MRI and Chicken Pox

Our first full day in Hawaii included a visit to the Tripler Army Medical Center.  Lilymei had a health and wellness visit.  She has really grown over the past month.  Lily now weighs 25 pounds and is almost 33 inches long.  Once again, she did NOT like the doctor visit.  She cries every time she is put on the scale, has anyone (in the doctor's office) look inside her mouth or ears, or sees a stethoscope.  We met with a pediatrician to discuss what we were hoping to find out from the MRI.  After that meeting we went to the PICU (pediatric intensive care unit) and spoke with the sedation nurse.  She explained exactly what would be happening in order to sedate Lilymei for the procedure.  We left feeling well informed, excited to finally get a better idea of what is going on inside our sweet Lily's head.  

After the doctor visit we headed down to Waikiki for lunch at Bubba Gump's Shrimp House. We had a great lunch and then decided to do a little shopping.  Our first stop was Lenscrafters where I picked out a new set of glasses.  We had an hour to kill before my glasses would be done so we walked into Macy's where we purchased a few things for Lily and me.  It was at this time that we noticed Lily had a few bug bites.  She had one on her hand and a couple on her legs.  By the time we got back to our housing I counted 15 "bites".  Scott gave her a dose of benadryl and we hoped for the best.  

This morning we needed to be on the road by 6:45am in order to beat the "rush" to Tripler.  I'm not kidding!  The parking lots are packed by 8:00am.  I've never been in such a large medical facility.  During the night, Lily must have been itching her spots because some of them looked larger and were starting to ooze.  She was crying by the time we drove the 15 minutes from Hickam to Tripler.  We showed the nurses in PICU.  We also showed them to the doctor who would be doing the MRI.  I'll let you know how that issue was resolved in a minute.  

Lily cried, once again, when the nurse checked her vital signs.  She was very scared when her IV was put in but she didn't require pre-sedation.  We wrapped her up like a papoose with one arm out and she stayed still enough for the needle to go right in.  Yeah!!!  Scott and I walked down to the MRI room with Lily and stayed with her until she was out.  We had just enough time to grab a bite to eat and then it was time to wait for her to come out.  Lily was waking up when they rolled her out to the waiting room and by the time we got back to the PICU she was pretty coherent.  She wanted all the gizmos and gadgets off right away.  We didn't have to wait too long before they released us.  

We asked again, what to do about all those bug bites.  While we were in the hospital more bumps were surfacing.  We ultimately decided that since we were already in the hospital we would just stop off at the pediatric unit and see a doctor.  We were escorted to an isolation room because of her "unknown skin condition".  The nurse assistant thought it looked like chicken pox.  Great!!!  Chicken pox within a day of arriving on Hawaii!  Just 2 weeks ago Lilymei had a varicella vaccination.  When the doctor came in he thought the spots were just bug bites.  He said that since the spots were mostly on exposed skin on her legs and feet and not on the rest of her body, for the most part, that it was not chicken pox.  Whew!  We went back to Hickam with hydrocortisone and more benadryl.  Since Lily loves to put lotion on she loved having the hydrocortisone rubbed in.  We will see how she does overnight and if things don't look better we will be going right back to the doctor.

We have been talking to Nate and Drew each night.  They are doing well; enjoying their time at Letty and Marlon's home.  I hear they have been working very hard to get their school work done so when their friends get home they can play the Wii.  Maybe they are hoping we won't be home on time so they can stay a little bit longer with their friends.