Splendid Mayhem: Wednesday's CT

Welcome To Holland

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......
When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."
"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."
But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.
The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.
So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."
And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.
But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

Friday, January 2, 2009

Wednesday's CT

WAS A TERRIBLE EXPERIENCE! I arrived early, the test was ordered wrong- the the right diagnosis. Thankfully, the CT lady caught it so she called the Dr to have it fixed. However, inorder to do the contrast with a 'possible tumor in the kidney/adrenal gland' region- you must have labs done to make sure your kidneys functions are normal. This lab tech sucked. I have never in my life had a vein get rock hard, swell up and hurt so badly for over 24 hours afterwards!! I took a pic w/ my phone Wed night after it was still puffy. I wish I would have thought to do it after it happened b/c it was ugly!

Then when they finally got me back to do the contrast IV, they put it in wrong- man, did it BURN! I was in tears. It's not like they use a small gauage either (and my arms aren't that big) One lady was saying, it doesn't hurt- put it behind you head... The other lady said, she's in tears- I think it hurts. It took about 40 minutes and was over. I was so happy. I started taking the IV out myself and got in trouble :P Friggin' hurt and I was done with it! I'm a horrible patient.

No word yet. *Hopefully* soon...

1 comment:

ErinJanuary 4, 2009 at 1:25 AM
Ouch!! Sorry you had such a bad experience and that it hurt so badly! You'd think they'd know it hurt if you were crying! Silly 'professionals'.
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