Alanna's MRI

Yesterday morning was an emotional roller coaster. I got Alanna to the Children's Hospital at 6:45am for her appointment. We were brought back into a room by a nurse and the procedure was explained to me as we went over the health history. Then she came back into the room with a second nurse to insert the needle for Alanna's IV.

Alanna was such a trooper and it just broke my heart to see her uncomfortable at all. The nurse tried to insert the needle, got the vein and then went to test the flow and the vein collapsed. During this Alanna whimpered "Hurt, Ouch, Done Now" and cried, but didn't scream or push at the nurse at all. So, the nurse tried again on the other arm and the same thing happened. By this time, I wanted to cry I felt so badly for her. The second nurse decided to try and went very very slowly. I cringed the entire time she was digging for the vein as Alanna cried. She did get it though and then they taped up Alanna's hand so that the needle wouldn't move at all. She was such a good girl and wiped her tears and even told the nurses "Thank you".

We went into the MRI exam room and the dr explained how the sedation would work and told me that the Propofal would act very very quickly, within seconds once the drip was started. They began the drip and I figured that she would flutter her eyelids and just kinda pass out similar to a fainting spell. Not at all, it was near immediate. They began the drip, she whimpered when the sting started and then her head dropped to the side and she was out completely.

It was so strange to see my little girl on the table in front of this HUGE machine. They hooked her up to what seemed like a thousand monitors (for which I'm thankful) even putting one on the bottom of her feet, but she just looked so tiny and helpless and I can't get that visual out of my mind. I can't even imagine how a parent or child goes through this when a child has a chronic illness...I suppose they just do because they have to like we did yesterday. But it can't be easy and that visual of her in front of the MRI after I kissed her forehead and had to leave to the waiting room will always bring me tears I think.

After an hour of waiting and reading 60 pages of my book that I will have to reread since I can't remember them, they brought me into Short term recovery where she was sleeping on the bed. I sat next to her to be there when she woke up. She woke up after about 10 minutes and wanted to be cuddled and have a drink of juice, but was in a good mood and aside from the uncomfortable process of taking the tape off of her hand she was just fine. I think the Bugs Bunny sticker (bandaid) helped.

We got McDonald's breakfast on the way home and she ate a LOT--eggs, pancakes, sausage, hashbrown and cinnamon roll. Of course, I also bought her a little pony happy meal toy which she thought was pretty neat. We spent the day doing a lot of snuggling. She seemed to feel fine, but was very needy/clingy yesterday which was ok because I think I was too.

We'll get the results next Tuesday morning and see what the dr recommends then.