he reminded me that Jack is not sick, nor fragile, he just has some scars we have to watch. Just like when you break an arm, its healed but not perfect, so Jack hurt his kidneys some, they have healed some, but not perfect. So after talking with him for about 45 minutes Patrick and I felt ok enough to get on the road and head home to began our new normal as a family.
Sorry if some of this just sounds like a jumbled mess, but its been a long couple of weeks!! Here are some pictures from our "stay"