September 10, 2024 • 55 mins
Join Jes and Matt on this episode of Out Loud and Uncorked as they recount a harrowing family ordeal that began with a seemingly simple sinus infection and escalated into a medical emergency. With unfiltered truths and heartfelt moments, they share the highs and lows of their unexpected journey, from a vacation in the Bahamas cut short to an experience at Levine Children's Hospital. Grab a drink, sit back, and get ready for an emotional rollercoaster filled with valuable insights and raw, real-life experiences.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
Welcome to Out Loud and Uncorked, where we pop the top on intriguing people
and their unique experiences.
You can expect some real unfiltered truths and plenty of laughs.
So grab a drink, sit back and join me as I uncork some amazing stories.
The views, information or opinions expressed during this podcast are solely
(00:24):
those of the the individual involved and do not necessarily represent the show.
The content does not constitute professional advice or services and is not intended
to treat, diagnose, or cure any medical conditions.
Out Loud and Uncorked and its hosts are not responsible for the accuracy of
any information contained in the podcast series. Please take care when listening.
(00:45):
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Out Loud and Uncorked. I'm Jess.
And I'm Matt. Hi. Hey, how are you?
Oh, yeah better now I guess it's been a week oh my god to say the least we were
(01:05):
supposed to record a few days ago cheers by the way cheers we need this one
today yes definitely clink clink,
it's been a wild one it sure has yeah we had plans for all kinds of different
things with this episode and podcast.
Oh, you're a spicy one. I'm spicy. Okay.
(01:28):
Yeah, we thought, remember, we
said we may not record last week because we were going on vacation. Woo!
So, one of us went on vacation. Well, we both went, technically.
That's true. Technically, all four went. Technically, we went.
Aiden and I were only there for 20 hours, 18 hours?
(01:50):
Yeah, 20. or so before we got back on a flight and,
raced home yeah yeah so why don't you tell us about your vacation first.
Where'd you go what'd you do how was it well we were supposed to go to the bahamas which we did,
(02:10):
and so we flew out what early last thursday
morning and landed there at about nine
o'clock and got on a pretty fun
party bus and we were going to we were going with a lot
of families yeah a lot of families bunch of friends kids friends
our friends 26 28 people
something like that people yeah a lot of people so we were all geared up a lot
(02:32):
of kids that the boys know at school and a lot of adults that we obviously know
and hang out with so yeah we went to the bahamas we landed we checked into the
resort where'd you say where'd we say at bahamar it's like an
influencer favorite right now yeah yeah it was
pretty cool the new hot spot in the bahamas yeah it was
(02:53):
our first time there yeah it was pretty cool we stayed at the hyatt portion
and yeah it was nice they've got a huge water park with a lot of water slides
so the kids are obviously entertained and have a ton of stuff to do and they've
got i don't even know i mean there were There's tons of restaurants on site,
(03:13):
a lot of activities, obviously a casino, some entertainment.
And then a pretty nice beach, pier, all the fun stuff.
Nice. So you guys had a good time. You and Mason. Me and Mason had a good time.
Yeah. We did. We did. But did you have a good time? No.
The long and the short of it, no, I did not. Well, we had a good time,
(03:37):
but we still were stressed. I was still stressed out the whole time.
So it wasn't as enjoyable.
There were a lot of hiccups, which I'm sure we can talk about today. Mm-hmm.
We still tried to have a good time. I can't say too much without giving it all away, right?
Yeah. Well, I'm about to. So tell us what happened.
(04:01):
So Wednesday, last Wednesday,
Aiden's nurse called me from school about halfway through the day and said that
he was in her office with a really bad headache and almost in tears.
And she's like, you know, I've never seen him in my office.
So, you know, I don't think he's just trying to go home early, basically.
(04:26):
And I was like, yeah, no, that's like not him at all. Like, I'll come get him right away.
Went and got him. Usually when Aiden has a headache, it's because he has not drank a lot of water.
He hasn't eaten very well. He's
like a picky eater and actually doesn't really care about food at all.
So eating to him is more of a chore. and so i figured that's what it was right
(04:50):
so i pick him up and i can tell right away he is not feeling well and he keeps
saying that he's that the headache is on like the side of his head,
so i'm thinking it sounds like a sinus headache i know how much those suck they
hurt like i'm feeling for him right so because his ear was hurting too yeah
didn't he say that no it was just kind of he was just kind of like pointing
(05:12):
to the side yeah so i just assume you know that's it's all connected.
So I just assumed it was the sinus thing, but he also has allergies.
So are like in the South, our allergies kick up almost year round.
And they just spike at like different times for different things.
Like right now the weather is just changing a little bit. Like I actually noticed
(05:36):
some of the leaves today had changed.
So it's cool in the morning. It's still like 80 in the afternoon.
Then gets down to like the 60s at night, 50s in the morning.
So it's kind of all over the place. A week before we left, it was.
It was much cooler. Much cooler. The temperature had really changed a lot. It had rained a lot.
And so I'm assuming it's allergies. allergies
(05:58):
so he had already taken allergy medicine that's that morning gave
him some tylenol told him to relax you know we
laid on the couch and he was feeling pretty good by the end of the night yep
we get up at 4 30
in the morning right on thursday we had a very early flight so
we get up really early thursday morning to fly out
of charlotte and he's not feeling great
(06:20):
but it's also 4 30 it's also 4 30
in the morning and he likes to sleep so
he wasn't really he wasn't really complaining
much of like the headache or anything else he just was kind of like moody which
he normally would be at 4 30 in the morning so still not really thinking anything
of it give him allergy medicine we go on our way during the flight and this
(06:44):
does happen to him a lot he always has an issue with the ear popping.
And then it like taking a long time to like unpop. So.
That happened on the flight. And he was also a little more congested,
not like sneezing and coughing all over the place, but just he just sounded
(07:05):
a little congested and then his ear wouldn't pop. So that was like really hurting.
And it did seem like it was hurting more than usual.
So then I was thinking maybe he does have a little sinus thing and like the
ear thing is going to hurt even worse and it's probably going to be even harder to pop.
So we're walking through through the airport to get to the party bus.
(07:26):
And I look back at him at one point, we both looked back at him at one point
and we're like, whoa, what's happening here?
He was like eating a ring pop because I was trying to get him to like suck or
chew gum to try to keep swallowing to get those ears to pop.
So we had like red all over his mouth. He had like a line of green snot coming out of his nose,
(07:50):
right like full full-on green snot yeah and
and then like his sweatshirt was
tide riders wazed and like he just had that like miserable
look in his eyes so when we turned back and looked at him we were like whoa
buddy like let's clean you up here for a second like you're looking rough right
i have some services called on this yeah for your the way you're looking right
(08:13):
now so we cleaned him up a little bit he's like mom like my ear is really killing me.
I'm like, I know, but there's really nothing I can do.
You have to just try to keep swallowing, try to yawn.
Those are really the only things you can do. Try to get him water so he can keep swallowing.
And he's just like not feeling better. So we get, we all like pile onto this
(08:35):
huge party bus, which was literally a party bus, like stripper pole in it and
everything, lights, music, like it was fun.
And there's a ton of adults. There's a ton of kids. The kids are going wild in the back.
And Aiden is sitting in the corner of the back of the bus, miserable.
Like the music isn't getting him going. The kids aren't getting him going.
(08:58):
Like I'm looking at him like, like he's really
not feeling great yeah and we make a
couple stops on the way to the resort and the second
the second stop when i got back on the
bus he was looking real
bad like real pale just looking bad and he
was like i i feel like i'm gonna throw up and i was like okay
(09:20):
let's get off the bus we like run off the bus into the parking lot
but we had prior to him us thinking
he needed to throw up he also has like a weird taste aversion
thing not aversion well and like a moving car
texture thing doesn't like to eat in a
car but we were like kind of forcing him to
eat a little bit so that he would swallow to try to get the ears going and then
(09:43):
you gave him medicine that he hated and then we gave him yes we got him medicine
to try to like clear up some of that congestion which we thought it was sinuses
yeah well it was well it was so yeah we gave him and he did not like the taste of it.
And like just, and it wasn't immediate, but a few minutes later he was like,
I'm gonna be sick. I'm like, okay, we rush off the bus.
(10:03):
Get into the parking lot the exact moment that
he pukes all over my shoes all over everything but we
get him cleaned up and then he looks up at
me and no i had just looked at him
in the face a minute prior to this and
other than looking like he was gonna get sick he just looked normal or just
(10:25):
like he was suffering a little bit but he looked up at me and his left eye just
was like swollen underneath and a little reddish purple.
And I was like, oh my God, he's having a reaction to something.
So I run back on the bus and everyone's on the bus at this point.
(10:46):
And I'm like, babe, Aiden's eye is really swollen all of a sudden.
And you're like, swollen? What? And literally somebody, I don't even remember
who it was. Somebody just stuck a Benadryl pill in my face. They were like, here, give him this.
I'm like, okay, good. Let's just get an antihistamine and i'm
like if he's allergic to something like at
least the benadryl will help and then i'm racking my brain like what
(11:06):
could he like he ate nothing touch nothing like there's
nothing he could have been and he's not allergic to anything right so given
the benadryl he takes it and the rest
of the ride is what 15 more minutes to the resort and he
is not getting better no like his eye
by like by the
minute basically is getting more swollen more swollen
(11:29):
in and red red tearing a little
bit of tearing not too much but yeah
a little bit of tearing but it's it's starting to look like he's like got punched
in the eye yeah he can still see out of it still open but just underneath and
kind of like on the side of his nose so we get to the resort and there's like
a zillion people in the lobby so i send you to go do the check-in stuff with
(11:54):
everybody and I find a couch with him and we just sit on the couch and he's also freezing, right?
He was in a hooded sweatshirt. It was very hot in the Bahamas, very humid.
He's in a hooded sweatshirt and he's sitting with his knees pulled up and his
knees pulled into the sweatshirt and then literally passes out on this couch
(12:14):
and I'm like, there's definitely something wrong. This kid is not, this is not Aiden.
Like he never gets sick and when he does, it's not like this.
He's never been... I don't even think he's ever been on an antibiotic.
I know. I can't name the last time he was sick.
He passes out on the couch and you finally finish up and,
(12:36):
We actually couldn't get into our room at that time, but friends could.
So they were like, you know, you can come bring them up to our room until your
room is ready. So we do that.
10 minutes later, our room is ready, of course. So you run back down,
get the keys. We go to our room.
And now this is early because we got there early.
Yeah, if that. Like 11, 12 o'clock.
(12:58):
So everybody's idea was to like get changed and like meet at the pools and go
have some lunch and hang out.
So everybody's getting dressed to
go and Aiden's like I can't go like I just
don't feel well and I'm like yeah you look terrible like I
don't blame you for not wanting to go so I'm like
I'm obviously gonna stay here with you so you and Mace head out
(13:20):
go meet everybody and I'm kind of just like texting
updating you like hour by hour
he's looking worse and worse
and cannot stay awake week and now i'm
like freaking out a little bit i'm like this is
like not this is not him this is not good so
i figure out that there is a doctor on
(13:42):
the resort and well i think you were like at like two o'clock that was your
first like all right i think we need to go home and i was i remember did i say
that before even going to the doctor yeah yeah i was like i don't know like
come on it's probably just a cold or a sinus infection yeah and then you were
like why don't why don't we just take him down to the doctor here and see what they say?
