Quick Update

It's 11:15pm on Monday. We made it through the day.
Tony and John are in a room on 7C, the telemetry ward.
We got to admitting at 9, had an echocardiogram, which went great.
Then John had blood drawn and IV, and it was downhill from there. It was a little tough and they had to draw blood twice, so John was scared and unhappy.
He then went for a CT, he cried, but was still.

Then evidently he had a reaction to the contrast dye they inject into the IV for the CT. His fever started going up about the time we finished talking to the cardiology fellows, the surgeon, the physician's assistant, and the anaesthesiologist. Once we got home, he slept for about 45 minutes and then woke up very unhappy and burning up with a fever of 103.5. We put in a call to the pediatric cardiologist fellow on call and Feiste and the physician's assistant. She rallied the team and they said, give him some tylenol and bring him back in. Evidently, the doctor from diagnostic radiology called it right, which was a delayed reaction to the contrast. John was unhappy and feverish and lethargic and sleepy until about 8pm. During that time we talked again with Bradley and the ped card fellows and they all decided to admit John for observation and see how he is tomorrow morning.

At 8pm, John woke up and started asking for food and drink. He was perky, watching TV, and interested and happy again. It was an amazing transformation! He then began telling us he was all better and wanted to go back to the hotel. He said, "Mommy, my tummy doesn't hurt, my arm doesn't hurt (the arm where his IV was), my other arm doesn't hurt, and my head doesn't hurt."

By the time we got into the room on 7C, he was his usual perky, charming self. He and the night nurse on 7C did a little standup comedy show for us all!
Tasha, the night nurse, was fantastic, she was exactly what we all needed. Very confident and creative. She had the best pieces of advice so far: "Take your cue from him" and "Coming in here happy and healthy is the best case scenario." That was custom-tailored for what I needed to hear and remember.

I'm back at the hotel. I'll go over to the hospital (just 5 minutes away) tomorrow morning (tuesday) at 6am, when they will check him again and decide whether to go ahead with the surgery...

It was a rough day, but we came through it pretty well, all things considering. And John feels fine now, which is the most wonderful thing...

Thank you all so much for your prayers and thoughts. They definitely buoyed us up, even when we weren't aware of it. It was the only way we got through, I think. That and the fabulous staff at MUSC and the super-duper catering, chauffering, and assisting by Mimi and Pa!!!