Here we sit...

and I guess we're doing okay.

The Boy is currently having his needle biopsy done. Father-in-law (Grandpa; but just so that we're clear, it's Musical Daddy's father) and I are sitting here, waiting. The first nicety that we've discovered here is that they assigned The Boy to a room and even though he isn't in it, we still get to hang out here. It is no more or less comfortable than the waiting room but it means that we don't have to move our stuff, and it also means that we don't have to be around bunches of other people.

But, retreating a bit, here's the rundown of our day so far:

Grandpa came for dinner and stayed over, as our house is further south than his. He had planned to take us on this little voyage so that I wouldn't be by myself, and because he is just that kind of helpful guy. We woke up and had planned to leave at 6:30. Last time we had planned the same thing and ended up leaving at 7:00. This time we did a little better, although right as I was strapping David in the carseat, I noticed that something smelled a little funny...okay, quick detour back to the house to change the poopy diaper, THEN we were on our way. We stopped at Dunkin' Donuts to grab a quick bagel breakfast, of course.

We hit some traffic along the way, which was to be expected. Grandpa has a GPS which has a feature that can design alternate routes around traffic problems. Grandpa dropped me off and went to go park, and The Boy and I made it in just in time. He was in a relatively good mood, still, although he didn't like being confined to one spot while I was sitting at registration.

Then back to the room. It's a little creepy to me that the entire department is the "sedation" department, but I guess that's not incorrect. The room resembles any other short-stay room, although it is a bit bigger than the rooms at our regular hospital. I liked the fact that while we did have to wait for things, we didn't really feel neglected during the pre-procedure assessments. The Boy did start to get restless, but a ride around in the wagon, pulled by Grandpa, really helped him to feel at ease. The bubbles helped too.

The port access was a little more dramatic than usual, probably because he was already irritable from having no food. By the way--the term for pre-procedure fasting is "NPO" which stands for....something. I would Google it but I don't feel like it. He was more aggravated, crying harder than he sometimes does for port access, and it took him longer to calm down.

Sometimes, he is able to get through the port access procedure without crying, sucking his thumb instead, but that's only when he's been allowed to sit up on my lap. Usually they have to pin him down, which aggravates him quite a bit more than the needle does. If appropriately guarded, he won't abandon his sucking thumb to swat at the needle.

They took blood, as they always do, and I'm assuming that they're going to get CBC/Diff done. They may take more blood later in the day.

He's back! More later.