So you went down. I'm like, well, I can't drag him down there if I'm going to
(14:05):
be sitting in the waiting room because I literally can't even get him up.
So you went down there and signed him in and then you waited in the waiting
room and then called us when it was a few minutes out. I need another drink.
Yep. So I bring him down. They'll only let one of us in the exam room, So I go in with him.
(14:30):
I think you probably left, right? Because you went to go see what Mason was
doing. Yeah, because we left him with everybody. Left him with everybody else.
And we get in there and she is taking a look at him and looking at his eye, looking into his ear.
And, you know, she's like, he definitely has a sinus infection.
Like I can tell like just where his pain is and everything else.
And I'm like, yeah, but does that cause the eye to swell like that?
(14:52):
Like he's never had this.
And she was like, well, it looks like it's like turning into cellulitis.
And I know cellulitis is like a basically like an infection,
but you can get it anywhere in your body. It's not particular to the eye.
And she was like, if you don't treat it, it's going to turn into periorbital
cellulitis, which can be very dangerous. And she said.
(15:18):
Lives in the Bahamas, is a doctor in the Bahamas. And she looked me in the eye
and said, you don't want to be here if that happens, because he'll need to be
admitted into a hospital and put on IV antibiotics.
And basically, you don't want that to happen in the Bahamas.
And I'm like, yeah, no, I don't want that to happen here either.
(15:39):
So she gave us some antibiotic.
And she was like, Give him one right now. Give him another one in 12 hours.
But it's not looking good. And I'm like, yeah. My mind is set now. We're going home.
And so you meet us back in the room. And I tell you what she says.
And he takes the antibiotic and falls asleep again.
(16:04):
Now, at this time, his eye is very swollen. All the way around, reddish purple.
He can still open it. but like that is
like closing like that the window of that
is closing yeah we get
back to the room he takes this and he falls back asleep i'm like please look
for flights for us like you guys don't have to come with us but he
(16:27):
and i need to go home i need to get him to levine's children hospital
like like stat yeah and you're
like no no like let him take the antibiotic like because in my head i'm like
he's gonna take the antibiotic and it's gonna clear up right away right or with
the second like you were like even if you guys are stuck in the room for like
a day or two yeah you know he can still enjoy the vacation and i just had it
(16:50):
in my head i mean anytime he ever has had a sniffle,
literally one dose of any medicine clears it up yeah and he's fine and he's
fine so i'm like he's gonna take that antibiotic and wake up in the morning
and he's gonna be fine and i'm like no.
I'm like this is i call it mother's intuition or
what you will but all i can think is that he
(17:11):
will not be okay in the morning and we will be in
the hospital in the bahamas and like i can't
have that happen and mason is hearing us have this whole
conversation yeah and he's like i'm not going home freaking out
freaking out i just got here i'm like before it gets too late and we can't get
on a flight tomorrow please like call american airlines tell them the situation
(17:31):
get them to switch us on to the first flight out in the morning and even if
he feels fine in two days I will be at peace that like I did the right thing
and took this kid home. Yeah.
So you reluctantly do it. They switch our flights. They get the two of us on a flight.
I don't know if it was reluctant. You kind of forced my hand.
Well, that's what I mean. You didn't want to. I know, which I feel horrible about now.
(17:55):
Yeah. I mean, you didn't know, obviously. Yeah, that you were like...
And then I even FaceTimed my brother.
My brother is a physician and I FaceTimed him and he was driving home from work
and pulled over and he's like, all right, let me see him.
And I didn't even tell him what the doctor had told me.
And I put the camera on Aiden and my brother was like, oh, he's got periorbital cellulitis.
(18:17):
Like I can tell just by looking at him and if that turns into orbital cellulitis,
like bulging of the eye, much worse swelling, like you're gonna be in trouble.
And he was like, I don't wanna tell you what to do, but like I would go home.
And I was like, I already had my mind made.
I'm like, oh no, I'm going home. Like I'm taking him home. And he's like, good, good.
(18:38):
Like that would be my suggestion is to get him home because if that turns into
orbital cellulitis, like that's really dangerous. He could go blind.
Yeah, he can go blind. He can get into an infection in his brain. Like don't Google this.
Yeah, which I didn't. Of course we did.
So we get on a flight in the morning. I literally have to get him a wheelchair
(19:01):
at the airport because at this point his eye doesn't open and his balance is
very off. He hasn't eaten anything.
It was swelled up to like the size of a, like halfway
between a golf ball and a tennis ball no no
not at that point maybe like getting towards golf ball
it was it was it was no because it got worse it
(19:21):
got worse when we got home so do you know how big a golf ball is and a tennis
baller uh yes are you serious don't even try okay okay with any of this i'm
saying it was big i know it was big okay and all i'm thinking is if that eye starts bulging,
then it has like crossed another line of infection.
(19:45):
And that's what all I'm worried about. So right now it's just swollen,
really swollen, won't open, kind of stopped even tearing.
He's off balance. He can barely even walk because he can't see out of it.
So I get him a wheelchair, which also actually means that you get like a medical assistant.
So they actually don't just give you a wheelchair. They have somebody roll him,
which is nice because they set that up for your,
(20:10):
Like when you land in the airport there as well, which was, thank God they did.
So we get on the flight, they get us into it. We get into a seat closer to the
front because like, I need to get him off this plane and to a hospital.
And the poor thing, like everyone that walks by is looking at him.
He's trying to wear his sunglasses the whole time, but like it was a,
(20:34):
you know, it's not a domestic flight.
So like they needed to check his face with his passport before we boarded.
So and he's like he's just upset and embarrassed
about how he looks he keeps saying i look like a freak i look
like a freak everyone's gonna be looking at me and it
was like the first time and i really feel for parents
that have kids that you know have something visual you know something that you
(20:57):
can see going on with them because i every thing i noticed every single person
that walked by every kid that walked by it's like looking at him and then their
eyes go wide like Like, what's going on with that kid?
And I just felt for him. So, and I'm a nervous wreck.
Like I am like, you know, should I call an ambulance to meet us at the airport
(21:19):
in Charlotte at this point? That's how bad I'm like kind of freaking out.
So long story short, we get to Charlotte. There's a wheelchair waiting for us.
Thank God, because Charlotte airport was the busiest I had.
When I say it's shoulder to shoulder, like it was, I couldn't have walked through the crowd.
Never mind the uh friday of labor day weekend yeah yeah so a lot of travel a
(21:41):
lot of travel and this woman that that was like assisting us with the wheelchair i mean she was.
She was hauling ass through this airport and just yelling at people wheelchair
coming through wheelchair and i'm like rolling with the bags behind us like
this is amazing so it was like the waters had parted for us she was waiting
(22:02):
there for us she got us through the crowd took us right
to, we did offsite parking.
So took us right to like the shuttle for our offsite parking,
which is never there when we get there, right?
Like we always either have to call or just wait for a little bit for it to be
there. It was there. We get right on.
There's a lot of people getting on. I look at the driver. I'm like,
I need to get him to a hospital. Like, can you please bring us to my car first?
(22:26):
And he's like, yeah, I got you.
Get in, takes us right to my car.
We get in the the car and we, I put the children's hospital in my GPS and it
was only like six miles from there or something, but there's always traffic
and there's a ton of traffic lights to get there.
It was literally like my, my mom, my cousin, everyone who's in heaven was like
(22:50):
with me that day because every light was green.
We got there like in record time.
Pull up to the emergency room. I barely even put it in park.
The attendant at the valet sees me and she's like, girl, just get out. I got this. You go.
And I get him out of the car, get him in a wheelchair, get him inside.
(23:10):
Not one person in the emergency room.
That never happens. Yeah, it's usually packed for hours. It never ever happens.
So we get right into triage. They see him.
They're like, clearly he has periorbital cellulitis. Like we need to get him
on IV antibiotics right away.
So they do. Then this is the first time he's like, he's never even had a blood
(23:34):
draw. I mean, the only needle he's ever gotten has been like a vaccination.
So they have to put an IV in his, you know, the inside of his elbow.
He was a champ about it. They were awesome about it.
I mean, being at a children's hospital is a hundred percent different than being in a regular hospital.
I mean, these people are meant to work with children.
(23:54):
So they were amazing. They got that in, got him started on antibiotics right away.
Then they're like, we're going to have to take him for a CT scan to see like
how bad the infection is in his
sinuses, but also how far back behind the eye it has come. It has gone.
And the doctor is like, I'm thinking he's, he says to me, like,
I think these IV antibiotics is going to start working right away.
(24:17):
Like, I don't expect to see anything on this CT, you know, that is going to
really like freak us out here. it's just like he's probably gonna be here overnight
and I'm like yeah I figured that like no problem he goes back for the CT and.
An hour later, the doctor walks in and he's like, so remember when I told you
(24:37):
that I didn't really think anything was coming up on the CT? I'm like, oh, God, what?
He's like, yeah, he's got an abscess behind his eye, like basically to the inside, up and back.
And he's like, the only way we can get to that abscess is going to be like surgical intervention.
(24:57):
And this was the last thing I was thinking about hearing.
Like, I'm like, he has a sinus infection. it's bad he needs
antibiotics like not once did i think that
he was going to need surgery well you and that was
what maybe eight ten hours
after he had been on an iv so his swelling
had actually like started to go down you were sending me pictures keeping
(25:20):
me updated feeling better like they were giving him fluids like
it's he's gonna be fine no no he's
like we have to admit him so we're getting a
room for ready for you guys upstairs and we'll get him
up there as soon as possible and then you know the
the pediatric ophthalmologist surgeon will be in to talk to you i'm like i'm
(25:43):
freaking out so they got us into a room those are big words those are big words
those are big scary words like surgery you've already put like an iv in my kid's
arm surgery Surgery, antibiotics, being admitted.
Like, he needs to be seen by an infectious disease doctor, an ENT,
an ophthalmologist, surgeon.
He's like patient zero. Yeah. What is going on here?
(26:07):
And they are assuring me the whole time that, like.
We got here at the right time. They've caught it at the right time.
Like surgery is going to have to happen, but like we're in good shape basically.
So they admit us, they get us up to the room pretty quickly.
And then we start, then the wait.
(26:28):
Yeah. And you know, everything in a hospital takes a long time.
By the time we got admitted, it was after midnight.
Yeah, it was, I was gonna say one, one or 1.30 in the morning. Yeah, it was late.
So we were just, you know, ready to kind of pass out at that point.
He was ready to sleep and they were going to keep him on antibiotics, IV antibiotics.
They put him on vancomycin and Unisyn.
(26:51):
And those are both IV, you know, infusions. And he's basically on them around the clock and fluids.
And we wake up in the morning and we get visited by the ENT and he's like,
yeah, you're going to need to see the ophthalmologist he's showing me
the ct scan and he when he shows me
this scan now usually you can't even like decipher what's going
(27:11):
on in these scans right like they're just a lot of black and white and
i'm like how did i don't even know how you know what you're looking at
but i could clearly see that i was looking at his face and the whole left side
of his face was white and the whole right side of his face was black yep and
he was like yeah it's supposed to all be black he's like Like all that white
(27:33):
on that left hand side is all congestion.
Like it's all infection.
His sinuses are, basically how this happened is that his sinuses got so infected
and are not draining properly.
Like the infection basically had nowhere else to go. And that's how that abscess
formed and started filling with fluid.
