It was an interesting day....

Thanks to the lovely winter weather I recently whined about, the Interstate was a parking lot, so I took some back roads in (and not the back roads I'd have picked if I'd planned on it), making us 10 minutes late from the get-go. Not an entirely auspicious way to begin.

First thing when we get there is that we find out that instead of sending me the prescription for the Valium, they went ahead and filled it for us, so he got a little something to take the edge off. But that's not all, they have this cream (don't remember the name, don't care enough to look it up) they put on his arms to numb them. Basically just trying to make sure that he doesn't start the day cranky, annoyed or in pain (or all of the above). Then we get to wait for an hour while these things kick in. Thankfully, the hospital that we're doing this in has a great Children's Specialty center--and by great, I mean they have a large and well-stocked play area.

We then saunter over to the pediatric unit of the hospital--by this time the Valium's working and Arnold's a little buzzed, nothing major, but definitely in a good place. They're using the pediatric unit to insert the IV's for a couple of reasons: 1. the nurse in charge of the study is squeamish about poking kids, especially when there are pros available, and 2. they don't want the subject angry at the people he's spending all day with. (they're very concerned with the subject's state of mind--which is fine with me, considering the subject in question). Like I said before, Arnold's a pro at this stuff, but they bring in a legion of people to do insert the IVs. At one point (in addition to the three of us) there was his nephrologist, the nurse in charge of the study, two RNs, two other nurses, and a "Child Life Specialist" (whatever that is, but apparently you have to have mad bubble blowing skillz) in the room to make sure everything went smoothly. I almost volunteered us to leave the room to alleviate overcrowding. He got through that okay, one quick "ow" per IV, and then we went back to the center.

We know Arnold's small, but every now and then we get a healthy reminder of it. On the pediatric unit, all the nurses guessed that he was "about 2." When people who spend all day dealing with kids are off on that by 16 months, you know he's short for his age.
They fed some contrast dye into one arm, and then removed that IV. Then they took blood samples at 10 min., 30 min., 1.5 hrs and then 5 hrs. to see how the kidneys filtered it out. Then, like I said before, there were typical physical stuff. The early blood work results were good--hormones, sodium, etc. are stable, height, weight, etc are okay--but we won't have any results from the major tests for about a month.

The highlight of the day was, of course, watching Arnold go through this all. He was a little out of it, yet mostly there thanks to the Valium. But watched everything that happened to him, paying very close attention to every step of the process with the IV insertions--despite the best efforts of the woman blowing bubbles. He quickly picked up the procedure during the blood draws, and started talking the nurse through the steps. He was very chatty, particularly after the Valium wore off. Kept talking about "the red bloods" coming out of his arm, and going from the syringe to tube. He really seemed to have a good time. By the end of the day, all three of us were pretty drained, but his spirits kept up. But he was still plenty ready to get that last IV out, and be able to put both arms in his jacket (next year we'll take Frodo's for him).

Incidentally, the nurse was telling us about some conversations she's had with other centers for this study--not everyone does the IV thing ("for the kids' sake"), instead they just poke their subjects each time. How does that make sense? What kids want that? What kid's veins are up to it?

Then 7+ hours after we fought our way to the hospital, we got to fight our way home, in time for me to collapse for a few before work. Thankfully the next appointment should only take 3 hours--with no IVs involved. It'll be focusing on psychology, development and whatnot.