Roller Coaster Kind of Day

I had several eyewitnesses to my crazy day yesterday. I’ve written about the roller coaster around here before. Yesterday was like someone snatched up Miles and I, threw us in a roller coater seat, didn’t bother with a seatbelt and pushed the ON button then went for a long lunch break.
The day had started normal enough. I was juggling homeschool while I was trying to get myself and Miles ready to go watch the girl’s award ceremony at school. For a minute I thought I might not be able to make it because Miles was covered in mucus and just kept coughing stuff up and generally looked kind of miserable. I gave him some motrin and he perked up a bit.
We made it to the school on time and watched most of the award ceremony. Miles began to cough and couldn’t catch his breath so I took him out and hung out with my friend Krissy. Her son didn’t want to sit still or quiet so she had to take him out. Miles was breathing really hard. She mentioned how terrible he sounded. I’m pretty sure she said, “It’s not fair.” I agreed.
After the program Rachel and I decided to go eat lunch at Chick-fil-A with our kids. We had a nice long lunch together. Miles looked incredible! He was smiling and laughing. He was moving his legs around. His breathing sounded great. He was charming. We kept talking about how good he looked. We ended up seeing several people we knew there and they were happy to see Miles feeling well.
I left because I work at the church on Tuesday afternoons. I had Miles, Kalista and Spencer with me. They were going to do some of their school work at the church while I worked on some stuff for children’s church with Ruth and Christina. Well, just a few minutes on the road after leaving Chick-fil-a Miles began coughing up blood. Spencer was in the backseat with him and he began to shout for me to pull over. I pulled over and Miles had coughed up a blood clot about the length of my finger. He had blood coming from his mouth, covering his teeth yet somehow the kid was smiling!
I cleaned him up a little then got back in the car. I put the car into drive and he began coughing up more blood. It wasn’t a little spit up. The blood was hitting the seat in front of him. I got back out of the car, cleaned him up some more and tried to figure out what to do. He had only done this sort of thing one other time and it was back in December when the doctor ended up having to intubate him or he was going to drown to death in blood. Of course this thought really freaked me out since we’ve already firmly decided we’re not going that route again.
I called Ruth and told her what was going on. I was close to the church and pretty shaky so I decided to still go over there to calm down and I was hopeful that the bleeding had stopped. When I got inside I took him to the bathroom to clean him up a bit but he continued to cough up blood. Ruth and Christina prayed for him and we got back in the car and went home.
On the way home I called the hospice nurse to come and check on him. I called Tony to pick up Kalista. I called Randy and told him what was going on. Spencer and Kalista were incredible! They were so calm. They were a little scared but they were saying sweet things to Miles and to me. Kalista patted my back. Spencer kept trying to clean up the blood even though I told him he didn’t have to. Miles just kept coughing up more and more then his nose began to bleed as well. Kalista said, “We could pray for Miles!” We took turns praying. It was actually very touching to hear her pray for our family.
When we got home Randy arrived pretty quickly. Tony picked up Kalista, and then the nurse came. Two nurses actually ended up coming over. They THINK he busted a blood vessel in his esophagus. Although, with his history it’s hard to say exactly what the problem was. They told me to give him two different pain medications to keep him comfortable and asleep.
Miles continued to cough up blood for 3 hours before he finally fell asleep. We kept him on pain meds all through the night. He didn’t end up coughing any more blood for the rest of the day.
Along with all this junk he’s been having trouble with his g-tube. I actually have to take him to Ft. Worth today so it can be changed out. I would just cancel the appointment but I think it’s causing some problems too because well, I’m having trouble feeding him food, but even more than that yesterday blood and yellow stuff kept coming out of his button. Considering that has never happened I’m pretty sure it needs to be fixed. My goodness…where is my paycheck for all this nursing I’m doing???
Honestly, I’m a little nervous about how this day will go. I don’t want him to begin coughing up blood again on the way to Ft. Worth. I don’t want to cancel the appointment and find out that I’ve made a mistake. I certainly do not want to get stuck in Ft. Worth if I have some kind of emergency with him while I’m gone. I’ve decided I’m just going to go about my day like I’ve planned and I’m going to trust God that he will give me wisdom in each situation that may arise today. Hopefully there will not be any situations to need wisdom about.
So, the show must go on right…