(27:54):
And he's like, when he has a cold, is he normally more stepped up on just the one side?
And I'm thinking, and I'm like, he, like I never noticed which side it was, but it, yes, he does.
Oh yeah, now that you say that, yeah, he is always congested in one nostril when he is congested.
He's like, yeah, his sinuses are not draining properly. Like I can see that
(28:15):
just by looking at the CT.
He's like, so after all this, I'm really going to want you to follow up with us.
And after all this infection is cleared up, like we need to kind of take a look at his sinuses again.
We'll have to do another CT and see if like, if this infection just got way
out of hand or if his sinuses really are not draining properly because he has
(28:39):
a deviated septum on that side, which we didn't know either.
I'm like, okay. okay he's like but the ophthalmologist will
be in at some point to speak with you about what's next we wait all day all
yeah so can i interject give you a little breather yeah go ahead so it's one
what 1 30 in the morning yeah like you said that you finally got admitted and i think that was when.
(29:05):
You obviously text me and you're like all right we're in and i think you said
i think you should to come home, right?
Like it was. Yeah, I was like, I think you should start thinking about.
Thinking about coming home. Coming home. Yeah, so I was like,
okay, it sounds, this obviously wasn't just a sinus infection.
Yeah, I should probably come home.
So I told her, I was like, I'll look at flights first thing in the morning,
(29:25):
can probably get out of here at, you know, I think there's a 2.30 flight pretty much every day.
Get out of here at 2.30 tomorrow afternoon, yada, yada, yada.
So at like three in the morning in the Bahamas. Yeah.
It sounds like World War III is going off outside with this tropic storm that
is overhead and the thunder.
(29:46):
And it was unbelievable how loud it was.
And the rooms were shaking and everything was, it sounded like a hurricane and
just a, like, it sounded like war.
So I kind of fall back asleep. And for the next, like, four hours off and on,
that's just waking me up. and at, I don't know, 6.30, maybe 6 in the morning
in the Bahamas, everything just goes silent.
(30:08):
And I'm asleep, so I kind of realize, I'm like, hold on. But we always notice
because we use a sound machine even when we travel.
Correct, yeah, so everything was out. And I was like, so I woke up,
Mason kind of woke up at the same time, he's like, is the power out?
And I was like, it must be. Which is so weird because you would think that would never happen.
(30:29):
Like there would be generators and things like like a
big resort like that would never lose power i don't
think i've ever had that happen no so the entire resort went
down right i know i know you guys have to think about
now like when when
there's no electricity there's your your the way you get into your room is by
an electric door lock right yeah like a wristband yeah the elevators the every
(30:55):
i mean literally everything yeah you couldn't even get you couldn't leave your
room because you couldn't get back in right and i did if i left the room mason would have to stay.
In order to let me back in even if i walked down
the 12 flights of stairs or whatever but i didn't want to leave him with the
power out where were you going to go where was it going to go everybody was
in the same yeah so it was just comedic so the power's out for hours it's raining
(31:18):
cats and dogs i think they said at one point it rained like an inch of water
in 20 minutes, like that's how hard it was coming down.
So this storm was just sitting over us and just drilling us and drilling us and drilling us.
And so finally at, I don't know, several hours later, the power came back on.
We couldn't eat breakfast. I mean, there was nothing open, right,
(31:38):
without power. So we finally went down.
I'm really feeling for you because, you know, me and Aiden are sitting in the
hospital. Well, I know, but I'm worried.
So even though I'm there, I'm worried about y'all. I mean, I was.
So then what happened? You called the airline. So I called the airline and she's
basically, after talking to her for an hour, she's like, Like,
I don't know what else to tell you.
(31:59):
That storm has affected the entire, like, basically from the Bahamas all the way up to New York.
It's like an entire eastern coast storm. It's grounded.
Tons of flights. No flights are going out of the Bahamas right now.
Nobody can come in. It was just, it was a mess. So, I talked to her and I called back later.
(32:20):
I called back like an hour later. I was like, let me just, like,
see if anything's changed.
Talked to somebody else. They said the exact same thing. and that person was
basically like, you know what?
Everybody missed their flights for the last 24 hours essentially.
So there are no other flights out of the Bahamas.
There's only like two. There's like two a day. Yeah, to Charlotte.
(32:41):
Yeah, and everybody else has been jumping on those because they can't get to
Atlanta or Texas or wherever.
Well, and everybody whose flight was canceled the day before is now getting
on the flights the next day and it pushes everything. Right.
So I'm trying to get us back and she eventually is just like,
I'm like, what's my best option?
(33:02):
And she's like, your best option is to keep your Tuesday afternoon flight.
She's like, because if I was even saying like, can I come to the airport and go standby?
No, this is Friday. This is Saturday. Now Saturday morning. Yeah.
I'm like, can I come to the airport and go standby? She's like, you can.
But as soon as you enter standby protocol, quote unquote, you lose your seats
(33:22):
on the flight you're booked.
So i'm like are you kidding me yeah
so long story short i'm yeah i
was screwed like we're stuck there which mason was
happy about but you know so
anyway i mean poor us right but it rained so bad basically the resort was shut
down for about about 30 or 36 hours i mean the restaurants and things opened
(33:46):
back up and electricity was on but they had to shut down like almost all the
pools because Because they had overflowed and everything was messed up.
It was, I'm like, can you make up any more stuff to go wrong?
I'm trapped in the Bahamas and.
Now literally. Literally trapped. And my wife and other son are trapped in a
hospital getting ready to go through who knows what. Because we even had a huge storm there.
(34:11):
Yeah. Like in Charlotte, we were having a huge storm because my friend Amy came
like that night late when we got admitted. and she ran to my house and just
got us a few essentials because mind you I brought a suitcase back with us but
guess what it was filled with?
Bikinis. Bikinis. A couple of dresses and bikinis and I'm like.
(34:32):
Neither of us have any underwear. We have just the clothes that are on our back.
I mean, you could have really impressed him at the hospital.
Yeah. Just walk in the hallways in a bikini. I mean, the next day,
I put on the one dress I did have.
And they were like, oh, you're so dressed up. I'm like, this is all I have. OK?
So Amy went to our house and grabbed us a few essentials. And when she came
in, she was soaking wet. She went and got Aiden's pillow for him.
(34:55):
And his pillow, literally, he couldn't use it for like two days because it took that long to dry.
And I was like I didn't even realize it was storming here
like we you know the walls are so thick in the hospital I didn't even know there
was a storm happening so you can't get home we're waiting all day to see the
surgeon she finally comes in now there's this is a very very specific
(35:20):
like a pediatric ophthalmologist surgeon
is a very niche thing there isn't a lot of them okay you're like one in a million
so like the hospital is one okay and so she's she's busy so she is like late
(35:40):
to see us and basically when she comes in to see us she's like we're just
going to prep for surgery because we can't really waste any more time.
And, you know, I saw his CT, he needs the surgery. She had actually even spoken to my brother.
So she was keeping him in the loop. And I was able to like, it's always nice
to have him involved because he can like break down like all the medical jargon
(36:04):
and just kind of talk to me like a normal person.
And which was great, because then I could just kind of really understand what was happening.
So they get him into surgery at... God, it was like 10 o'clock at night.
I was going to say pushing midnight.
Yeah. Well, yeah, because we were back in the room by...
Like two-ish. Two-ish, two-thirty-ish. And he was in surgery for three hours.
(36:29):
So, longest three hours of my life, by the way. So, yeah, it was late. This was late at night.
And he gets put under and she does the surgery.
And she's texting me or somebody is texting me from inside the OR,
just like updating me constantly, which was amazing. Yeah.
Because that never happens. No. I mean, the Children's Hospital is a different,
(36:50):
it's a different beast. It really is.
I can't say enough praise about Levine's Children's Hospital.
I mean, it's like the best hospital in Charlotte and for a reason.
I mean, I was treated at Levine Cancer Institute and that was why I needed to
get him to Levine Children's because I knew like the care was gonna be outstanding.
(37:10):
And so she's letting me know throughout the surgery, like it's going great,
he's doing well and we'll be out soon, but it just takes a long time.
So then she lets me know that he's in recovery and they're going
to start like waking him up a little bit from the anesthesia and
it'll be like a little bit before they can bring me in
he still has a breathing tube in she's like I just want to get all
(37:32):
that out before you see him and when
they when she finally comes and gets me personally to bring me back she's she's
a she's she's hard to describe she's quirky and she's amazing I love her she
like knows what she's doing but
she is just quirky so she's like just chatting with me all the way down.
(37:52):
Gives me no warning about what I'm about to walk into.
And I walk into the recovery room where he is and he doesn't have the breathing
tube still in, but he has this like plate in his mouth that's keeping him from not like.
Clamping down on his tongue while he's still basically out so
he's got that in all these like monitor you know
(38:14):
monitors all over his chest his iv they had
to put in another iv in his hand because the
anesthesiologist was like his veins are already getting
like blown from the antibiotics in
his arm so they started a second iv in his
hand which i know is painful because they that's where they
do it like when you're having a baby yeah you've um now
(38:35):
yeah i've had it and it's awful and and they're
like you know and he's got his eye is completely patched
up tape all over his face i immediately i walked in the room and immediately
just like let out a sob and was just like distraught just looking at him because
that's your baby you know and and i really didn't know what i was going to walk
(38:55):
into like i thought they would have his eye covered but i didn't.
Expect to see what i saw and he's laying in this bed and his breathing is really
crazy because this thing is in his mouth and he's got all these monitors on
and this huge patch on his eye and his face is very swollen from the anesthesia
and anesthesia and his skin is very red,
(39:17):
which happens a lot with anesthesia as well.
So it was just a jarring, a lot to see, a lot to see.
It was, it was the night I hadn't slept in two days at this point and it was,
I just like broke down and she was amazing.
I mean, she, you know, they all took care of me but they're just you know assuring
me the whole time like he's fine this is totally normal because i'm looking
(39:38):
at his blood pressure numbers i'm looking at his.
Like i'm looking at all his numbers on the monitors and i know how to read everything
i've been in the hospital for long periods of time for you
know many times so i know what the numbers are
in fact a lot of the people in the hospital kept asking me
are you a nurse because i just like i
know a lot of medical stuff just from it's like no i'm not
(40:01):
i'm not in the medical field but unfortunately i've
had a history of health problems so like
i just kind of know these things and so
i'm worried about like his diastolic number and you know the people monitoring
him were like no this is totally normal it gets very low when he's under anesthesia
as he starts to wake up those numbers will go back to normal and we're gonna
(40:22):
watch him here before we send him back up to the room and they did and by the
and the only thing they kept waking him up a little bit.
And the only thing that like, he wouldn't talk, but like he would nod his head a little bit.
So like they knew he was like coming out of it. And then they were like,
do you know who's holding your hand? And he was just like.
And i was just sort of crying they're like okay he's good
(40:44):
he knows he knows who's here like he knows what's going on he's fine
so they bring him back up to the room i'm sitting
indian style at the edge of his bed in the
room dead staring at him for
the next like three hours i literally didn't move
because i was like they just like left the room all the monitors
are on him the nurses are like don't like you can go to
(41:05):
bed like we're watching him from out there that screen
is on our screen and i'm like yeah okay cool
like i'm gonna sit here and watch him so i
literally sat there and just stared at him sleeping for like the next three
hours and then when his numbers got back to a place where
i wanted them i was like all right i'll lay down for a little bit he woke
up in the morning the next day very groggy but like okay really irritated with
(41:27):
the thing the iv in his hand obviously really irritated there was so much tape
and he was very his skin was very irritated from the tape so he's like kind
of pulling at that all day i'm like we have to stop touching it.
