Wow, talk about a trying day!!

Daddy here:


It's been awhile since I've posted about anything; I typically leave this stuff to Jenny, but I was asked to blog today so I'll do my best.

Today was Caydence's pre-surgery workup,actually it was the last checkup before her surgery on Monday. We started the day at 8am and it seemed to go on forever which would have been fine if everything had gone as it was supposed to....but I'm getting ahead of myself so let's go back to 8am.

We first met with the learning center nurse who informed us to how Monday would go...from when to arrive, what will be done and when, how she'll look...everything. It was very informative but she tended to error on the side of the worst case scenario which was hard to listen to. I understand it was her job to prepare us for what "could" happen but didn't she also think about how we may be looking on the bright side and hoping for the best case scenario? I'm just saying....

After we left the learning center nurse we then met with the cardiac surgery nurse practitioner to, again, cover what would happen the day of, when to show up, how long it would take...etc..(do you see a trend forming here?) She then gave Caydence a quick exam and ordered a few tests, consisting of x-rays and blood work.

So, now we're off to the lab area and receive x-rays and blood work. The x-rays go off without a hitch, which was about the only time this would happen.(My thanks goes out to the x-ray techs, nice job.) Then comes the blood work and boy did Caydence scream. She hates getting blood drawn but we got through it and eventually Caydence stopped crying. After that, we then got a "tour" of the waiting area and operating room. I put "tour" because we saw most of it on powerpoint because of the H1N1 outbreak. But it was helpful and I'm glad that we saw it.


From here we were chased down by nurse practitioner again to tell us that they forgot an x-ray and some of the blood work didn't go through so it had to be done again. But before that, we had to go and see the anesthesia clinic who...again..tell us how Monday will go, when to show up, how long it will take...blah blah blah.., oh, did I forget to tell you that this person told us all of this from the comfort of her janitorial closet or at least that's the size of her office. Seriously, if I had to work in that office, I would ask to be transferred to the cafeteria but more power to her for hanging in there. Now we go back to the lab to REPEAT the blood work and add x-rays and it's here that it gets weird for a moment.

While waiting for the pager to go off we were ambushed...musically ambushed that is, by a huge group of renaissance choir members...who filled the waiting room with hope and glee...at least that was what they were attempting to do. It was a little weird to see but it took our minds off of the day, if only for a short while. Anyway, back to the labs.


Again, the x-rays went off without a hitch so again, my hat off to those x-ray technicians, they made it seem so effortless. I can't say the same thing for the blood work techs. Actually I could say a lot about them but it wouldn't be appropriate for this blog so I'll try to sensor myself. These...people..were by far the worst experience we've had in that entire hospital since we switched hospitals. They attempted to draw blood 2 different times with 2 different techs and they both FAILED horribly. The first one stuck Caydence with the needle, and unable to locate the vein that she felt, seemed to deem it necessary to "dig" around for it. Dig is the best word I can come up with because that is what most closely resembled what she was doing. All it looked like was her poking around, hoping to hit something that would resemble a vein. And after what I would guess was about 5 minutes of her digging around with Caydence screaming her little head off, she then admits "I can't seem to find the vein, so I'm going to get someone down her that will, she's really good at these things." So we leave to room and struggle to console our now inconsolable child and after awhile we get her to sleep from pure exhaustion from screaming for so long. It was at this point that we met the next....person. Jenny couldn't remain in the room this time so I sent her out and I then had to witness this new...person..."dig" around in much the same way for roughly the same amount of time with NO success!!! Did I make myself clear there, she had NO success!!! Now, I understand that drawing blood in an infant can and probably is more difficult then on an adult but being that we were in a CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL don't you think these...people..would have a better grasp of this task then the average blood drawing tech? Anyway, after 2 techs tried, no blood was drawn and they both gave up and told us to go home...thanks for hurting my daughter, upsetting my wife and severely pissing me off for nothing.

Oh yeah, on the way home we got a call from the hospital...to inform us to when we should get there on Monday, how long it will take, when to stop feeding her...again, blah blah blah...and here is where the day ends. We met some very..interesting..people and we were WELL informed to when we have to show up on Monday, when to stop feeding her and how long it will take.


We will keep everyone up to date on how things go on Monday. Keep Caydence in your prayers.

Until then, take care.