She has always had a little pin hole on her chest, from the time she was born, and the doctors told us it was an enlarged pore. We noticed at her 15 month appointment last month that it looked like a little pimple. Our doctor squeezed it, some stuff came out, and he told us it was a little cystic mass that may fill up and need to be squeezed every now and again. No big deal.
Last week on Tuesday (08/03) we took Charlotte to the doctor to look at her chest again. The pimple had gotten larger but I was concerned because it was red and sometimes warm to the touch. Our regular doctor was out so we had to see someone different. Needless to say Charlotte didn't care for him and so he didn't spend as much time looking at it as we would have liked. He claimed it was only enflamed, not infected, but that we would need to have it removed at some point or it would just keep flaring up so they set up a consultation with a pediatric surgeon.
Over the course of the week it was slowly but surely getting worse. It was larger, more red, and still hot to the touch. I called the doctor on Friday (ours was still out) and the nurse was pretty rude. She said that the doctor already told me it wasn't infected. She kept saying that unless is changed drastically to just keep the appointment for Tuesday with the surgeon and he would let us know what to do next.
When my Mom was here over the weekend we all noticed it getting worse. We woke up on Monday to water in the basement...that we are currently living in due to construction, so I called to let work know I needed to get stuff cleaned up and off the floor. We let Charlotte sleep and when she woke it was very large. We gave our regular doctor a call and he had us come straight over.
The surgeon was very concerned when he saw the cyst. In fact, had she not already eaten that day he would have taken her directly into surgery to get it drained. Instead, he sent us home with a super heavy duty antibiotic and an appointment for surgery the next day.
We went to fill the prescription and headed home. Ahhh...home....where we still had water in the basement, wet carpet, and stuff to clean and pick up. Not to mention that up on arriving at our very own construciton zone we realized that the air conditioner was not working. That was awesome given it was 90+ degrees outside. Pretty soon the wood floor guy was here, letting us know we needed to be moved out by Thursday so that they could refinish the floors. No walking on them for 4 days. Could the day get any worse?
We decided to go out for pizza for dinner. Partly because it is Char's favorite and partly because it would be air conditioned.
Monday evening was spent cleaning up the basement and preparing for surgery the next day. We got up at 4 am to get Charlotte the last she could have to drink. It had been POURING rain all night. We had a whole lot more water. Great. We spent from 4am to after 8am cleaning and sucking up water. At that point it didn't matter anymore as we had to get ready to head to the hospital. Oh, here is a picture of the cyst after eating pizza. It was worse by morning.
Charlotte's surgery was scheduled for noon but they were running ahead of schedule so they took her back at 11:30. It was pretty hard to see her go. You do all the prep work with her, walk to the end of the hallway, and at the stop sign we had to pass her off to a nurse. When you check in they give you a buzzer like they give you in restaurants. Next all we had to do was wait for it to go off.
Less than a half hour later it buzzed the first time and we were able to meet with the Doctor. We were told she was out of surgery, everything went well, and that they would buzz again when she awoke and was ready for us. Another half hour later and we were being buzzed. She was awake and ready for Mom and Dad!
From there we were escorted to our hospital room. We needed to keep her on IV antibiotics for a minimum of 24 hours. There was a possibility we would stay 2 days but it depended on how things went. Charlotte actually had a pretty good time in the hospital. She got to play and jam to music and hang with Mom and Dad. She also got to go for rides in the little tikes car, probably her favorite thing. We are very thankful that she took it so well.
After a long day Charlotte finally hit the hay, all be it in a creepy cage hospital bed. Jim went home after she was out to take care of the dogs and to tackle the soppy basement. Not to mention that EVEN MORE RAIN was on it's way. Yep...it poured some more. A lot more. Jim was up until after 2 am. This was not just our problem, the whole city/area was flooding. A few people were even killed in some flash flooding that happened. It was just crazy!
Jim came back to the hospital the next morning and after the plethora of doctors/surgeons/resident/nurses all cleared us we were able to GO HOME! and in her honorably discharged shirt none-the-less.
Luckily enough we were able to get the floors postponed so that we didn't have to move out right when we got home from the hospital. We still didn't have the air conditioner working so we called a repairman. We told him what was going on and believe it or not he said he didn't think we needed him. He told us to go and get a new filter. Even though we had replaced it no more than a month before with all of the dust form the construction it was not allowing air to pass through our vents and therefore it was freezing all of our ducts.
Charlotte and I headed to walmart, picked up a filter, and headed back home. We got it switched, the cold air started flowing, and we were finally able to relax. I just realized I said long week in the title...this was only monday through Wedneday. 3 long days over and we made it. The visiting nurse starts coming today to pack her wound. Hopefully it goes well!
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