Like, got to settle down.
So, you know, he's still getting the IV antibiotics all day.
And the surgeon comes in way later that day and takes off the dressing and reveals
(41:52):
his eye that has this like itty bitty, like, I mean, it's not itty bitty, but it's small.
I mean, it's right in like the crease of his eye, almost a little bit higher below his eyebrow.
He had He had gotten six stitches internally and eight stitches externally,
but they're all dissolvable.
Thank God. Like he won't have to get them removed or anything.
(42:13):
But so she took that off and he was like swollen a little bit from the surgery,
but like looked a hundred percent better than he did when we rolled up in there.
So I'm already like feeling better.
She puts this plastic clear
plastic hard plastic shield on his eye
and then like tapes up his whole freaking face again so
(42:36):
that he won't like because the stitches will start getting itchy and stuff and
and when you're sleeping especially kids like you just like kind of go up to
grab things and she's like i can't be having him grab those stitches like we'll
be at the back of the or that plastic ipad oh my god that plastic shield is
a shield yeah yeah hello claire yeah i was very
like it was it was have the lamb stop screaming
(42:58):
then he really was upset about the
way he looked he's like now i really look like a freak and they're like well
don't worry you're gonna be here for seven full days on iv antibiotics they
were not going to let him leave until he had seven full days of iv antibiotics
and then he would be switched to oral antibiotics for 30 days.
(43:19):
So right now he is on antibiotics twice a
day for 30 days and it
is every time he has to take these horse pills we're cutting them up and it's
like a struggle to get them down every single time it's a lot but basically
like that he he had to go back into a surgery a couple days later to they had
put drains in his eye because she was like that abscess was so full and so much came
(43:44):
out of it trigger warning she's like
i had to put drains in that i have to remove and she's
like i can't remove those drains without putting him back under
like he'll be freaking out and i'm like
yeah no i totally consent to that because there was gauze and
stuff behind his yeah stitches it was like stuffed yeah it
was it was like absorb it yep so we did
(44:05):
that again that was like two days later three days later it
was wednesday night yeah and he did
fine in that that one was only an hour so that was
a lot better and only being under anesthesia
for that short amount of time he came back out of
it much quicker yep actually that night he made
me like order him dominoes like
(44:26):
late that night and i was home after the second surgery i had made it
home mason and i was that night yeah yep oh yeah yeah yeah when he got it out
no yeah because we came home the next day no we landed and flew but we landed
and then we had to uber straight to the the hospital and i finally got to see
you guys and see him and he was going in for surgery.
(44:47):
The next day so okay okay that's right not
the same i thought you were saying the same day that he had it you were there
yeah so we were home mason i had made it home yeah they had made it home at
that point i was not leaving the hospital at that point there was no talking
you out of it i'm not leaving so you hadn't slept in like four nights yeah i
was like just let me stay you go home and you're like no no i was like zombie
(45:09):
status but i was not i mean i had been talking I was talking to the doctors.
There was like six doctors on his team. And I had been communicating with them
and all of the nurses for those past four days. And I was like...
I'm doing everything for him. I'm bathing him. I'm taking him to the bathroom.
I'm changing his clothes. I'm changing his dressing.
You called me worthless and kicked me out, basically.
(45:33):
You did. I didn't, but I was like- I think the words were, I'm not leaving his effing side.
I think those words came out of your mouth. I think that's when you stopped finally asking.
You're like, okay, I'll go home and I'll come back tomorrow.
I'm like, yeah, that sounds good. Get Mason off to school and you can come back then.
So long and short of it i know this is a very long story
he's fine it was
(45:56):
so scary he was in the hospital for seven nights
seven full yep eight days seven nights came home
late friday yeah and he's been pretty much
back to himself yeah i mean he like wants
to sleep on the couch now which i totally understand when i
came home from the hospital after long stays like you're just
kind of freaked out when that first night you come home it's like
(46:16):
all you want to do is go home but then you
lay down to go to sleep and there's not
somebody coming in your room even though it's annoying when
it's happening you're used to that like somebody's monitoring me somebody's
coming in to check on me i'm safe i'm safe the beeping the sounds like and you
come home and none of that's happening and it makes you like very anxious and
(46:41):
i don't think he's ever I've never really been anxious even.
So all these feelings were just like, I just felt for him because,
and it was actually the fact that I have such a horrible health background actually
made it like a blessing because I was able to tell him,
(47:01):
he ended up having to get like a PICC line or midline put into his arm,
like on the inside of his bicep because his veins kept like.
Going bad from all the IV and all the antibiotics and anesthesia.
So instead of starting another IV, they ended up doing a midline in his arm,
which I've had a PICC line before.
So like, when they came in his room to do that, I mean, they literally sterilized
(47:24):
the whole space and just kind of do that little procedure right there in your room.
And I know what it's like, I've had it done.
So I could literally talk him through every single thing he was going to feel
and what it was going to do and how long it was going to take.
And then the same thing when he came home like i i told
him like i understand how you feel right now i know it feels
weird that you wanted to come home so bad but now you feel like
(47:46):
you maybe you should be back there i'm like
i totally get that like i understand everything you're
going through it's like a uh it's like the blessing
in disguise like you said like you i had
that horrible as it was for you going through it yeah i had
that experience to be able to like comfort him basically and
you got a little taste of the caregiver side you've talked about that a couple
(48:06):
times yeah which i think our next episode actually
is going to be on like the caregiver side of things
but yeah it was i had and obviously
i've been a caregiver my whole existence of a
being a mom but like right when somebody's sick
like that and you're like the amount of stress and no sleep and you're on all
(48:28):
the time and you're you're jumping up to do every single thing that they need
but you're also trying to not stress them out and put on a happy face for my
other son and for when you come in to like have that be.
Like a nice visit and not have it be stressful even
though you're under so much pressure and so much stress so yeah
(48:49):
yeah i do i really do feel for you i do understand now like
how difficult it was to just juggle all of the things and be the caretaker yeah
yeah i mean it was and you know we can kind of smile now and say yeah poor me
i was on vacation but i was equally stressed right I mean, I was trying to stay up to speed.
(49:10):
I was trying to keep Mason sidetracked and entertained and make sure he had fun.
And I was worried about you and how you were mentally handling things and worried
obviously about Aiden. Aiden, yeah, of course.
I mean, it was, so yeah, I was there, but I was under constant stress and anxiety
too, right? It was just mental warfare.
Yeah, just mental warfare. Wanted to get back so bad, but it was- It was a whirlwind. Holy cow.
(49:36):
Holy Labor Day weekend. yeah yeah so
never again oh man so Aiden's
about to turn 12 next week this Saturday
yeah and we just owe him a blowout birthday I'm like I looked at him at one
point in the hospital I'm like now now is the time now is the time to ask for
anything you've been wanting because like you've got us under your spell right
(50:00):
now like you want a puppy now's the time to ask for it nope I cut Cut it off there.
You did ask. I cut it off there. It's like anything else. Anything other than
that. You want a car? Sure.
We'll do that before another dog. Exactly. I don't know.
It was, you know, it's wild because we're, again, I've said this before,
but thankfully I work for an amazing employer and I could work remote and,
(50:23):
you know, was able to spend time with him at the hospital.
And, you know, my company is like, go take care of your family first. Right.
Always. They always are. They always are. And it's just a phenomenal place.
You know but it really affords me the opportunity
to be able to help you guys and take care of you as well even
just for those few days but it was funny i
was at work yesterday and i was like oh my god we're supposed to
(50:45):
go on vacation again in a month and i feel horrible now like wanting to leave
and wanting to actually take you on vacation and right take aiden on vacation
and give you guys some time away that you now deserve even more yeah which was
planned anyway but yeah i mean I mean, we're definitely more excited for that trip now. Yeah.
(51:05):
We need it. That was a long story. It was a long story.
Yeah. And I also, I want to thank everybody that reached out,
sent prayers, sent gifts.
So many people sent gifts to him just to keep him busy in the hospital, which was just amazing.
And people did that for me too. And it was just so like...
People just, people just care. People just want to help. They want to do something.
(51:28):
And whether it was like sending them cookies or balloons or sending them a Lego set or Robux,
like, or just bringing us lunch and hanging out with us, like all of those things
that, that everyone did, or just the continuous calling and texting and wanting
updates, like, thank you.
Everyone just cared so much. And it was amazing.
(51:51):
And it just shows what kind of community we have wrapped around us. It really does.
Yes. And agreed. Thank you so much for everyone reaching out and just all the
things that everybody did.
And it's funny because sometimes people say, right, especially me as the caregiver,
(52:15):
like, well, what can we send when Jess was sick or what can we do?
And it is, it's the little things that can keep, like Aiden busy, right?
Like just Lego sets. And letting them be busy for an hour.
Yeah, and just some cookies and some treats and some things that are good for
him and just lunch to Jess so she doesn't have to.
(52:37):
You know, stress out about leaving the room for 30 minutes to go try and find
something to eat in the cafeteria.
So it was just DoorDash gift cards. I mean, if anybody ever has friends or family
in the hospital, you need some ideas.
Yeah. Reach out to us because we, we know what people need and what they don't need. Yes.
(52:57):
Yes. That is true. We'll talk about all of that on the caregiver episode.
Yeah, but it is, it's, it's all the love and just, and living in Children's
Hospital of Charlotte. I mean, I mean, God, those people.
They're unbelievable. All of the nurses, all of the doctors,
all of the CNAs, all of the woman that came in and changed our garbage every
day and asked us a hundred times, what can I get for you? What can I do for you?
(53:20):
Is this a good time? I mean, every single person that we came in contact with
at that hospital was amazing.
They are meant to work with children.
And it's just not everybody is. A lot of people aren't. and they are just,
they're just so good. So great. Sent from heaven. Yes.
They are. All right. Well, that's all the time we have.
(53:43):
That was an hour story. It was. It could have been even longer too.
There was so much I left out, but yeah, that's, he is good.
We are good. Everybody is okay and healthy and happy to be home.
Thank you for listening to the story. We've told this many times to individuals,
but this gave a lot of detail.
So yeah hopefully this uh this helps as well
(54:05):
and and if if you have a sinus infection or
if you think you have a little sinus infection don't ignore
it these this is like who knew that a
sinus infection could go this wrong make
your kids this quickly blow their noses oh my god i know we are like on him
now because he's a big like he's a big like sucker in and now that we know we're
(54:27):
like no anytime we breathe in i'm like don't breathe in that heavy you don't
want anything thing coming back in like we need to get that out yeah and and.
Yeah. Next time I even have an inkling that he has a sinus infection,
ear infection, any sort of infection, we're going to the doctor and getting it checked out.
(54:47):
I'm not going to like assume that he can wait a couple of days or either of
them. Like we'll never do this again.
What are you going to do if I have an infection? What if I have a sniffle?
Don't get me started on your sniffles. Please. You do enough.
