Dim Sum Diaries

New and Old. Also When It Rains, It Pours


I am a very lucky person. Why? You ask. Well you are about to find out why.

Monday I log onto Facebook, and happen to click on the profile of my cousin, who I recently became "friends" with on FB so I could see what was going on. Her husband posts she is in the hospital in critical condition. No more information offered, I immediately call Mom to see if she knew anything (she didn't). She then called my grandmother to give her the news. Meanwhile, somewhere in another part of town, a distant cousin of mine also logs onto Facebook and finds the same status message, so she calls her mother who proceeds to call the entire branch of the family to let them know that one of the family is in trouble. A mix of old and new ways to keep track of everyone and communicate I suppose. Through the week she steadily declined and though she is better now, she still has a ways to go and did not come out of this conflict unscathed.

Then on Tuesday, I notice a contusion on Daughter's forehead, which she doesn't remember getting, and as the day progressed, a headache was getting worse and worse, so I took her to the local ER where we spent 7 hours (mostly waiting), as they did a CAT scan (which came back normal) but because of the persistent headache, they recommended she see her primary doctor. Luckily she had a yearly checkup the next day, so with cat scan results in hand, I took her to the doctor. By this time she was markedly limping and the headache still hadn't gone down. The doctor was concerned enough to tell me to send her down to Rady's Childrens Hospital ER for further tests. Luckily we were quickly admitted, but waited a long ass time (3 am, we'd arrived at 6:00 pm) while they did another cat scan, waited for results and they finally said they were going to admit her for further observation. She was pretty stoic throughout this ordeal but when they inserted the needle into her wrist to administer an IV, she broke into tears and couldn't stop crying, despite my repeated attempts to calm her and tell her funny jokes (to make her stop crying but only made her cry more). I think that was the hardest part of the whole ordeal, seeing your child in pain and crying, and there isn't much you can do about it. Wishing you could transfer that pain to yourself so she doesn't have to endure it.

Stoic calls to Husband (who was home watching son) and in-laws and sister to keep them informed, but it was only when I talked to Mom that I broke down and confessed I was scared shitless. Yes I've watched my share of ER and House, so I considered myself somewhat knowledgeable of hospital ongoings, but head injuries only brought to mind the case of Natasha Richardson...not knowing what was going on was the scariest part. Mom and Dad promised they'd come down asap (thank god for that). Daughter complained of increasing severity of the headache and it wasn't until they administered morphine and an hour had lapsed that she finally began to feel better.

The next two days were punctuated with me and Hubby keeping her company in shifts while she went through additional testing, consults with the neurologist and on and on and on.

She was finally released today, with the conclusion she suffers from severe migraines at her age, and to continue to monitor her symptoms...while the limping etc are continued to be monitored (they are not sure why that happened.).

God I'm tired. But I'm lucky my daughter is ok. My cousin too.