oh, what a long weekend.

you know, the funny thing about this disease is just when i think we're out of the woods with something bad, something else happens.

on friday afternoon evan had a fever of 101.4. usually i'd just give him some tylenol and let it do its thing, but since he has the picc line any temperature over 100.5 means he needs a blood culture done in order to rule out infection. so i called sara (our wonderful hemo nurse) and let her know and she told me i should bring him in. i didn't realise this meant we would be admitted for at least 48 hours. picture me hearing this in the middle of a public hallway and starting to cry. i really need to work on this emotional shit.

so we are brought up to our room and the nurses take blood cultures and urine samples and start pre-emptive antibiotics. standard care, i suppose...and i'm still infusing him every 12 hours, so i am figuring we will just be here for the next couple of days and then be done. his cbc comes back and the nurse explains that his white cell count looks good and that she doesnt think he's fighting an infection, so we are probably going home on sunday.

the next morning after the shift change, the new nurse breaks the news that there is bacteria starting to grow in his culture, and that it probably means a 10 to 14 day stay here. dammit. it's christmas and we have an older son and what are we going to do? we're supposed to go out of town, but that can at least be put on hold for now. and i immediately start crying. again.

i manage to stop the tears rathar quickly and focus on the fact that my son isnt feeling well and needs to get better. his temp has been in the 101 to 103 range over the past 12 hours (even after having tylenol) and if he's going to be sick somewhere, i suppose this is just the right place.

fast forward about six hours to the scariest moment i have ever had in my life. michael, noah, evan and i ware playing in the playroom. i stepped out to run back to our room to grab e a snack and some milk and i come back to noah scurrying about putting on his shoes. he tells me that michael left with e because something is wrong with him. i figure this is noah jsut being dramatic, so i walk out calmly to go find them. michael is holding evan at the nurses station and when i get up to see him, evan's eyes are rolled up and to the left and his face (and lips especially) are blue.

my baby stopped breathing.

michael handed him to the nurse, who rushed him back to our room. she laid him on the crib, tilted his head back and gave him the breath of life. it took a few seconds, but he started to breathe on his own again and his color started to come back.

i am trying so hard to be a mother to both of my boys at this moment. the oldest one, who is bawling his eyes out because he just watched his brother stop breathing and turn blue. and the youngest one, who just stopped breathing.

and all i wanted to do was puke.

immediately after this happened, evan sat with michael and was just not himself. his eyes would only look to the left. he wouldn't respond to me when i called his name. all he would do is chew on a paci in a way that he never had done before. finally after about 10 minutes he was showing signs of getting back to normal.

when the nurses determined that he had a seizure, they paged his hemotologist and rushed him down for a ct scan. all within about 30 minutes the ct scan came back normal and showed no sign of hemmoraging in the brain. which, of course, is good. but it doesnt explain why in the hell he had a seizure.

so, after all the drama of the evening, michael told me to go home and rest. not that rest was really possible, but i still have a ton of shit to do. laundry to fold. presents to wrap and put under the tree. more crying to do. so i left. reluctantly, but i went.

about forty-five minutes after i got home, michael called and told me that evan had another seizure. same thing as before, but that he was alright. i threw my stuff back together, got int he car and made it all the way back to st. joe's in about 20 minutes.

when i got back, evan was all doped up on atavan and completely asleep. he looked so sweet, and all i could do was press my lips against his cheeks. and, of course, cry. he was moved to the picu where he was to spend the night. michael had me leave, so i drove three minutes down the road to my sister's house and spent the night there.

i came back to hear that evan had an uneventful night, and i was pretty thankful for that news. we spent the day wandering around the picu, seeing things i would prefer to not see again any time soon. eventually we were moved back to the observation unit where we started out on friday. the hemotologist came in and told us that there is no bacteria growing in evan's second blood culture, so they now believe that there is no infection in the picc line. but, since the ct scan showed that his hematoma had reabsorbed into his brain that we should be able to stop the factor and take the picc line out. if he still needs the antibiotics we can give those orally.

so, that is pretty much where we are at right now. except he still has a high fever. it was 103 about two hours after he was given tylenol. the fevers are worrisome, because they are what the doctor believes are causing the seizures. so here i sit, in a bed next to my baby, thinking about sleep but pretty sure it won't really come because i am scared out of my mind that his oxygen levels are going to plummet and they will have to get him breathing again. and then my mind drifts to the "what if" part...and i don't really need to be there right now.

but at least i'm not crying.