Grateful

You can't spend any time at PCMC without being grateful for the health problems you have and feeling bad for all the kids and mom's who have it worse.

Sean went for blood test and a sweat chloride yesterday. While we were waiting for him to sweat we played soccer with a ball we found outside of the cardiac ICU. Yes, I felt guilty playing so close to all kids who are too sick to play.

I picked Sean up from school and told him we had to go to the doctor to get a sweat test and more blood drawn and he said "yeah, I like to get poked." Seriously, what kind of kid says that? I asked him why and he said because he gets a prize. Yep, this is a kid who is so deprived in life that he has to get poked to get a treat. I'm seriously thinking about teaching him how to draw blood. I'm going to bring home one of my phlebotomy arms. Any kid that interested in health care and anatomy should start learning young. Heck, he knows how to flush a PICC line. He asked me yesterday how kidneys make pee.

 Here he is looking not too sure about this sweat chloride test. They cleaned his arms and then put little electrodes on that shock. Sean said it didn't shock it just hurt a little bit. (I showed this picture to Alex who had the same test when he was a teenager and he said "Oh, those things that shock you.) I'm guessing it feels like a TENS unit. They left the electrodes on for five minutes then wrapped his arms in two layers of plastic. They put warm packs on top of the plastic then wrapped him in a heat blankets. Toasty! He had to stay wrapped up for 30 minutes. I wanted to go to the cafeteria and get an ice cream but they said nothing cold and nothing salty.

 We read a couple of books, played with the magnet board and then resorted to soccer outside the lab. Sean is a sweaty kid without any help. When they weighed his sweat they said they had enough to run the test six times.

 

We met Don for dinner at Aristo's after we left the hospital.

 

Sean's introspection. Sean talks a lot about whose tummy he grew in. I've given up trying to tell him he grew in someones other than mine because it upsets him. We were laying in his bed and he asked "who grew in your tummy?" I said "Carter then Alex then AJ then you." He said "Don't forget Alika and David." "I said Carter then Alex then AJ then Alika then David then you." He didn't say anything for a minute then he asked "If I grew in someone else's tummy would you still love me just as much?" Wow, that surprised me. I told him I would still love him just as much. I told AJ about this conversation and he said "so he's lying to himself." I've always known he knows on some level he just doesn't want to talk about it or deal with it and I've never seen any reason to push it. Adoption has to be confusing for little kids.