Lean Into It

I talked to Dr. Honey this morning and we decided to go ahead and do James’ blood work today since I was going to be at the hospital doing Jude’s. I have dreaded this for about 2 months now because of how traumatic I knew it was going to be for James. So I drank an extra cup of coffee and braced for the storm.

On the way to the hospital I stopped at Roaster’s to get a LARRRRRGE coffee and ordered at the drive-thru and pulled up and waited. From the back I heard James say in a very assertive voice, “Ummm….I’d like a toppee please, thank you!” as if he was ordering one too.  He’s not allowed to have “toppee” (coffee) yet but when he is, he knows exactly how to order it.

Dr. Honey had planned it all out to make it as easy on James (and me) as possible. Seriously, could she be more awesome?!?!?! Love her. When I tell people (medical types of people other than Dr. Honey) that James is strong, they sort of ignore me…until they try to give James a shot or draw blood or look in his ears. Then they realize I wasn’t exaggerating. Dr. Honey knows this well since she sees James a lot. She called ahead to the hospital and prepared them. We went to the hospital first to get some emla cream on James to numb him up for his blood draw. You would have thought that was the bad part. He screamed his head off. It took 3 nurses and me just to hold him down to put the emla cream on him! What the heck! Then we went to Dr. Regueria’s office for Jude’s appointment. While we were there I gave James some Benadryl and a phenergan hoping it would relax him enough or maybe even make him sleep through his blood work.

After the emla cream before the draw.

We got back up to the pediatric ward and we had 4 nurses this time.  It still took all of us to hold James down for them to draw his blood.  He screamed and cried and broke my heart into a million pieces.  Poor baby!  He is just terrified of any medical sort of things and I don’t know why.  

One of our sweet nurses Kristina let James get a toy out of the toy closet at the hospital.  He picked a nerf football...obviously because he was lured in by my nerf football throwing abilities last night.  And he snagged a teething ring for his little bro while he was in there "shopping".  Jude was pumped!

James loves balloons so after all of the lab work we went to the gift shop at the hospital and he picked out a balloon with bugs on it. 

He also got a hamburger on the way home.

And by the way…the Benadryl/phenergan combo did not work…but he took a great nap.

It wasn't easy doing all of this without Brad helping me.  I’m exhausted…not only from trying to hold James down but because of all that it takes to get two boys to all of their appointments.  Here’s how it went…first thing this morning we went to the hospital, I  unloaded Jude’s big stroller, loaded Jude and his car seat onto the stroller, loaded the bags, got James out, went up to the pediatric ward, got James all coated up in emla cream, went back down to the car, loaded James, loaded Jude, loaded the stroller, loaded the bags, went to Dr. Regueria’s office across the street, unloaded the stroller, loaded Jude onto the stroller, loaded the bags, got James out of the car, went into the doctor’s appointment, took Jude out of his car seat, undressed Jude for the appointment, gave James Benadryl and undressed him to give him a phenergan, redressed James, redressed Jude, loaded Jude back into his car seat, back to the car, loaded Jude into the car, loaded James into the car, loaded the stroller into the car, loaded the bags into the car, drove back across the street to the hospital, unloaded the stroller out of the car, loaded Jude onto the stroller, loaded the bags, got James out of the car, went up to the pediatric ward for James’ blood draw,  stopped at the gift shop for a balloon, dropped off Jude’s urine at the lab,  back to the car, loaded Jude into the car, loaded James into the car, loaded the stroller and bags back into the car, stopped for a burger, came home, unloaded James, unloaded Jude, unloaded the bags, fed James, fed Jude, changed both boys diapers, and finally put both boys down for a nap.

I heard from Dr. Honey this evening and we won’t have Jude’s urine labs back until tomorrow.  The labs they have back for James look great so far.  We are still waiting on some that won’t be back until next week. 

James wanted to make sure I took a picture of his boo boo.

Some days you just know are going to be rough and there is nothing you can do about it but pray for strength, take a deep breath, and lean into it.  There have been a lot of days lately when we've had no choice but to "lean into it".  We've been given no choice but to accept this...cancer, pneumonia, blood work, doctor visits.  This isn't the place where we are going to give up or stop or fall down or die.  This is the place where we lean into it and most importantly...lean into the Lord.  To depend on Him one day at a time for help and for the strength...emotionally and physically.

Psalm 22:19- Don’t stay far away, Lord!  My strength comes from You, so hurry and help.

And one more thing...when we are laying in bed at night and James is snuggled down between us, I love to look down and see this sweet little face looking up at me...

And then he said, "Momma, I love you so much" and he made my day.