Oh, Bryce!

He keeps us on our toes.

Last Wednesday morning Bryce woke up as happy as ever, slept a little more that day but was happy to partake in swim class. He was even the model swim student, showing off to all the big babies who were scared to try floating on their backs while Bryce did it like he'd been sunbathing (HA, have you seen how pale this boy it?!) for years.

That same evening, only a couple of hours later, Bryce awoke from sleep (unusual) with an alarming cry. We tried to appease him, we tried Tylenol but six hours later - at 4:30 a.m. - we were driving back into the familiar Dell parking lot.

It's been months but it's still so odd to be bringing Bryce there and not going there to see him. I wonder if that feeling will ever go away.

As we pulled in I was all at once anxiety ridden and reminiscent. It feels wrong to be reminiscent of such a trying part of my life, but hindsight lets me see that it was also comforting to know he was in a place that could handle an emergency immediately. Unlike home.

Bryce had of course though fallen asleep in the car ride over - either because any car ride immediately renders him sleepy or because he had worn himself out screaming at us for hours. I'm so sorry I didn't immediately rush him in, after an hour of super-grump. But Bryce is such a laid back guy that I guess I figured I was due my fair share of insolent baby.

As we checked in at the ER desk, complaining of an inconsolable baby while holding a perfectly sleeping baby, we were triaged almost immediately because we were lucky enough to arrive during a lull in ER traffic. During triage Bryce woke up, relaxed from his nap I suppose. The nurses all looked at us as if we were crazy but took him to a room because one happened to be available. The ER doc made his way in and noted he just looked like a sleepy baby but since he has the shunt let's do the usual head CT and shunt X-ray series. And so we did.

I last complained about going to the ER because we had realized Bryce would always have to endure these such tests, no matter what was wrong with him, because no doctor wants to be the one who missed a shunt malfunction. Bryce has a broken finger, "Let's check his shunt," I imagine the doctors declaring.

Well, I'm sure glad they checked his shunt because as we were literally packing up to take him home the doctor comes back and says that both ventricles are very enlarged and neurosurgery had already been called, they were on their way. Only minutes later our old friends, the "the Neuro team" were walking back into our lives.

Bryce was immediately scheduled for emergency surgery and at 12 noon I was once again walking out of the surgery unit without my baby. This time I was forced to actually hand him over and then turn and walk away. Why that was harder than leaving him in his isolette with them I don't know, maybe because for so long that isolette was his safe little home.

to be continued...