Sorry So Lengthy...

Hey Everyone...
     What a CRAZY week!  Parker had his MRI on Monday.  The original appointment was scheduled for 1:15 on Monday, but we asked that they move the appointment to an earlier time.  Parker was going to be without solid food or liquids for 6 hours before the scan, and Willis and I were not looking forward to this at all.  So after much prayer they called us back with an earlier time of 11:00am and we took it!    We were so excited.  We started our day as usual at 5:30am and he had Oatmeal and Applesauce and a bottle with rice cereal to help tie him over and headed for the Children's Hospital at 10:00.  Parker slept on the way to the hospital and didn't cry at all.  Praise God!  Once we arrived they took us to his room and we waited for the sedation team to come and get us.  Let me just say that we are so very proud of Parker.  Three nurses came in and we had dreaded this moment (the placement of the I.V.) and Parker didn't even cry!  Yep, you read that right, he DIDN'T CRY!!!  We were all shocked!  He took it like a man!  Unbelievable!  The nurses were extremely shocked!  They said that they have never had a patient not cry especially a baby of his age and that they wished that they would have taped it so they could show it off to all of their other patients!  Crazy huh?  While we were waiting the doctor came in and let us know that the MRI machine broke and it would be more of a wait until they could start.  So in the meantime we continued to keep Parker preoccupied while we again waited to go downstairs to be sedated and by this time it was 1:20 pm and Parker still had not fussed at us for a meal!  We were able to walk over to the MRI door and hold him while they sedated him and boy was that hard.  The doctor looked at me and said "Make sure you hold him tight and support his head, he will scream for about 10 seconds and then go limp".  And that he did....And it was not easy.  It was a scream we will never forget!  It's never easy to hear your baby cry let alone scream in pain.  We asked the nurse while we were waiting to get Parker back from downstairs "What on earth made him scream with the anesthetic Propofol" and she said that one of the doctors had Propofol a month back and his exact words were "Propofol will bring a grown man to tears"!  I am glad that we didn't find that out until after it was administered.   They told us that the MRI would only take 1 hour and after 2 hours of Parker not being back we asked if they were having any problems and she then let us know that the MRI broke yet again with Parker in it so they had to take him to a different room to finish.  Parker came back to the room with us at 3:20 and he was monitored for an hour and said that we were good to go!  Sunday night when we gave Parker his bath we had removed his DOC Band and his forehead and right temple were so irritated and red.  The instructions for that said that if in fact the redness did not go away after an hour that we were to be seen immediately in Charlotte for an adjustment.  SO,  at 4:00 Monday after the MRI we headed to Charlotte.  We were seen for about 30 minutes and turned right back around and headed home.  Arriving home at 7:00 Willis took Parker out of his seat and said " Amy he's really hot"!  We checked his temp and it read 103.0!  Fun Times Right?  Guess what the discharge papers read for post MRI side effects?  "If your child aquires a fever over 100.0 within 24-48hours of the scan you must return to the hospital for further evaluation.!"  And yep, you guessed it....we headed back to the children's ER at Richland.  As soon as we got there Parker had rash all over his body, a fever of 103.0 and a horrible cough.  Upon being seen at 8:30 that night we were told that their were some case studies that showed if Propofol was not properly stored (sat out for too long) then it would grow a bacteria, leaving the child with a bacterial infection of the bloodstream.  SCARY stuff right.  So they administerd another I.V. in his foot and treated Parker for Sepsis (a bacterial infection) as a precautionary measure until they got the CBC and culture back.  And he SCREAMED so bad with this I.V!   It was really hard on us to watch.   They took a chest x-ray at 2 am to rule out pnemonia!  Which scared him nearly to death!  That came out negative.  They came in to discharge us at 4:40am Tuesday morning but were told that he would have to be seen Tuesday night for another round of antibiotics and recheck.  They told us the later the better because it takes some time for the results from the lab.  We called Tuesday night and the results were still not back yet but were told that we would need to be seen Wednesday morning for his recheck and shots.  So we did just that at 9:30 this morning.  We waited yet again to be seen and totally missed our ENT appointment that took 2 months to get, because this morning they only had one doctor, and they couldn't seem to find someone in 4 hours to give an 8 month old child a shot of antibiotic.  We were fit to be tied.  Especially after being told the night before that it would take no more than one hour from start to finish.  So we are back home this evening and Parker is still running a temp, still has a rotten cough and the culture is still not back yet!  Imagine that!  And while Karlyn and I were eating supper tonight we heard this huge noise in the garage, almost like something ran into the door....and the springs on the garage door popped and broke!  Go figure right?!  Why not?! :)   So tomorrow we have PT, OT and Developemental Therapy and Friday we are back to Charlotte again.  Please continue to pray for our family and we will post updates as we get them.
Love In Christ,
The Crafts