Well, Brayden just finished his second spinal injection. Man- it really tests a persons strength. Trying to draw the line between protective parents and the ability to let down your guard and let in the possibilities is so tough. I really thought it would be easier this time, but because it did not happen as it did last time, Momma kind of lost her cool. Last time, they gave him an injection to make him sleepy while Jason was holding him. He was asleep when the OR staff took him away and when they put in the IV. This time, they took off his clothes, laid him on a bed and wheeled him away- totally awake. We could hear him crying- I’m assuming while they were doing the IV. Momma was not a happy camper, and the staff in the OR knew about it! Of course none of them spoke English, but they knew we were not liking it one bit. I can’t imagine how he felt getting taken away from us and then jabbed with a needle by a bunch of strangers who can’t even comfort him in a language we understand. While we were waiting, some guy that works in the OR kept jabbering Chinese at us. When I asked our translator what he was saying, she just shook her head. It must have been not very nice. My fear of getting Kung-Fu’ed overtook my wanting to kick his butt. When he came out, he was at least a little bit awake. I could tell that he had been crying, so that was really upsetting. He is recovering from the anesthesia much quicker this time, so maybe it was better that he didn’t get that first injection. I hate it that we can’t explain all of this to him. He must think we are torturing him. I just hope that because of this journey, we will be able to explain it all to him and he will be able to understand every bit of it. We have to remember that four weeks is such a small time when you compare it to the rest of his life. Please pray that he doesn’t have a headache tomorrow and that we continue to see progress. Gotta go- Brayden is waking up! Love to all!
April 21st, 2008
Hey all! We are just hanging out in the room, waiting for Brayden’s injection time, so we thought what better to do than write to share our exciting news. The doctor came in this morning to check Brayden. He waved his hand in front of Brayden’s face, and he flinched. The dr. sent his nurse after a pen light. Brayden tracked the light for quite some time!!! Although this isn’t a huge change since he would somewhat pick out a light in the dark, he never has tracked a pen light when the room was fully lit. We almost started crying!! Just a little while ago, Jason wheeled him up to the tv and he looked right at it. We are being cautiously optimistic. Hopefully he will become more consistant and we can know for sure. The doctors seemed to be happy with his progress.
On a not so great note, I guess my complaints about having to go down to the OR fell on deaf ears. We were told by the dr. this morning that we would have to go back there again today. They promised that the sheets would be clean and that an interpreter would accompany us. I still don’t feel any better about it! The part that really aggrivates me is that there are two other children here now, and both of them went to the 9th floor for spinals, and they only got Valium- no anesthesia. Again, I am not very happy, but it has done me little good to explain. The doctor insists it is very safe and much better for Brayden since he tends not to cooperate. If it isn’t any better this time, I have decided that I will just ask that the rest be done through IV. I don’t want to run the risk of infection. You know about that crazy Burgan temper- I sure would hate to have to whip it out!!! Hell, it would be my luck that the guy would Kung Fu me or something!
We didn’t end up getting to go to the beach yesterday. It was rainy and cold, so we spent the afternoon sleeping and watching movies! What better to do on a rainy day….. Hopefully we will get to go next weekend since we have both Saturday and Sunday off.
Ryan M.- How did prom go?
Nolan- Happy late birthday! I hope it was a good one!
Craig- If you even think about sending us Chinese food in that package- we will forever disown you!
Well, I do have one last favor for you all to do for me when you finish reading this. Get up, go into your laundry room and KISS YOUR WASHER AND DRYER! Seriously- tell them how much you love them!!! And while you are there, open the cap on your detergent and just take in the fantastic smell! You think I am joking- here is our laundry situation- the hospital has a laundry service, but I was warned before coming that your clothes will smell really bad if you use the service. They don’t use dryers over here. Everything goes on the line. As we told you before, the air outside constantly smells like bad breath and smoke. I decided to bring laundry soap so I could wash our clothes in the sink. That is soo much fun! I thought I would just hang our clothes up in the bathroom to dry to avoid the nasty smell outside. HOWEVER, our bathroom smells like when our toilets or sinks back up at home. I mean everyday it smells like that. Not even thinking about it, I hung up our clothes and shut the door. The next morning our clothes smelled like a sewer! I decided that bad breath was a step up from sewer, so Jason, being the handy fellow that he is, made us a clothes line out of our ethernet cable out on the balcony. All set! WRONG! It rained all day Sunday. Back to the sewer smell for awhile! OHHH to smell turkey crap! I think it would be better!!!
Almost time for us to go. I’m gonna go snuggle my boy! You all take care! We love you and miss you! Also, we can’t thank you enough for the comments, e-mails, and support back home! We will never forget!
April 21st, 2008
