Thursday, November 20, 2008

A Child's IVIG Experience - Help is on the Way!

Thanks for your continued prayers for our family - especially for Shannon's well being. We appreciate everyone's support and understanding. Shannon is such a trooper !! She is so brave and courageous. She sat on her daddy's lap for the IV (needle) portion and even joked to the nurses that perhaps they should secretly get daddy with the needle instead of her? LOL ... Nurses found that hilarious - daddy - not so much. :-)

I got a bit nervous while waiting for IVIG MEDS to arrive because another little girl was so scared she ran away from nurses and parents screaming in horror. Shannon was the shade of a ghost by now .. so I found humor with it and no sooner had Shannon chuckling up a storm. The little girl was fine by the way. Behaviors like this are normal when their little bodies are not well. Shannon calmed down a bit and got a little color back in her face :-0

Next, we all hunkered down for what turned out to be 4 hours of IV drip within a total 6 hour day at the hospital. Children's of Philly is great and provided Shannon with whatever she wanted - we were even allowed to walk her and her IV pole to a computer room and set up shop there for a bit - so Shannon could play her webkinz online for a while. When she was just sitting in the chair in the pictures (via links below) they gave her a personal TV so she could watch a movie, play video games or watch cable TV. So, they really, really try their best to keep the kids minds off the discomfort. Of course, the water main break back home did not help and we tried not to show panic in front of Shannon while coordinating coverage for Sean who was getting let out of school with no prior notice. We got him home safely - Thank you Kathy (our sitter/teacher/tutor/the list goes on).

We had all the nurses and even the cleaning folks laughing hysterical at one point. I really do enjoy family like atmospheres ... we got all the people going with Tom does all the cooking and cleaning .. which Tom loved and the ladies were so jealous ... at first they looked at tom and laughed hysterically but Shannon made me come over and I admitted Tom does a lot of cooking and cleaning .. I did not say I have to tend to Shannon 24/7 but I know they could figure it out .. I did not want to add to Shannon's thoughts right now ... Thank God Tom steps up to help out. So then, I just took advantage of the humor for Shannon's sake and started telling the ladies what he can cook and they were like No Way? Get Out of Here! Tell me More! so you had to be there but we had everyone around "us" at one point which was great for Shannon. We got a good 30 minutes of belly laughs and by the time we left everyone was wishing we could stay just a bit longer. Call me a sap but I enjoy people and making a family wherever I go!

Blessings to all --- we will keep you updated on Shannon's progress. Thanks for continued prayers!

1 comment:

My Jespinoza said...

We are thinking of you Shannon hurry up and get better.
your friend,
Jespinoza Scicchitano