Tommy's Ordeal and Breaking Down Walls Pt. 1

I wish this was a post about how Tommy and I bonded by spending hours gazing into each other's eyes and that it finally hit me that everything was going to be okay and that it didn't matter that my heart could break at any moment from losing him. This is not that post.

Tommy turned 3 months old in the hospital. He got RSV (respiratory virus) and was hospitalized at CDH before they remodeled. It was Hell. We had the absolute worst doctor I have ever dealt with. This man should never be allowed to practice medicine least of all with children. I think I heard from someone that he isn't a pediatrician anymore and works only with adults. He had a God complex and if I went to him nervous about something, he'd shrug it off and tell Leo to take me home and give me a glass of wine. If I wasn't nervous about something, he'd say I should be because I had a very sick baby. To say I hate this man and all his bad decisions is a huge understatement. Tommy was admitted from the doctor's office by his regular pediatrician so this bad doctor never saw him. When we got to the hospital, Tommy was in a room full of kids with RSV. It was the overflow room that housed six kids. I knew it was wrong to have a kid with CF in a room full of kids with RSV but I just wanted to believe taht everything was going to be okay so I didn't say anything. He was there for a few days when the bad doctor released him OVER THE PHONE!!!! The nurse came and said since Tommy had CF, this doctor wanted us to call the CF doctor and that the hospital is not a place to keep kids whose mother's were afraid to take care of them. She probably shouldn't have told me that but I got the feeling that the doctor wasn't well-liked there. I had to bring him home even though his breathing was still labored. The next day, it was so bad, I brought him back to my doctor and told her I was livid. She asked if I wanted to speak to the JackAss and I said yes (even though I HATE confrontation). I let loose telling him that if ever he saw my name on the list of kids he had to see at the hospital, he should know that I would rather be anywhere but there and that I was not afraid to take care of my kids but thought I was a pretty good judge of when they needed a DOCTOR or medical intervention and I did not appreciate him releasing Tommy without even seeing him. He called me feisty and apologized and then my doctor sent us back to the hospital to a private room.

I awoke in the middle of the night to a group of doctors standing over Tommy. I knew that couldn't be good. They were moving him to the ICU. They couldn't get him stable on room air and his breathing was too fast. I kept thinking, this is bad...really bad. Does this mean he is dying? I also kept thinking that I was too young to be making life and death decisions regarding another person. One of the good things that came out of Tommy being in the PICU was our CF doctor that I really didn't like (kind of shoot the messenger-type thing), came out to CDH to help the doctors that were taking care of Tommy. He really wanted him to be at Children's but I said no because I didn't want to be that far from my other kids and I was afraid to drive there so once I was there, I wouldn't be able to leave. I could not bear to not be able to get to Nico and Belle.

I don't remember the exact events but at some point, we went home only to end up back and at that point, the respiratory person said if Children's was where our CF doctors were, Tommy should really be there because it was more than just RSV. It was a CF exacerbation. Those words alone scared me. I thought, here we go. We were ambulanced over to Children's and I was trying to pay attention to how to get there so I could drive there, I started sweating at how overwhelmed I was as the passenger, let alone driver. As soon as we got there, a nurse checked us in and when she left, I looked at Tommy and prayed (even though I was still mad at God) that he would get better. He was so small and so frail and then I looked around the small, dark room and I cried. I felt like we were in prison.