You are so extra when you have a
sniffle that I wouldn't need to do anything wow all
(55:10):
right it's a man flu let's not
get into it that's a whole nother story i had to
leave it on a funny note all right guys thanks for
listening don't forget to follow us on instagram on
wherever get your podcast follow
us on all of the platforms if you like the episode send it to a friend send
(55:32):
it to a family member rate it comment all these things help all aspects of the
podcast and our life all right have a good one guys bye.
Welcome to Out Loud and Uncorked, where we pop the top on intriguing people
and their unique experiences.
You can expect some real unfiltered truths and plenty of laughs.
So grab a drink, sit back and join me as I uncork some amazing stories.
The views, information or opinions expressed during this podcast are solely
(00:24):
those of the the individual involved and do not necessarily represent the show.
The content does not constitute professional advice or services and is not intended
to treat, diagnose, or cure any medical conditions.
Out Loud and Uncorked and its hosts are not responsible for the accuracy of
any information contained in the podcast series. Please take care when listening.
(00:45):
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Out Loud and Uncorked. I'm Jess.
And I'm Matt. Hi. Hey, how are you?
Oh, yeah better now I guess it's been a week oh my god to say the least we were
(01:05):
supposed to record a few days ago cheers by the way cheers we need this one
today yes definitely clink clink,
it's been a wild one it sure has yeah we had plans for all kinds of different
things with this episode and podcast.
Oh, you're a spicy one. I'm spicy. Okay.
(01:28):
Yeah, we thought, remember, we
said we may not record last week because we were going on vacation. Woo!
So, one of us went on vacation. Well, we both went, technically.
That's true. Technically, all four went. Technically, we went.
Aiden and I were only there for 20 hours, 18 hours?
(01:50):
Yeah, 20. or so before we got back on a flight and,
raced home yeah yeah so why don't you tell us about your vacation first.
Where'd you go what'd you do how was it well we were supposed to go to the bahamas which we did,
(02:10):
and so we flew out what early last thursday
morning and landed there at about nine
o'clock and got on a pretty fun
party bus and we were going to we were going with a lot
of families yeah a lot of families bunch of friends kids friends
our friends 26 28 people
something like that people yeah a lot of people so we were all geared up a lot
(02:32):
of kids that the boys know at school and a lot of adults that we obviously know
and hang out with so yeah we went to the bahamas we landed we checked into the
resort where'd you say where'd we say at bahamar it's like an
influencer favorite right now yeah yeah it was
pretty cool the new hot spot in the bahamas yeah it was
(02:53):
our first time there yeah it was pretty cool we stayed at the hyatt portion
and yeah it was nice they've got a huge water park with a lot of water slides
so the kids are obviously entertained and have a ton of stuff to do and they've
got i don't even know i mean there were There's tons of restaurants on site,
(03:13):
a lot of activities, obviously a casino, some entertainment.
And then a pretty nice beach, pier, all the fun stuff.
Nice. So you guys had a good time. You and Mason. Me and Mason had a good time.
Yeah. We did. We did. But did you have a good time? No.
The long and the short of it, no, I did not. Well, we had a good time,
(03:37):
but we still were stressed. I was still stressed out the whole time.
So it wasn't as enjoyable.
There were a lot of hiccups, which I'm sure we can talk about today. Mm-hmm.
We still tried to have a good time. I can't say too much without giving it all away, right?
Yeah. Well, I'm about to. So tell us what happened.
(04:01):
So Wednesday, last Wednesday,
Aiden's nurse called me from school about halfway through the day and said that
he was in her office with a really bad headache and almost in tears.
And she's like, you know, I've never seen him in my office.
So, you know, I don't think he's just trying to go home early, basically.
(04:26):
And I was like, yeah, no, that's like not him at all. Like, I'll come get him right away.
Went and got him. Usually when Aiden has a headache, it's because he has not drank a lot of water.
He hasn't eaten very well. He's
like a picky eater and actually doesn't really care about food at all.
So eating to him is more of a chore. and so i figured that's what it was right
(04:50):
so i pick him up and i can tell right away he is not feeling well and he keeps
saying that he's that the headache is on like the side of his head,
so i'm thinking it sounds like a sinus headache i know how much those suck they
hurt like i'm feeling for him right so because his ear was hurting too yeah
didn't he say that no it was just kind of he was just kind of like pointing
(05:12):
to the side yeah so i just assume you know that's it's all connected.
So I just assumed it was the sinus thing, but he also has allergies.
So are like in the South, our allergies kick up almost year round.
And they just spike at like different times for different things.
Like right now the weather is just changing a little bit. Like I actually noticed
(05:36):
some of the leaves today had changed.
So it's cool in the morning. It's still like 80 in the afternoon.
Then gets down to like the 60s at night, 50s in the morning.
So it's kind of all over the place. A week before we left, it was.
It was much cooler. Much cooler. The temperature had really changed a lot. It had rained a lot.
And so I'm assuming it's allergies. allergies
(05:58):
so he had already taken allergy medicine that's that morning gave
him some tylenol told him to relax you know we
laid on the couch and he was feeling pretty good by the end of the night yep
we get up at 4 30
in the morning right on thursday we had a very early flight so
we get up really early thursday morning to fly out
of charlotte and he's not feeling great
(06:20):
but it's also 4 30 it's also 4 30
in the morning and he likes to sleep so
he wasn't really he wasn't really complaining
much of like the headache or anything else he just was kind of like moody which
he normally would be at 4 30 in the morning so still not really thinking anything
of it give him allergy medicine we go on our way during the flight and this
(06:44):
does happen to him a lot he always has an issue with the ear popping.
And then it like taking a long time to like unpop. So.
That happened on the flight. And he was also a little more congested,
not like sneezing and coughing all over the place, but just he just sounded
(07:05):
a little congested and then his ear wouldn't pop. So that was like really hurting.
And it did seem like it was hurting more than usual.
So then I was thinking maybe he does have a little sinus thing and like the
ear thing is going to hurt even worse and it's probably going to be even harder to pop.
So we're walking through through the airport to get to the party bus.
(07:26):
And I look back at him at one point, we both looked back at him at one point
and we're like, whoa, what's happening here?
He was like eating a ring pop because I was trying to get him to like suck or
chew gum to try to keep swallowing to get those ears to pop.
So we had like red all over his mouth. He had like a line of green snot coming out of his nose,
(07:50):
right like full full-on green snot yeah and
and then like his sweatshirt was
tide riders wazed and like he just had that like miserable
look in his eyes so when we turned back and looked at him we were like whoa
buddy like let's clean you up here for a second like you're looking rough right
i have some services called on this yeah for your the way you're looking right
(08:13):
now so we cleaned him up a little bit he's like mom like my ear is really killing me.
I'm like, I know, but there's really nothing I can do.
You have to just try to keep swallowing, try to yawn.
Those are really the only things you can do. Try to get him water so he can keep swallowing.
And he's just like not feeling better. So we get, we all like pile onto this
(08:35):
huge party bus, which was literally a party bus, like stripper pole in it and
everything, lights, music, like it was fun.
And there's a ton of adults. There's a ton of kids. The kids are going wild in the back.
And Aiden is sitting in the corner of the back of the bus, miserable.
Like the music isn't getting him going. The kids aren't getting him going.
(08:58):
Like I'm looking at him like, like he's really
not feeling great yeah and we make a
couple stops on the way to the resort and the second
the second stop when i got back on the
bus he was looking real
bad like real pale just looking bad and he
was like i i feel like i'm gonna throw up and i was like okay
(09:20):
let's get off the bus we like run off the bus into the parking lot
but we had prior to him us thinking
he needed to throw up he also has like a weird taste aversion
thing not aversion well and like a moving car
texture thing doesn't like to eat in a
car but we were like kind of forcing him to
eat a little bit so that he would swallow to try to get the ears going and then
(09:43):
you gave him medicine that he hated and then we gave him yes we got him medicine
to try to like clear up some of that congestion which we thought it was sinuses
yeah well it was well it was so yeah we gave him and he did not like the taste of it.
And like just, and it wasn't immediate, but a few minutes later he was like,
I'm gonna be sick. I'm like, okay, we rush off the bus.
(10:03):
Get into the parking lot the exact moment that
he pukes all over my shoes all over everything but we
get him cleaned up and then he looks up at
me and no i had just looked at him
in the face a minute prior to this and
other than looking like he was gonna get sick he just looked normal or just
(10:25):
like he was suffering a little bit but he looked up at me and his left eye just
was like swollen underneath and a little reddish purple.
And I was like, oh my God, he's having a reaction to something.
So I run back on the bus and everyone's on the bus at this point.
(10:46):
And I'm like, babe, Aiden's eye is really swollen all of a sudden.
And you're like, swollen? What? And literally somebody, I don't even remember
who it was. Somebody just stuck a Benadryl pill in my face. They were like, here, give him this.
I'm like, okay, good. Let's just get an antihistamine and i'm
like if he's allergic to something like at
least the benadryl will help and then i'm racking my brain like what
(11:06):
could he like he ate nothing touch nothing like there's
nothing he could have been and he's not allergic to anything right so given
the benadryl he takes it and the rest
of the ride is what 15 more minutes to the resort and he
is not getting better no like his eye
by like by the
minute basically is getting more swollen more swollen
(11:29):
in and red red tearing a little
bit of tearing not too much but yeah
a little bit of tearing but it's it's starting to look like he's like got punched
in the eye yeah he can still see out of it still open but just underneath and
kind of like on the side of his nose so we get to the resort and there's like
a zillion people in the lobby so i send you to go do the check-in stuff with
(11:54):
everybody and I find a couch with him and we just sit on the couch and he's also freezing, right?
He was in a hooded sweatshirt. It was very hot in the Bahamas, very humid.
He's in a hooded sweatshirt and he's sitting with his knees pulled up and his
knees pulled into the sweatshirt and then literally passes out on this couch
(12:14):
and I'm like, there's definitely something wrong. This kid is not, this is not Aiden.
Like he never gets sick and when he does, it's not like this.
He's never been... I don't even think he's ever been on an antibiotic.
I know. I can't name the last time he was sick.
He passes out on the couch and you finally finish up and,
(12:36):
We actually couldn't get into our room at that time, but friends could.
So they were like, you know, you can come bring them up to our room until your
room is ready. So we do that.
10 minutes later, our room is ready, of course. So you run back down,
get the keys. We go to our room.
And now this is early because we got there early.
Yeah, if that. Like 11, 12 o'clock.
(12:58):
So everybody's idea was to like get changed and like meet at the pools and go
have some lunch and hang out.
So everybody's getting dressed to
go and Aiden's like I can't go like I just
don't feel well and I'm like yeah you look terrible like I
don't blame you for not wanting to go so I'm like
I'm obviously gonna stay here with you so you and Mace head out
(13:20):
go meet everybody and I'm kind of just like texting
updating you like hour by hour
he's looking worse and worse
and cannot stay awake week and now i'm
like freaking out a little bit i'm like this is
like not this is not him this is not good so
i figure out that there is a doctor on
(13:42):
the resort and well i think you were like at like two o'clock that was your
first like all right i think we need to go home and i was i remember did i say
that before even going to the doctor yeah yeah i was like i don't know like
come on it's probably just a cold or a sinus infection yeah and then you were
like why don't why don't we just take him down to the doctor here and see what they say?
So you went down. I'm like, well, I can't drag him down there if I'm going to
(14:05):
be sitting in the waiting room because I literally can't even get him up.
So you went down there and signed him in and then you waited in the waiting
room and then called us when it was a few minutes out. I need another drink.
