Today was our appointment for Serenity’s echocardiogram. When the oncology clinic scheduled the appointment they told us she might or might not need to be sedated, so we had her fast in case. We got to cardiology and after the nurse checked her over the anesthesiologist came in to talk to us about sedation. He said it was not uncommon for parents to try and do it unsedated, so the plan was to do that and if she refused to hold still they would pause and sedate her. I was ambivalent because I figured we would end up sedating her anyway and thought the least traumatic thing would be to just do it in the beginning.
But as it turned out, she held perfectly still and did NOT need to be sedated at all. I was so proud of her. The room was dark and we turned her Wiggles DVD on so she watched the TV for most of the procedure. I held one hand and Phil held the other and we were very close to her. I whispered in her ear from time to time and she did just fine. I was truly amazed at how still she was for close to an hour. Because she hadn’t been put to sleep we were able to leave right after the test without having to wait around in recovery. It really was the right way to do it, and I was grateful that Phil had felt strongly that we should try it that way.
There was a bit of confusion at the oncology clinic. We were scheduled accidentally for an appointment, and so the charge nurse wanted to draw labs. Since Serenity had not been accessed for the echo I really didn’t want to go through the rigamarole when I knew we didn’t need the labs done. It didn’t take long to get it cleared up and we were able to leave without getting her blood drawn.
Next week we will go back up and she will start Delayed Intensification. I am a little bit worried about that phase. It is supposed to be similar to Induction, fairly intense, and now that we are back in our groove and people aren’t clamoring to help I worry how we will get through the sleepless nights and temper tantrums. Hopefully we will do it without too much difficulty, and once we are out of this phase it’s on to Long Term Maintenance!
From what you’ve said this could be a tough phase. Don’t hesitate to ask people for help. They probably don’t understand what the different phases entail, and since you’ve kind of gone back to a little bit of normal, they might now know of the extra need. Don’t do it alone! We’re still praying 🙂