Bone Marrow Biopsy Day

All times approximate...

• 5:55am: Piper wakes up crying, having last fed her at 4am (before food cut-off), and is not able to be settled.
• 6:00am: we decide, we might as well wake up and go, as we can't feed her, or calm her down and at least she will be distracted in the car.
• 6:20am: heading out the door with hospital bag packed for all three of us. Piper stays in her jammies from last night. Mommy and Daddy wish they were still in theirs.
• 7:15am: arrive at BCCH, wait in the parking lot with a happy baby in the car.
• 7:30am: decide we can probably go in and check things out, and it turns out, lots of people were already there, so we are glad we didn't wait until 8am, when we were scheduled. We were given some papers and an arm band for Piper and sent down the hall.

• 8:00am: in the "play room" with a few other groggy looking kids and parents. This is the official "Heme/Onc" waiting room, though the other kids we saw were definitely "onc" kids. A few kids of a few different sizes, all with just a wisp of hair on their heads, but otherwise, looking relatively happy. (Have I mentioned before how much I don't feel great being in the oncology clinic? Is that terrible of me? My heart groans for those parents and kids, and I know cancer isn't contagious (geez!), but it just turns my stomach into knots that we are this close. I pray for those kids every time, and I pray that my kid will never get close to that diagnosis.
• 8:30am: we are sent into a room to wait a bit, meeting our awesome nurse for the day (seriously, top-notch!) and did some weighing, measuring, temp and blood pressure. Piper is not fan of any of those, but for some reason, the thermometer under her arm gets her really mad.
• 8:45am: the IV specialist lady comes in, with a cart full of goodies and a smile on her face. I honestly don't know how she does her job: poking unwilling kids all day. Brave soul.
• 9:30am: after the IV lady trying twice to get an IV in ("I always get it on the first try!"), she called in the uber-specialist: the lady who can put IV's in premmie babies. The real big-guns. This lady was friendly, but a no-nonsense sort of friendly: no coochy-coo sounds or anything, just polite and to the point. I kinda liked that.
• 9:40am: IV finally in, after, even the superwoman IV hero was "a little concerned there, for a second". Yeah, so was I when they mentioned "has she ever had an IV in her scalp?". Gulp. No thanks. Anyways, IV was in and they took some blood and away they went. And our long wait of the day begins (there is always a long part in every hospital day. There are fast action parts, when people are running in your room every few minutes, but then there are parts that just draaaaaaag)

• 10:45am: after trying to set up a movie, and trying to let Piper sleep in her sling and both Matt and I having a snack (trying to keep it out of sight of Piper, as she eyed us up pretty greedily when she saw us eating), and Piper nearly rolling off the bed, stuff started to happen again. The hematologist came in to say hi and to discuss the G-CSF we've talked about and to see if we have any questions. Our nurse was getting us ready to go, and then a hematologist resident gave us a rundown of how things would look for her procedure. The anesthetist came in, too (the same one for her heart cath- and he recognized us, too! He was really great) and double checked everything.
• 11:00am: away we went, just around the corner to the little procedure room. We got to carry Piper right in there, with the whole room full of staff, and we even got to see them put her sleepy drug in. She got a little floppy and her fussiness was just sorta a slow whine and then she was sleeping. A nurse was right there, just stroking her face and was right down at her level. While all of that was going on, we signed some sort of consent form that I am pretty sure I understood, and then we were saying good-bye to our Piper-baby.

• 11:25am: having waited in the "play-room", equipped with a 24 inch Mac, I might add (darn that 3 year old playing on there!), we were called to our new room and they wheeled Piper in the next minute. She was just a pretty sleeping baby, on her side, with little oxygen tubes placed just up her nose (nothing invasive). The wait time was so small, we didn't even really have time to miss her! It was great. Then it was just waiting. Our super-nurse had to be there when she woke up, so we got to talk a bit while Piper was sleeping (which, she hadn't slept since she woke up at 6am this morning, so we were prepping for a long nap). Every time we have a great nurse, they make me want to be one! So bad. Argh. She was really inspiring.
• 11:55am: Piper wakes up! Not too happy at first, but crying, which is good and breathing all right. Her sats (saturation levels) were low (like 79-88%) for her, so we had to wait until they were at a good 92%+ until we could go home. We tried giving her a bit more oxygen with a little mask just close to her face, but she didn't like that much. She was breathing fine, they just want to make sure she is breathing enough and getting enough oxygen through her body. Anyways, I was finally allowed to nurse her, and her sats did go up a bit, but still just high 80's.
• 12:20pm: having nursed her, she was kinda antsy, so we put her back on the bed and let her play and then started feeding her some food and that made a big difference. We had our lunch too, so we were all a little happier. By now, Piper's sats were up in the mid 90's and staying there, so that was a relief. She didn't seem the least bit worried about her IV or her big band-aid on her low-back/upper-bum.

• 1:15pm: discharged and ready to head home. Everything looked good, the anesthetist came back in so say hello, as did a hematology nurse. With Piper IV out (replaced with a great Curious George band-aid) and our bag packed once more, we were set on our way home.
• 1:45pm: stop off in Ladner at McDonald's for ice cream. Totally hit the spot.
• 2:20pm: home and so happy to be :) Piper really didn't seem to be bothered by her wound, which is nice. She has cried a little bit for no reason, but nothing we can't settle. I took a nice 2 hour nap, and Piper took an even nicer 3 hour nap. We were both better people for it.

Now we just wait until bath-time tomorrow to take off her bandage and then we can call the hematologist on Wednesday for some results. I am just really hoping for some more concrete answers, and not more questions.