Tests, tests, and more

That morning I called Josh and told him to come to the hospital ASAP. I wasn't sure what was going to happen to my baby but I knew it wasn't something I could handle alone. Josh sensed my stress and got the kids taken care of so he could come down. He did his best to get here but it seemed like eternity. In the meantime I decided I needed to eat if I was going to be able to handle the rest of the day. I headed down to the cafeteria in a daze, ordered the special (French toast with strawberries), and then ran into Hazels doctor. The 6 months pregnant doctor saw me too but avoided a conversation. Soon after I could tell why. I headed back up to my room and tried to force myself to eat but couldn't. The nurses came in to tell me that they needed to get an IV back in Hazel since the old one had collapsed. I told her that was fine as long as she promised to only stick her once. She agreed. In about 5 minutes she came back to tell me they found a perfect vein but I might not like the location. It was in her head. The nurse was very sweet and did keep her promise. The IV in her head didn't look pretty but there was a good vein there so I understood. A few minutes later Dr. Ho came in. She sat down on the couch next to me and told me all the tests that needed to be done. First was the urine test where they would stick a catheter up her to get a sample of urine to test for a bladder infection. Then they needed to take blood samples to see if she had a bacterial infection. Then they needed mucus samples done by deep suctioning to see if she had pneumonia. Lastly they would need to do a spinal tap to rule out meningitis. My mind was racing and Josh still wasn't here to hold me up. They said we needed to move to the PICU. Move? I could hardly breath. I'm glad I didn't start eating that French toast because I would have thrown it up for sure. I somehow managed to collect all my bags, put them in a wagon and followed my baby's crib as they wheeled it down the hall into the PICU. Doctor Ho then let Dr. Goodman take over. Thankfully by then Josh had walked in. We all sat down on the couch as 4 or 5 nurses surrounded Hazels crib to prep her for the spinal tap and to intibate her. At that point I didn't even know what intibate meant. I needed to pump. My chest was swelling, my hormones racing and I was a total wreck. Josh talked to Dr. Goodman and I just cried. We, Josh me and the doctor, then moved to a family counsel room at the end of the hall. I guess that was a good idea since they needed to start doing stuff on Hazel right away and having an emotional mother in the way was not a good idea. Plus I could pump in privacy. So I left my baby so the doctors could get started. Dr. Goodman was optimistic and very good at explaining things but then he needed to leave to do Hazels spinal tap. Josh tried to explain to me the procedures as I pumped and cried. The milk bottles started overflowing. Luckily Josh noticed and told me to turn the pump off! I now had milk all over the place. That's when I told Josh, "you do know that's our baby in there that you are talking about right?" he said yes and then held me as we cried together. Phew, I was so glad that it wasn't just me having these helpless feelings! My sweet husband was just trying to be strong for both of us. Somehow talking about all the medical stuff helped him hold it together. The volunteer staff from the Ronald MacDonald house down the hall from Hazel offered to let us stay in a sleep room, take a shower and fed us snacks. We were now in survival mode.