Yep. So I bring him down. They'll only let one of us in the exam room, So I go in with him.
(14:30):
I think you probably left, right? Because you went to go see what Mason was
doing. Yeah, because we left him with everybody. Left him with everybody else.
And we get in there and she is taking a look at him and looking at his eye, looking into his ear.
And, you know, she's like, he definitely has a sinus infection.
Like I can tell like just where his pain is and everything else.
And I'm like, yeah, but does that cause the eye to swell like that?
(14:52):
Like he's never had this.
And she was like, well, it looks like it's like turning into cellulitis.
And I know cellulitis is like a basically like an infection,
but you can get it anywhere in your body. It's not particular to the eye.
And she was like, if you don't treat it, it's going to turn into periorbital
cellulitis, which can be very dangerous. And she said.
(15:18):
Lives in the Bahamas, is a doctor in the Bahamas. And she looked me in the eye
and said, you don't want to be here if that happens, because he'll need to be
admitted into a hospital and put on IV antibiotics.
And basically, you don't want that to happen in the Bahamas.
And I'm like, yeah, no, I don't want that to happen here either.
(15:39):
So she gave us some antibiotic.
And she was like, Give him one right now. Give him another one in 12 hours.
But it's not looking good. And I'm like, yeah. My mind is set now. We're going home.
And so you meet us back in the room. And I tell you what she says.
And he takes the antibiotic and falls asleep again.
(16:04):
Now, at this time, his eye is very swollen. All the way around, reddish purple.
He can still open it. but like that is
like closing like that the window of that
is closing yeah we get
back to the room he takes this and he falls back asleep i'm like please look
for flights for us like you guys don't have to come with us but he
(16:27):
and i need to go home i need to get him to levine's children hospital
like like stat yeah and you're
like no no like let him take the antibiotic like because in my head i'm like
he's gonna take the antibiotic and it's gonna clear up right away right or with
the second like you were like even if you guys are stuck in the room for like
a day or two yeah you know he can still enjoy the vacation and i just had it
(16:50):
in my head i mean anytime he ever has had a sniffle,
literally one dose of any medicine clears it up yeah and he's fine and he's
fine so i'm like he's gonna take that antibiotic and wake up in the morning
and he's gonna be fine and i'm like no.
I'm like this is i call it mother's intuition or
what you will but all i can think is that he
(17:11):
will not be okay in the morning and we will be in
the hospital in the bahamas and like i can't
have that happen and mason is hearing us have this whole
conversation yeah and he's like i'm not going home freaking out
freaking out i just got here i'm like before it gets too late and we can't get
on a flight tomorrow please like call american airlines tell them the situation
(17:31):
get them to switch us on to the first flight out in the morning and even if
he feels fine in two days I will be at peace that like I did the right thing
and took this kid home. Yeah.
So you reluctantly do it. They switch our flights. They get the two of us on a flight.
I don't know if it was reluctant. You kind of forced my hand.
Well, that's what I mean. You didn't want to. I know, which I feel horrible about now.
(17:55):
Yeah. I mean, you didn't know, obviously. Yeah, that you were like...
And then I even FaceTimed my brother.
My brother is a physician and I FaceTimed him and he was driving home from work
and pulled over and he's like, all right, let me see him.
And I didn't even tell him what the doctor had told me.
And I put the camera on Aiden and my brother was like, oh, he's got periorbital cellulitis.
(18:17):
Like I can tell just by looking at him and if that turns into orbital cellulitis,
like bulging of the eye, much worse swelling, like you're gonna be in trouble.
And he was like, I don't wanna tell you what to do, but like I would go home.
And I was like, I already had my mind made.
I'm like, oh no, I'm going home. Like I'm taking him home. And he's like, good, good.
(18:38):
Like that would be my suggestion is to get him home because if that turns into
orbital cellulitis, like that's really dangerous. He could go blind.
Yeah, he can go blind. He can get into an infection in his brain. Like don't Google this.
Yeah, which I didn't. Of course we did.
So we get on a flight in the morning. I literally have to get him a wheelchair
(19:01):
at the airport because at this point his eye doesn't open and his balance is
very off. He hasn't eaten anything.
It was swelled up to like the size of a, like halfway
between a golf ball and a tennis ball no no
not at that point maybe like getting towards golf ball
it was it was it was no because it got worse it
(19:21):
got worse when we got home so do you know how big a golf ball is and a tennis
baller uh yes are you serious don't even try okay okay with any of this i'm
saying it was big i know it was big okay and all i'm thinking is if that eye starts bulging,
then it has like crossed another line of infection.
(19:45):
And that's what all I'm worried about. So right now it's just swollen,
really swollen, won't open, kind of stopped even tearing.
He's off balance. He can barely even walk because he can't see out of it.
So I get him a wheelchair, which also actually means that you get like a medical assistant.
So they actually don't just give you a wheelchair. They have somebody roll him,
which is nice because they set that up for your,
(20:10):
Like when you land in the airport there as well, which was, thank God they did.
So we get on the flight, they get us into it. We get into a seat closer to the
front because like, I need to get him off this plane and to a hospital.
And the poor thing, like everyone that walks by is looking at him.
He's trying to wear his sunglasses the whole time, but like it was a,
(20:34):
you know, it's not a domestic flight.
So like they needed to check his face with his passport before we boarded.
So and he's like he's just upset and embarrassed
about how he looks he keeps saying i look like a freak i look
like a freak everyone's gonna be looking at me and it
was like the first time and i really feel for parents
that have kids that you know have something visual you know something that you
(20:57):
can see going on with them because i every thing i noticed every single person
that walked by every kid that walked by it's like looking at him and then their
eyes go wide like Like, what's going on with that kid?
And I just felt for him. So, and I'm a nervous wreck.
Like I am like, you know, should I call an ambulance to meet us at the airport
(21:19):
in Charlotte at this point? That's how bad I'm like kind of freaking out.
So long story short, we get to Charlotte. There's a wheelchair waiting for us.
Thank God, because Charlotte airport was the busiest I had.
When I say it's shoulder to shoulder, like it was, I couldn't have walked through the crowd.
Never mind the uh friday of labor day weekend yeah yeah so a lot of travel a
(21:41):
lot of travel and this woman that that was like assisting us with the wheelchair i mean she was.
She was hauling ass through this airport and just yelling at people wheelchair
coming through wheelchair and i'm like rolling with the bags behind us like
this is amazing so it was like the waters had parted for us she was waiting
(22:02):
there for us she got us through the crowd took us right
to, we did offsite parking.
So took us right to like the shuttle for our offsite parking,
which is never there when we get there, right?
Like we always either have to call or just wait for a little bit for it to be
there. It was there. We get right on.
There's a lot of people getting on. I look at the driver. I'm like,
I need to get him to a hospital. Like, can you please bring us to my car first?
(22:26):
And he's like, yeah, I got you.
Get in, takes us right to my car.
We get in the the car and we, I put the children's hospital in my GPS and it
was only like six miles from there or something, but there's always traffic
and there's a ton of traffic lights to get there.
It was literally like my, my mom, my cousin, everyone who's in heaven was like
(22:50):
with me that day because every light was green.
We got there like in record time.
Pull up to the emergency room. I barely even put it in park.
The attendant at the valet sees me and she's like, girl, just get out. I got this. You go.
And I get him out of the car, get him in a wheelchair, get him inside.
(23:10):
Not one person in the emergency room.
That never happens. Yeah, it's usually packed for hours. It never ever happens.
So we get right into triage. They see him.
They're like, clearly he has periorbital cellulitis. Like we need to get him
on IV antibiotics right away.
So they do. Then this is the first time he's like, he's never even had a blood
(23:34):
draw. I mean, the only needle he's ever gotten has been like a vaccination.
So they have to put an IV in his, you know, the inside of his elbow.
He was a champ about it. They were awesome about it.
I mean, being at a children's hospital is a hundred percent different than being in a regular hospital.
I mean, these people are meant to work with children.
(23:54):
So they were amazing. They got that in, got him started on antibiotics right away.
Then they're like, we're going to have to take him for a CT scan to see like
how bad the infection is in his
sinuses, but also how far back behind the eye it has come. It has gone.
And the doctor is like, I'm thinking he's, he says to me, like,
I think these IV antibiotics is going to start working right away.
(24:17):
Like, I don't expect to see anything on this CT, you know, that is going to
really like freak us out here. it's just like he's probably gonna be here overnight
and I'm like yeah I figured that like no problem he goes back for the CT and.
An hour later, the doctor walks in and he's like, so remember when I told you
(24:37):
that I didn't really think anything was coming up on the CT? I'm like, oh, God, what?
He's like, yeah, he's got an abscess behind his eye, like basically to the inside, up and back.
And he's like, the only way we can get to that abscess is going to be like surgical intervention.
(24:57):
And this was the last thing I was thinking about hearing.
Like, I'm like, he has a sinus infection. it's bad he needs
antibiotics like not once did i think that
he was going to need surgery well you and that was
what maybe eight ten hours
after he had been on an iv so his swelling
had actually like started to go down you were sending me pictures keeping
(25:20):
me updated feeling better like they were giving him fluids like
it's he's gonna be fine no no he's
like we have to admit him so we're getting a
room for ready for you guys upstairs and we'll get him
up there as soon as possible and then you know the
the pediatric ophthalmologist surgeon will be in to talk to you i'm like i'm
(25:43):
freaking out so they got us into a room those are big words those are big words
those are big scary words like surgery you've already put like an iv in my kid's
arm surgery Surgery, antibiotics, being admitted.
Like, he needs to be seen by an infectious disease doctor, an ENT,
an ophthalmologist, surgeon.
He's like patient zero. Yeah. What is going on here?
(26:07):
And they are assuring me the whole time that, like.
We got here at the right time. They've caught it at the right time.
Like surgery is going to have to happen, but like we're in good shape basically.
So they admit us, they get us up to the room pretty quickly.
And then we start, then the wait.
(26:28):
Yeah. And you know, everything in a hospital takes a long time.
By the time we got admitted, it was after midnight.
Yeah, it was, I was gonna say one, one or 1.30 in the morning. Yeah, it was late.
So we were just, you know, ready to kind of pass out at that point.
He was ready to sleep and they were going to keep him on antibiotics, IV antibiotics.
They put him on vancomycin and Unisyn.
(26:51):
And those are both IV, you know, infusions. And he's basically on them around the clock and fluids.
And we wake up in the morning and we get visited by the ENT and he's like,
yeah, you're going to need to see the ophthalmologist he's showing me
the ct scan and he when he shows me
this scan now usually you can't even like decipher what's going
(27:11):
on in these scans right like they're just a lot of black and white and
i'm like how did i don't even know how you know what you're looking at
but i could clearly see that i was looking at his face and the whole left side
of his face was white and the whole right side of his face was black yep and
he was like yeah it's supposed to all be black he's like Like all that white
(27:33):
on that left hand side is all congestion.
Like it's all infection.
His sinuses are, basically how this happened is that his sinuses got so infected
and are not draining properly.
Like the infection basically had nowhere else to go. And that's how that abscess
formed and started filling with fluid.
(27:54):
And he's like, when he has a cold, is he normally more stepped up on just the one side?
And I'm thinking, and I'm like, he, like I never noticed which side it was, but it, yes, he does.
Oh yeah, now that you say that, yeah, he is always congested in one nostril when he is congested.
