Keeping Up With The Blog

*****Warning: This post is super long, and not very happy.  It's more for me to remember, so don't feel obligated to read on.

I've come to realize that I don't blog when I'm truly unhappy.  2012 was one of those years for me. A lot of hard things happened that caused me to make some changes in my life, and my blog suffered because of those hard times. Having Lia at the end of the year motivated me to keep up with the times in my life that need to be documented. I think I did pretty well with the blog updates in 2013.

I'm afraid 2014 is starting out more like 2012, and it's causing me to shut down and not keep up with the blog again. William was in the hospital for another week last week, and the experience was not only worse the second time, I'd say it was probably the worst week of my entire life.

On a Friday William's PE teacher told me that William didn't feel well enough to participate in PE that day. Hearing that made me worry. A lot. I started watching him more closely, and after that day, I could see he was in pain. By Tuesday, he came home from school and lay on the couch for the rest of the afternoon, so instead of taking him to school on Wednesday, I took him to his pediatrician.

The PA who works with his doctor thought William looked fine after doing a physical exam (I let him know the history with his kidney). He wanted a urine sample just to make one last check on him. He found blood in the sample, and said that because of William's recent hospital stay and the abnormal sample, I should take him to the hospital to get some more thorough tests. I asked him if it mattered where I went because I was not happy with Sunrise last time we were there. He told me Summerlin was fine.

So we went to Summerlin with a note from the PA about the recent lacerated kidney and abnormal urine sample. The note is important here.

I checked in at Summerlin Hospital, and the guy checking me in, who spoke bad English, kept my note. I asked if I should keep it to give to the doctor, and he said no he would keep it.

We sat in an pediatric er room for a while until a Russian woman came to get William for an ultrasound. She asked about his liver, and I told her he lacerated his KIDNEY. I thought maybe her bad English caused her to misread her notes, until the ultrasound tech told me they were getting an ultrasound of his liver. WHY?! He had a lacerated kidney!! I told her that also. Then for his ct scan, they were also concentrating on his liver. I was starting to lose it! Are all hospitals really this bad with communication! Where's my freaking doctor's note that says the boy has a lacerated kidney! I also told the ct scan people it was his kidney, and they said the scan should show both. So when the er doctor came in to tell me they could see a laceration on his liver,  I was angry, and told him there was never a lacerated liver - it was always a lacerated kidney!  And he told me, "well there's a lacerated liver now also." What the heck was going on with my poor William!

The next day, we had a lot of people in and out of our room.  All of them asked me how he lacerated his liver, and I had no idea.  Finally his doctor came in with about six other people dressed in scrubs to ask me questions.  All of them took notes.  My senses were screaming at me that something was wrong, but I had done nothing wrong, so I could trust these medical workers, right?  The doctor kept asking what happened between now and two months ago for William to lacerate his liver.  And I kept telling her I had no idea.  Then she did a small exam on him, and noticed a wart he has on his upper leg.  She said, "Have you seen this before on him?" I told her yes. "This is genital warts." She said.  "This needs to be looked into.  I'm going to have you talk to a social worker because I can see this is very hard on you."

So I talked the social worker who asked me the same questions about the liver and now about his wart. When we were done she said, "We have to call CPS about this." I was a little more worried about William's wart at this point.  But I don't use babysitters, and he doesn't play at other people's houses ever, so if he did have an std, it had to come from school or church, which I highly doubted. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted a test on the wart because I was sure it was not sexually transmitted.

I was given a lame excuse at Summerlin why they wouldn't test his wart - something like they didn't have the right test, but they said he would be tested after he got transferred to Sunrise.  That's right.  He got transferred back to Sunrise right after Summerlin called CPS on us, like they didn't want to deal with any backlash we might give them.  I now hate Summerlin Hospital more than I hate Sunrise.  Let's not test anything and make sure it's an std first - let's just call CPS and get rid of these people.  There's more damage that Summerlin did, but that will come later.

I was not happy when I arrived at Sunrise behind William's ambulance.  I did not want to be back at this hospital that I did not trust.  As soon as he got into his room, a resident walked in, and I got angry.  Here we go again with a bunch of random people walking in and out of his room all day long.  Then they told me he was not allowed to eat until they could figure out what was wrong with him.  All the same from before.  All he needed this time was too much IV fluid until his lungs and stomach filled up with water. I asked the resident when he could get a test on his wart so that I could show proof to CPS that he does not have an std, and he told me a child advocacy doctor would come in to test him.  We never did get that test.  Apparently Sunrise doesn't want to check things out for sure either.  

A little while later, two Metro detectives showed up to talk to me.  I had to go to a special room, and they tape recorded our interview.  And guess what?  They didn't care about the wart at all. They were concerned about the lacerated liver. They wanted to know what happened to him this time to cause it, and I told them I still didn't know.  I then told them about my distrust for Sunrise Hospital, and about William being starved and pumped full of IV fluid until he couldn't breath when we were here before.  I told them that if there is a lacerated liver, it was probably there the first time we came, and they missed it because they are such a mess.  The two lady detectives seemed to be on my side and were actually very helpful to me after that.

He was monitored for a day or so, and then he was allowed to eat and be monitored some more.  We were now under the care of a urologist who was dumbfounded that William was going to school and was only told to take it easy for 6 weeks.  He thinks the kidney started to heal but then was reinjured again.  I asked the urologist why we didn't see him the first time we came to Sunrise.  He has a much better plan for getting William better this time.

By Tuesday we were ready to leave the hospital, and the general doctor came in to tell me that all doctors had cleared William to leave, and he just needed to be cleared by CPS and Metro.  So Kevin made phone calls to our CPS lady and one of the detectives to move things along.  The detective let us know that she was informed that the lacerated liver that Summerlin diagnosed and that caused me to be interrogated by the police never existed.  So a whole case was opened up to investigate possible child abuse and/or neglect because some idiot at Summerlin wrote lacerated liver instead of kidney on William's file, even though I brought a doctor's note in with me that said lacerated kidney on it.

Also, we saw William's pediatrician today.  He looked right at William's wart and said, "That's not an std.  That wart is very common in little boys."  Not sure why the doctor at Summerlin couldn't see that also.  I'm starting to think that most of the doctors we've dealt with at these hospitals have very little experience.

But the great news is we are still dealing with CPS!  Because William being on bed rest for two months and having to get an ultrasound and see his urologist once a week is not hard enough right now!  Even though it's been proven that I don't beat my child and that he never had a lacerated liver in the first place and he doesn't have an std, CPS still has to go through their check list of things to investigate about us before they are done with us.

To say I'm annoyed is a total understatement.  We would not be dealing with CPS if someone didn't screw up at Summerlin and also if they would have tested his wart before calling to tattle on us.  I thought Sunrise was a mess, but now I'm convinced that every hospital in Las Vegas is a big fat joke.  I will never take my kids to a hospital here again.  I'll drive to St. George or even all the way to Salt Lake before I let these circuses that call themselves hospitals treat my kids.