Lessons in Patience

Today was one of those days where I was given lots of opportunities to practice patience. I'm so exhausted and I'm so very glad to be home!

This morning Olivia decided she was not okay with her breathing treatment. Instead of sitting there happily entertaining as she usually does she dumped my expensive make-up on the floor. Goodbye Laura Mercier mineral foundation. As I tried to clean it up I remembered to be thankful that my mother-in-law is here to help with Peter. It would have been a much bigger mess if Peter had crawled through it.

At clinic we spent 2 hours waiting in the exam room before we saw a doctor. I tried really hard not to get upset that we were having to wait so long for our "scheduled" appointment. I thought of my friend Alli, who's busy husband is completing his surgical rotation in transplant surery (hope I'm saying that right Alli). I reminded myself of all the sacrifices that she and her family make so that her husband can focus on helping others.

While we were waiting in the exam room Olivia was having a parade with her animals and she bumped her head on the side of the sink, hard! She screamed but she didn't black out. She got an enormous bump on her head. The attending physican came in quickly (nothing like a head injury to get everyone's attention) to examine Olivia's head. She bumped her head pretty hard and it swelled up very quickly. They sent us down to have a CT scan of Olivia's Brain. As we were waiting for the CT scan I thought about all the families at Ft. Hood who had to wait for hours yesterday while the base was on "lock-down".

Olivia was so still during her CT scan. She was such a happy camper, she was waving to all the technicians on the other side of the window. Unfortunately her head wasn't positioned properly so they had to do a second scan. I'm so thanful that the technician realized that after all of the excitement today Olivia was just a scared little girl so they let me lay on the scan table with her. I actually laid down right on top of Olivia so that I could hold her hands and she could look into my eyes as they did the scan.

We headed back up to our familiar exam room to wait for someone to review the scan. We had to wait for over an hour. I thought about how happy I was to be able to have this time with Olivia. As Mike and I texted back and forth about our most recent emergency CT scan I was so thanfull that he's here to share this experience with me instead of being deployed.

Yuck! Long Day! I'm glad that I have so many opportunities to practice patience but I really think I've had enough practice for today.

Olivia's appointment itself went well. Her blood pressure is great so she doesn't seem to be negatively affected by discontinuation of one of her blood pressure meds. She's gained a little of the weight that she lost during the first half of the week back. Her counts look good and her platlet count is well over 300 (this was the first thing they double checked after the head injury). Prior to Olivia's head injury they were going to tell us that we didn't have to go back to the clinic until November 18th AND they were going to give us the all clear to go to Ft. Bragg. They did send us home with instructions about what to look for after a head injury. We're going to stick around here through the weekend so that we're not too far from the hospital.