He's like, yeah, his sinuses are not draining properly. Like I can see that
(28:15):
just by looking at the CT.
He's like, so after all this, I'm really going to want you to follow up with us.
And after all this infection is cleared up, like we need to kind of take a look at his sinuses again.
We'll have to do another CT and see if like, if this infection just got way
out of hand or if his sinuses really are not draining properly because he has
(28:39):
a deviated septum on that side, which we didn't know either.
I'm like, okay. okay he's like but the ophthalmologist will
be in at some point to speak with you about what's next we wait all day all
yeah so can i interject give you a little breather yeah go ahead so it's one
what 1 30 in the morning yeah like you said that you finally got admitted and i think that was when.
(29:05):
You obviously text me and you're like all right we're in and i think you said
i think you should to come home, right?
Like it was. Yeah, I was like, I think you should start thinking about.
Thinking about coming home. Coming home. Yeah, so I was like,
okay, it sounds, this obviously wasn't just a sinus infection.
Yeah, I should probably come home.
So I told her, I was like, I'll look at flights first thing in the morning,
(29:25):
can probably get out of here at, you know, I think there's a 2.30 flight pretty much every day.
Get out of here at 2.30 tomorrow afternoon, yada, yada, yada.
So at like three in the morning in the Bahamas. Yeah.
It sounds like World War III is going off outside with this tropic storm that
is overhead and the thunder.
(29:46):
And it was unbelievable how loud it was.
And the rooms were shaking and everything was, it sounded like a hurricane and
just a, like, it sounded like war.
So I kind of fall back asleep. And for the next, like, four hours off and on,
that's just waking me up. and at, I don't know, 6.30, maybe 6 in the morning
in the Bahamas, everything just goes silent.
(30:08):
And I'm asleep, so I kind of realize, I'm like, hold on. But we always notice
because we use a sound machine even when we travel.
Correct, yeah, so everything was out. And I was like, so I woke up,
Mason kind of woke up at the same time, he's like, is the power out?
And I was like, it must be. Which is so weird because you would think that would never happen.
(30:29):
Like there would be generators and things like like a
big resort like that would never lose power i don't
think i've ever had that happen no so the entire resort went
down right i know i know you guys have to think about
now like when when
there's no electricity there's your your the way you get into your room is by
an electric door lock right yeah like a wristband yeah the elevators the every
(30:55):
i mean literally everything yeah you couldn't even get you couldn't leave your
room because you couldn't get back in right and i did if i left the room mason would have to stay.
In order to let me back in even if i walked down
the 12 flights of stairs or whatever but i didn't want to leave him with the
power out where were you going to go where was it going to go everybody was
in the same yeah so it was just comedic so the power's out for hours it's raining
(31:18):
cats and dogs i think they said at one point it rained like an inch of water
in 20 minutes, like that's how hard it was coming down.
So this storm was just sitting over us and just drilling us and drilling us and drilling us.
And so finally at, I don't know, several hours later, the power came back on.
We couldn't eat breakfast. I mean, there was nothing open, right,
(31:38):
without power. So we finally went down.
I'm really feeling for you because, you know, me and Aiden are sitting in the
hospital. Well, I know, but I'm worried.
So even though I'm there, I'm worried about y'all. I mean, I was.
So then what happened? You called the airline. So I called the airline and she's
basically, after talking to her for an hour, she's like, Like,
I don't know what else to tell you.
(31:59):
That storm has affected the entire, like, basically from the Bahamas all the way up to New York.
It's like an entire eastern coast storm. It's grounded.
Tons of flights. No flights are going out of the Bahamas right now.
Nobody can come in. It was just, it was a mess. So, I talked to her and I called back later.
(32:20):
I called back like an hour later. I was like, let me just, like,
see if anything's changed.
Talked to somebody else. They said the exact same thing. and that person was
basically like, you know what?
Everybody missed their flights for the last 24 hours essentially.
So there are no other flights out of the Bahamas.
There's only like two. There's like two a day. Yeah, to Charlotte.
(32:41):
Yeah, and everybody else has been jumping on those because they can't get to
Atlanta or Texas or wherever.
Well, and everybody whose flight was canceled the day before is now getting
on the flights the next day and it pushes everything. Right.
So I'm trying to get us back and she eventually is just like,
I'm like, what's my best option?
(33:02):
And she's like, your best option is to keep your Tuesday afternoon flight.
She's like, because if I was even saying like, can I come to the airport and go standby?
No, this is Friday. This is Saturday. Now Saturday morning. Yeah.
I'm like, can I come to the airport and go standby? She's like, you can.
But as soon as you enter standby protocol, quote unquote, you lose your seats
(33:22):
on the flight you're booked.
So i'm like are you kidding me yeah
so long story short i'm yeah i
was screwed like we're stuck there which mason was
happy about but you know so
anyway i mean poor us right but it rained so bad basically the resort was shut
down for about about 30 or 36 hours i mean the restaurants and things opened
(33:46):
back up and electricity was on but they had to shut down like almost all the
pools because Because they had overflowed and everything was messed up.
It was, I'm like, can you make up any more stuff to go wrong?
I'm trapped in the Bahamas and.
Now literally. Literally trapped. And my wife and other son are trapped in a
hospital getting ready to go through who knows what. Because we even had a huge storm there.
(34:11):
Yeah. Like in Charlotte, we were having a huge storm because my friend Amy came
like that night late when we got admitted. and she ran to my house and just
got us a few essentials because mind you I brought a suitcase back with us but
guess what it was filled with?
Bikinis. Bikinis. A couple of dresses and bikinis and I'm like.
(34:32):
Neither of us have any underwear. We have just the clothes that are on our back.
I mean, you could have really impressed him at the hospital.
Yeah. Just walk in the hallways in a bikini. I mean, the next day,
I put on the one dress I did have.
And they were like, oh, you're so dressed up. I'm like, this is all I have. OK?
So Amy went to our house and grabbed us a few essentials. And when she came
in, she was soaking wet. She went and got Aiden's pillow for him.
(34:55):
And his pillow, literally, he couldn't use it for like two days because it took that long to dry.
And I was like I didn't even realize it was storming here
like we you know the walls are so thick in the hospital I didn't even know there
was a storm happening so you can't get home we're waiting all day to see the
surgeon she finally comes in now there's this is a very very specific
(35:20):
like a pediatric ophthalmologist surgeon
is a very niche thing there isn't a lot of them okay you're like one in a million
so like the hospital is one okay and so she's she's busy so she is like late
(35:40):
to see us and basically when she comes in to see us she's like we're just
going to prep for surgery because we can't really waste any more time.
And, you know, I saw his CT, he needs the surgery. She had actually even spoken to my brother.
So she was keeping him in the loop. And I was able to like, it's always nice
to have him involved because he can like break down like all the medical jargon
(36:04):
and just kind of talk to me like a normal person.
And which was great, because then I could just kind of really understand what was happening.
So they get him into surgery at... God, it was like 10 o'clock at night.
I was going to say pushing midnight.
Yeah. Well, yeah, because we were back in the room by...
Like two-ish. Two-ish, two-thirty-ish. And he was in surgery for three hours.
(36:29):
So, longest three hours of my life, by the way. So, yeah, it was late. This was late at night.
And he gets put under and she does the surgery.
And she's texting me or somebody is texting me from inside the OR,
just like updating me constantly, which was amazing. Yeah.
Because that never happens. No. I mean, the Children's Hospital is a different,
(36:50):
it's a different beast. It really is.
I can't say enough praise about Levine's Children's Hospital.
I mean, it's like the best hospital in Charlotte and for a reason.
I mean, I was treated at Levine Cancer Institute and that was why I needed to
get him to Levine Children's because I knew like the care was gonna be outstanding.
(37:10):
And so she's letting me know throughout the surgery, like it's going great,
he's doing well and we'll be out soon, but it just takes a long time.
So then she lets me know that he's in recovery and they're going
to start like waking him up a little bit from the anesthesia and
it'll be like a little bit before they can bring me in
he still has a breathing tube in she's like I just want to get all
(37:32):
that out before you see him and when
they when she finally comes and gets me personally to bring me back she's she's
a she's she's hard to describe she's quirky and she's amazing I love her she
like knows what she's doing but
she is just quirky so she's like just chatting with me all the way down.
(37:52):
Gives me no warning about what I'm about to walk into.
And I walk into the recovery room where he is and he doesn't have the breathing
tube still in, but he has this like plate in his mouth that's keeping him from not like.
Clamping down on his tongue while he's still basically out so
he's got that in all these like monitor you know
(38:14):
monitors all over his chest his iv they had
to put in another iv in his hand because the
anesthesiologist was like his veins are already getting
like blown from the antibiotics in
his arm so they started a second iv in his
hand which i know is painful because they that's where they
do it like when you're having a baby yeah you've um now
(38:35):
yeah i've had it and it's awful and and they're
like you know and he's got his eye is completely patched
up tape all over his face i immediately i walked in the room and immediately
just like let out a sob and was just like distraught just looking at him because
that's your baby you know and and i really didn't know what i was going to walk
(38:55):
into like i thought they would have his eye covered but i didn't.
Expect to see what i saw and he's laying in this bed and his breathing is really
crazy because this thing is in his mouth and he's got all these monitors on
and this huge patch on his eye and his face is very swollen from the anesthesia
and anesthesia and his skin is very red,
(39:17):
which happens a lot with anesthesia as well.
So it was just a jarring, a lot to see, a lot to see.
It was, it was the night I hadn't slept in two days at this point and it was,
I just like broke down and she was amazing.
I mean, she, you know, they all took care of me but they're just you know assuring
me the whole time like he's fine this is totally normal because i'm looking
(39:38):
at his blood pressure numbers i'm looking at his.
Like i'm looking at all his numbers on the monitors and i know how to read everything
i've been in the hospital for long periods of time for you
know many times so i know what the numbers are
in fact a lot of the people in the hospital kept asking me
are you a nurse because i just like i
know a lot of medical stuff just from it's like no i'm not
(40:01):
i'm not in the medical field but unfortunately i've
had a history of health problems so like
i just kind of know these things and so
i'm worried about like his diastolic number and you know the people monitoring
him were like no this is totally normal it gets very low when he's under anesthesia
as he starts to wake up those numbers will go back to normal and we're gonna
(40:22):
watch him here before we send him back up to the room and they did and by the
and the only thing they kept waking him up a little bit.
And the only thing that like, he wouldn't talk, but like he would nod his head a little bit.
So like they knew he was like coming out of it. And then they were like,
do you know who's holding your hand? And he was just like.
And i was just sort of crying they're like okay he's good
(40:44):
he knows he knows who's here like he knows what's going on he's fine
so they bring him back up to the room i'm sitting
indian style at the edge of his bed in the
room dead staring at him for
the next like three hours i literally didn't move
because i was like they just like left the room all the monitors
are on him the nurses are like don't like you can go to
(41:05):
bed like we're watching him from out there that screen
is on our screen and i'm like yeah okay cool
like i'm gonna sit here and watch him so i
literally sat there and just stared at him sleeping for like the next three
hours and then when his numbers got back to a place where
i wanted them i was like all right i'll lay down for a little bit he woke
up in the morning the next day very groggy but like okay really irritated with
(41:27):
the thing the iv in his hand obviously really irritated there was so much tape
and he was very his skin was very irritated from the tape so he's like kind
of pulling at that all day i'm like we have to stop touching it.
