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Monday, August 31, 2009

Madeline's Clean Out

Instead of enjoying the first few days of a new school year, Maddie was admitted to Children's Hospital for a "clean out." Basically it is a two week round of IV antibiotics to clean out her lungs. We have never had to do this before, so I was pretty devastated. She was super brave while getting her PICC line in. After that, the tests and treatments were not scary for her. She was in contact isolation, so she was not able to have kid visitors, but her friends Brendan and Aiden came by anyway to make faces at her from the hallway.

The hospital staff somehow knew that Madeline loves cats. They had a stuffed Lion, a "Tired Little Tiger" printed gown, a fancy pillow case, crafts and a Welcome poster waiting for her when she arrived. That definitely put a smile on her face.

We were able to take her home after a week and continue the IV medications on our own. I was so scared to do the infusions myself.
(I always imagine that I will mess everything up entirely.)
I have done it once before. A friend of mine showed me how to do it when they were doing IV's at home. She knew I'd be doing it someday. I was nervous then and it was only until I completed a whole day on my own that I began to feel confident.
It was sort of empowering actually.
Maddie heading home!

For kids with Cystic Fibrosis, coughs are an every day thing. It's healthy for them to cough. But when I know that one of the kids is having a flare-up or their lung function has gone down, every cough scares me. When they can't breath, I can't breath. You can tell me everything will be fine, and I know that it will, but I still hold my breath.