A Very Long Afternoon

It was such a jam-packed day, I don't know where to begin.

Corbin's tests were done in the Outpatient wing of the hospital, which looks like an ER basically, and has it's own entrance. So, I didn't get a chance to check out the awesome architecture and features of the hospital. This area was pretty bland. That sucked, I was really looking forward to seeing it - it looks so cool in pictures.
First thing done was to put in his catheter and IV. Luckily, they let me watch TV two curtains down so I didn't have to watch it all. It sounded bad enough. Poor Corbin was starving by then (1:15 or so) because they directed me not to feed him after 10:30am. They let me nurse him once they finished with that part.

Then we went to another room where they laid him on a long thing table and inserted him into this foam that kept his body in place. A machine moved underneath him to take pictures of his kidneys and bladder. They put the radioactive stuff in the IV and on the screen I could see his kidney and bladder light up as the liquid went through his system. Like we thought, only one kidney was working.

The test took over an hour and Corbin was not thrilled with laying there on his back that whole time. We started with the pacifier dipped in the sugar water, but after about 30 minutes Corbin had had enough of that. Then we switched to a bottle, but we couldn't give him too much for fear that he'd need to be burped - which wasn't possible until the test was done.

At one point the technician spilled the sugar water on Corbin, so they rest of the day Corbin had dried, sticky sugar water in his hair - a lovely hairdo.

Next, we went to another room for the bladder test. They force the contrast up the catheter and watch as it enters the bladder and exits again. Basically, it was a lot of "pee-catching", haha. Two guys were doing the test and they were hilarious. Whenever Corbin would fart, one guy would say to the other, "Dave, was that you?" and we'd all crack up. One guys job was just to catch Corbin's pee with a cloth, haha. What a job. At one point, Corbin had like a 2 foot stream that the guy missed, ha!

That test was difficult physically for me. I had to wear a vest and then lean way over the table to hold Corbin's shoulders and arms for the test. Being that I'm incredibly short, this was exhausting.

Then once he had peed out all the contrast the test was over and we got to go home.

The day was very tiring, but it was made so much better through friends. Luckily, a friend was able to watch Hayden so Mark didn't have to take off work. That was a blessing. Then, another friend brought over dinner. It was just what I needed. I had forgotten that she had offered and right before I checked my phone messages Mark and I were talking about what to do for dinner. I had brought a snack with me to the hospital but it was so intense and busy I never even got to open it. The thought of making dinner sounded like too much, and even going to dinner was too much effort. I was in no mood to entertain a toddler tonight. Then I played our messages and there it was, my friend asking what time I wanted dinner dropped off! Wow. A Godsend.

Corbin was so exhausted from the tests (he got no sleep all afternoon), that after his bath (I had to get the sugar water out of his hair) he slept for over 3 hours. Poor baby.

We had thought about making the movie in the park tonight, but I'm too worn out for it. Right now I just want to relax.