Like, got to settle down.
So, you know, he's still getting the IV antibiotics all day.
And the surgeon comes in way later that day and takes off the dressing and reveals
(41:52):
his eye that has this like itty bitty, like, I mean, it's not itty bitty, but it's small.
I mean, it's right in like the crease of his eye, almost a little bit higher below his eyebrow.
He had He had gotten six stitches internally and eight stitches externally,
but they're all dissolvable.
Thank God. Like he won't have to get them removed or anything.
(42:13):
But so she took that off and he was like swollen a little bit from the surgery,
but like looked a hundred percent better than he did when we rolled up in there.
So I'm already like feeling better.
She puts this plastic clear
plastic hard plastic shield on his eye
and then like tapes up his whole freaking face again so
(42:36):
that he won't like because the stitches will start getting itchy and stuff and
and when you're sleeping especially kids like you just like kind of go up to
grab things and she's like i can't be having him grab those stitches like we'll
be at the back of the or that plastic ipad oh my god that plastic shield is
a shield yeah yeah hello claire yeah i was very
like it was it was have the lamb stop screaming
(42:58):
then he really was upset about the
way he looked he's like now i really look like a freak and they're like well
don't worry you're gonna be here for seven full days on iv antibiotics they
were not going to let him leave until he had seven full days of iv antibiotics
and then he would be switched to oral antibiotics for 30 days.
(43:19):
So right now he is on antibiotics twice a
day for 30 days and it
is every time he has to take these horse pills we're cutting them up and it's
like a struggle to get them down every single time it's a lot but basically
like that he he had to go back into a surgery a couple days later to they had
put drains in his eye because she was like that abscess was so full and so much came
(43:44):
out of it trigger warning she's like
i had to put drains in that i have to remove and she's
like i can't remove those drains without putting him back under
like he'll be freaking out and i'm like
yeah no i totally consent to that because there was gauze and
stuff behind his yeah stitches it was like stuffed yeah it
was it was like absorb it yep so we did
(44:05):
that again that was like two days later three days later it
was wednesday night yeah and he did
fine in that that one was only an hour so that was
a lot better and only being under anesthesia
for that short amount of time he came back out of
it much quicker yep actually that night he made
me like order him dominoes like
(44:26):
late that night and i was home after the second surgery i had made it
home mason and i was that night yeah yep oh yeah yeah yeah when he got it out
no yeah because we came home the next day no we landed and flew but we landed
and then we had to uber straight to the the hospital and i finally got to see
you guys and see him and he was going in for surgery.
(44:47):
The next day so okay okay that's right not
the same i thought you were saying the same day that he had it you were there
yeah so we were home mason i had made it home yeah they had made it home at
that point i was not leaving the hospital at that point there was no talking
you out of it i'm not leaving so you hadn't slept in like four nights yeah i
was like just let me stay you go home and you're like no no i was like zombie
(45:09):
status but i was not i mean i had been talking I was talking to the doctors.
There was like six doctors on his team. And I had been communicating with them
and all of the nurses for those past four days. And I was like...
I'm doing everything for him. I'm bathing him. I'm taking him to the bathroom.
I'm changing his clothes. I'm changing his dressing.
You called me worthless and kicked me out, basically.
(45:33):
You did. I didn't, but I was like- I think the words were, I'm not leaving his effing side.
I think those words came out of your mouth. I think that's when you stopped finally asking.
You're like, okay, I'll go home and I'll come back tomorrow.
I'm like, yeah, that sounds good. Get Mason off to school and you can come back then.
So long and short of it i know this is a very long story
he's fine it was
(45:56):
so scary he was in the hospital for seven nights
seven full yep eight days seven nights came home
late friday yeah and he's been pretty much
back to himself yeah i mean he like wants
to sleep on the couch now which i totally understand when i
came home from the hospital after long stays like you're just
kind of freaked out when that first night you come home it's like
(46:16):
all you want to do is go home but then you
lay down to go to sleep and there's not
somebody coming in your room even though it's annoying when
it's happening you're used to that like somebody's monitoring me somebody's
coming in to check on me i'm safe i'm safe the beeping the sounds like and you
come home and none of that's happening and it makes you like very anxious and
(46:41):
i don't think he's ever I've never really been anxious even.
So all these feelings were just like, I just felt for him because,
and it was actually the fact that I have such a horrible health background actually
made it like a blessing because I was able to tell him,
(47:01):
he ended up having to get like a PICC line or midline put into his arm,
like on the inside of his bicep because his veins kept like.
Going bad from all the IV and all the antibiotics and anesthesia.
So instead of starting another IV, they ended up doing a midline in his arm,
which I've had a PICC line before.
So like, when they came in his room to do that, I mean, they literally sterilized
(47:24):
the whole space and just kind of do that little procedure right there in your room.
And I know what it's like, I've had it done.
So I could literally talk him through every single thing he was going to feel
and what it was going to do and how long it was going to take.
And then the same thing when he came home like i i told
him like i understand how you feel right now i know it feels
weird that you wanted to come home so bad but now you feel like
(47:46):
you maybe you should be back there i'm like
i totally get that like i understand everything you're
going through it's like a uh it's like the blessing
in disguise like you said like you i had
that horrible as it was for you going through it yeah i had
that experience to be able to like comfort him basically and
you got a little taste of the caregiver side you've talked about that a couple
(48:06):
times yeah which i think our next episode actually
is going to be on like the caregiver side of things
but yeah it was i had and obviously
i've been a caregiver my whole existence of a
being a mom but like right when somebody's sick
like that and you're like the amount of stress and no sleep and you're on all
(48:28):
the time and you're you're jumping up to do every single thing that they need
but you're also trying to not stress them out and put on a happy face for my
other son and for when you come in to like have that be.
Like a nice visit and not have it be stressful even
though you're under so much pressure and so much stress so yeah
(48:49):
yeah i do i really do feel for you i do understand now like
how difficult it was to just juggle all of the things and be the caretaker yeah
yeah i mean it was and you know we can kind of smile now and say yeah poor me
i was on vacation but i was equally stressed right I mean, I was trying to stay up to speed.
(49:10):
I was trying to keep Mason sidetracked and entertained and make sure he had fun.
And I was worried about you and how you were mentally handling things and worried
obviously about Aiden. Aiden, yeah, of course.
I mean, it was, so yeah, I was there, but I was under constant stress and anxiety
too, right? It was just mental warfare.
Yeah, just mental warfare. Wanted to get back so bad, but it was- It was a whirlwind. Holy cow.
(49:36):
Holy Labor Day weekend. yeah yeah so
never again oh man so Aiden's
about to turn 12 next week this Saturday
yeah and we just owe him a blowout birthday I'm like I looked at him at one
point in the hospital I'm like now now is the time now is the time to ask for
anything you've been wanting because like you've got us under your spell right
(50:00):
now like you want a puppy now's the time to ask for it nope I cut Cut it off there.
You did ask. I cut it off there. It's like anything else. Anything other than
that. You want a car? Sure.
We'll do that before another dog. Exactly. I don't know.
It was, you know, it's wild because we're, again, I've said this before,
but thankfully I work for an amazing employer and I could work remote and,
(50:23):
you know, was able to spend time with him at the hospital.
And, you know, my company is like, go take care of your family first. Right.
Always. They always are. They always are. And it's just a phenomenal place.
You know but it really affords me the opportunity
to be able to help you guys and take care of you as well even
just for those few days but it was funny i
was at work yesterday and i was like oh my god we're supposed to
(50:45):
go on vacation again in a month and i feel horrible now like wanting to leave
and wanting to actually take you on vacation and right take aiden on vacation
and give you guys some time away that you now deserve even more yeah which was
planned anyway but yeah i mean I mean, we're definitely more excited for that trip now. Yeah.
(51:05):
We need it. That was a long story. It was a long story.
Yeah. And I also, I want to thank everybody that reached out,
sent prayers, sent gifts.
So many people sent gifts to him just to keep him busy in the hospital, which was just amazing.
And people did that for me too. And it was just so like...
People just, people just care. People just want to help. They want to do something.
(51:28):
And whether it was like sending them cookies or balloons or sending them a Lego set or Robux,
like, or just bringing us lunch and hanging out with us, like all of those things
that, that everyone did, or just the continuous calling and texting and wanting
updates, like, thank you.
Everyone just cared so much. And it was amazing.
(51:51):
And it just shows what kind of community we have wrapped around us. It really does.
Yes. And agreed. Thank you so much for everyone reaching out and just all the
things that everybody did.
And it's funny because sometimes people say, right, especially me as the caregiver,
(52:15):
like, well, what can we send when Jess was sick or what can we do?
And it is, it's the little things that can keep, like Aiden busy, right?
Like just Lego sets. And letting them be busy for an hour.
Yeah, and just some cookies and some treats and some things that are good for
him and just lunch to Jess so she doesn't have to.
(52:37):
You know, stress out about leaving the room for 30 minutes to go try and find
something to eat in the cafeteria.
So it was just DoorDash gift cards. I mean, if anybody ever has friends or family
in the hospital, you need some ideas.
Yeah. Reach out to us because we, we know what people need and what they don't need. Yes.
(52:57):
Yes. That is true. We'll talk about all of that on the caregiver episode.
Yeah, but it is, it's, it's all the love and just, and living in Children's
Hospital of Charlotte. I mean, I mean, God, those people.
They're unbelievable. All of the nurses, all of the doctors,
all of the CNAs, all of the woman that came in and changed our garbage every
day and asked us a hundred times, what can I get for you? What can I do for you?
(53:20):
Is this a good time? I mean, every single person that we came in contact with
at that hospital was amazing.
They are meant to work with children.
And it's just not everybody is. A lot of people aren't. and they are just,
they're just so good. So great. Sent from heaven. Yes.
They are. All right. Well, that's all the time we have.
(53:43):
That was an hour story. It was. It could have been even longer too.
There was so much I left out, but yeah, that's, he is good.
We are good. Everybody is okay and healthy and happy to be home.
Thank you for listening to the story. We've told this many times to individuals,
but this gave a lot of detail.
So yeah hopefully this uh this helps as well
(54:05):
and and if if you have a sinus infection or
if you think you have a little sinus infection don't ignore
it these this is like who knew that a
sinus infection could go this wrong make
your kids this quickly blow their noses oh my god i know we are like on him
now because he's a big like he's a big like sucker in and now that we know we're
(54:27):
like no anytime we breathe in i'm like don't breathe in that heavy you don't
want anything thing coming back in like we need to get that out yeah and and.
Yeah. Next time I even have an inkling that he has a sinus infection,
ear infection, any sort of infection, we're going to the doctor and getting it checked out.
(54:47):
I'm not going to like assume that he can wait a couple of days or either of
them. Like we'll never do this again.
What are you going to do if I have an infection? What if I have a sniffle?
Don't get me started on your sniffles. Please. You do enough.
You are so extra when you have a
sniffle that I wouldn't need to do anything wow all
(55:10):
right it's a man flu let's not
get into it that's a whole nother story i had to
leave it on a funny note all right guys thanks for
listening don't forget to follow us on instagram on
wherever get your podcast follow
us on all of the platforms if you like the episode send it to a friend send
(55:32):
it to a family member rate it comment all these things help all aspects of the
podcast and our life all right have a good one guys bye.
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