Riley

Wow. Where do I begin? We were told to be ready by 9:30 this morning so that when a bed opened up at Riley, we could head right down there. We waited until 3pm before that call came. We arrived here around 4:45ish. This place is huge and daunting. It's beautiful and recently updated...but still daunting. Admitting was a nightmare and Dave said that they were new and had to look in handbooks and when talking with the nurses, we don't have all the right information because we weren't checked in right. We are sharing a room. I must be spoiled because in all my hospital stays (birthing babies and this last week with Callie) we've never had roommates. It is just hard to stay with two cranky babies and try to be considerate of your roommate when all you want to do is be by yourself and follow your own routine. We are in the far end of the room which is small and hard to access with the curtain drawn. There is no bed, but a chair and the roommates have the TV on loud around the clock. There is no bathroom, no kleenex, no remote nearby. It's scary and large and well, scary. The resident doctor came in and the word, CT scan was thrown out. It makes me cringe. They will hopefully do this stuff tomorrow if they're going to do it. I would hate to have them wait until Monday given these circumstances. Callie has about had it too. She is finally sleeping again so I felt that I could sneak away (I have to sit in the lounge). Dave's sitting with her now. He is headed to my step-sister, Jen's tonight to sleep. I'll stick here with Callie.

Perhaps once I get my bearings I can stop crying for a minute (I have been for the last hour and a half) and maybe be at peace with this place. Callie needs me to hold it together. Fortunately, she will probably not remember this ordeal at all, while I feel that this has been a week that I will remember for a long time.

Funny Callie story: Since she is so young and does not have object permanance yet (the ability to remember that things are there when you don't see them), she has looked at her IV'd hand about 15 times like it's the first time she is seeing it. She looks at it questioningly as if saying, "Where'd you come from?" A few hours later, she'll do the exact same thing like it's the first time she's ever seen it. It's rather amusing.

My room service menu came in Spanish. Dave just started laughing. Seriously? So, now I am selfishly praying that a private room becomes available and that they onsider us a perfect candidate for it.

Blogs may be a little more intermittant, since I don't have access in the room. But I will still try to keep you posted. I took some pictures of the place and may try to upload them tomorrow (or later tonight if I can break away again).

We miss and love you guys.