48 Hours on a Wooden Roller Coaster

Last Thursday and Friday were something else.  I don't even know where to begin. 


Thursday I called off work in the morning so I could take Jonas to the doctor.  I hate calling in, especially because it is my grandson, and not myself.  It just feels wrong.  But I have to do what I have to do.  I never should have volunteered to work on a day Linda had clinicals. 


Jonas had been sick all week. I took him to see Dr Irwin on Thursday and he was diagnosed with pnemonia.  She did not like that his pulse oxygen saturation was running at 92%.  Instead of putting him in the hospital that day, she gave him a different oral antibiotic, a Rocephin shot, and told us to do updrafts every 4 hours.  She gave him a return appointment for Friday morning.


During the office visit I got a call from Andrew with him crying saying he had been kicked out of Williamsburg.  He had not even been in there two weeks!   I told him he would have to deal with it due to Jonas having pnemonia and I have to go to work immediately after the appointment.  I had no time or patience for dealing with his self-inflicted problem.  Eventually Andrew went to a homeless shelter to spend the night.  On my way home from work, Chuck calls me and tells me that Andrew is in the ER at UAMS.  He had been beat up and knifed in the abdomen.  We get there, find out that his injuries are minor, and take his happy little ass back to the homeless shelter- one of the hardest things I have ever done. 


Friday morning, the clinical picture was not better, in fact, it was a little worse, so Jonas was admitted to the hospital.  I had to call in to work that morning to take him to his appointment because Linda could not miss her clinicals.  After the appointment, I left Nader and Chuck with Jonas at the hospital.  Even though it broke my heart to leave him, I went to work.  When I arrived at work, Tiffany insisted I go be with Jonas, talked with our boss, Donna, and I was given permission to leave.  You can't imagine how grateful I was.  When I arrived back at the hospital, I was there just in time to hold his hand during the placement of his IV.  Spent most of the day there with him, poor thing, crying everytime someone with scrubs would walk into the room. 


Found out Friday that Andrew walked from Little Rock to North Little Rock, approximately six miles, to get to the rehab center he had just previously been in.  Somehow, miracle of miracles, they accepted him back in, without a cent to his name.  Maybe he has learned something, like how he doesn't want a life on the street.  Just maybe this time rehab will mean something.  I hope.


Jonas is doing so much better this Sunday morning.  He is no longer on oxygen, his O2 saturation is staying above 95%.  He has color in his cheeks and is playful.  I have the afternoon off and will be spending it at the hospital with him while I watch the Daytona 500.   Maybe he will get to go home today!