And we're back...

Because apparantly, six days at Primary Children's wasn't enough for us.

Because if you belong to my family, you can't do anything the easy, prescribed or predicted way.

Because I needed another chance to realize how grateful I am for our health and our family.

Max was super fussy last night. He's such a happy kid that if he's fussing, you know something is really wrong, and he's usually easily consoled. Not last night. We didn't really think anything of it, just gave him some tylenol, then some motrin, and went to bed.

We had a miserable night. Like one of those "Why did I think becoming a parent was such a good idea?" nights. One of those nights where you're so sick of laying in bed trying to convince the baby to go to sleep that you finally move downstairs to the rocking chair, just to get a change of scenery. And one of those mornings where you cry when the alarm goes off, because you just got the baby to sleep 15 minutes before, and you just can't face a morning of practicing. (Okay, maybe the practicing part is exclusive to me.) But when Max woke up this morning, I knew he had a serious fever.

So I called our pediatrician. (You know you've been there one too many times lately when the Medical Assistant doesn't even have to ask about your kid's history...) She passed us off tot he plastic surgeon, who sent us on a "Go directly to Primary Children's, do not pass go, do not collect $200" trip. A CT scan, an IV that took 5 tries to get started, a foley catheter, and a spianl tap later, we still don't know what's going on. The good news is, its not meningitis. Its also nothing that will require another surgery. To be honest, I didn't even know that was on the table until the surgeon who was covering for the doc that did our surgery came to see us and told us how glad he was that he didn't have to re-open Max's head. I must have turned white when he said that, because he immediately said "I don't mean to scare you, but it could have been this or this" and recited a bunch of really scary things.

We actually almost got away with not being admitted. It was around 5 pm, and no one coudl really decide. I was on the fance, because while I didn't want to spend another night in the hospital, I really didn't want Max's fever to spike at 4 am sending us racing down the mountain, or to go to the pediatrician tomorrow morning and have her send us back here. They were about to let us go when they hooked him up to the heart monitor and found that his resting heart rate was in the 180s. Yup, we were benched.

But, we have found out how to have a hospital stay. Turns out, they have private rooms with showers! Its so much more peaceful here. And barring any craziness, we will go home tomorrow.

And Max is for sure grounded, as soon as he stops causing so much trouble. One nurse remarked that he was giving us all the trouble he could now because he was going to be the perfect teenager. Hope so, because he has used up his quota of worry. And he's not even six months old!