It's been three months since Eleanor's last trip to Vancouver for scans. Her doctor over there has extended her time between scans to six months, so this is the longest we have been away from Children's. Crazy. But kind of awesome. In lieu of a scan, he requested that Eleanor get an abdominal ultrasound at the hospital here. I got the letter in the mail about a month ago and the very chipper automated message robot kept calling me last week (Hello! I'm calling to remind you that Eleanor Goudie is to have an ultrasound at Victoria General Hospital...). I felt confident that it would go smoothly and Eleanor would lie still and be fascinated with the procedure. After all, there would be no pokes, no sedation, nothing scary at all. She would just miss breakfast and it would all be just fine.
Boy was I wrong.
We woke up nice and early and Kris helped me get the girls ready. We put on Sesame Street for Eleanor while we stuffed the diaper bag full of goodies for afterwards. I sat down to finish my tea and realized that the episode we had put on was all about food! Every single sketch/clip was about food. Eleanor noticed and started pointing out said food and asking for "bah??" and "toe??" (banana and toast, with extra question marks for her fierce up-speak). I ushered her out the door and into the car. We were going to be seriously early but there was too much temptation in the house. To kill some time. I went through the drive-thru starbucks and got a coffee. She was still on to me. "Nim? Nim?" while signing for milk. Frack. "No Eleanor, it's coffee for mummy. Yucky coffee."
We arrived at the hospital 30 minutes before her procedure, which is what the friendly robot told me to do, and I kept my fingers crossed that we could get in early. No dice. We waited with all the other people... sorry, I meant to say OLD people. We were spoiled rotten to spend so much time in a children's hospital. Being a toddler in a grown-up hospital stinks. Being the mother of a toddler in a grown-up hospital IS THE WORST! There was nothing for her to do and she was seriously antsy. We walked in circles, read magazines, sanitized our hands and we still had more 20 minutes to fill. The other patients were not impressed. I suppose it wouldn't have been that bad if it was just the two of us, but I had a tired Penny strapped to my chest and she was begging to sleep. She has reached this point where she is not cool sleeping "on the go" so I often end up with a baby crying herself to sleep right in my face. It's a little bit tough, but today she was doing okay.
They finally called in us and the second Eleanor got up on the bed, she freaked out. She was writhing around, crying, screaming - you name it. No one had even touched her. She's had lots of heart echoes and she doesn't love them, but she's never reacted so poorly. I tried to comfort her by singing songs, stroking her hair, kissing her forehead... nothing seemed to work. The tech wasn't much help, but she moved as quickly as she could to get us out of there. She did the right side, the left side and then checked out her pelvis. Great. Let's go home. I gave Eleanor a bag of grapes to get her satiated and we headed down the hall. We were almost at the reception desk when she grabbed us and said, "I didn't realize we were supposed to do the whole abdomen! I need you back."
Let the tantrum begin!
Holy hell. She screamed so loud and started crying hysterically. Penelope started to chime in at this point and I would like to extend a huge F-U to the woman who walked by with her fingers in her ears as I scrambled to pick up one child while juggling my bag, our coats and two crying children. Give me a break. Seriously. I carried her kicking and screaming back into the room and somehow we made it through. We got out to the car and I sat there and wondered would it have been better to go to Vancouver? Would the travel, the sedation, the hassle have been better than that gong show I had just experienced? Why on earth did she freak out so much? Maybe I treated it too lightly. Maybe she needed more prep before hand. Maybe she just felt gross because she was hungry. I have no idea, but it was shocking. Next time I am definitely bringing another set of hands. And a colouring book!
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