Omaha

Yesterday was Dakota's MRI in Omaha. The night before I didn't get to sleep until 4 am and then we got up at 6 am so we could leave town around 7. We left Mikayla at my brother Ryan and Kayla's house because siblings aren't allowed in the room. It was really hard for me to leave her because she's with me all the time. I know I worry too much about things, but all weekend I was worried about the trip. I was afraid of the 3 of us dying in a car accident and leaving Mikayla alone. And I hate the road between here and Burlington, Jct. There's atleast 3 different areas along the road there with cross memorials. So, not only did I have anxiety about that, I just had anxiety about being so far away from Mikayla. Seriously, I felt like something was on my chest all day long and that feeling didn't go away until we picked her up. Anyway, so once we got into Omaha, something told me to pull out the paper that our appt. time was on. I had been thinking that Dakota's MRI time was for 11:15 but we had to be there at 9:15. Nope, I was 2 hours off - we didn't have to be there until 11:15. I was really really frustrated with myself. I wouldn't have had to leave Mikayla so long, Dakota wouldn't have had to be awake for as long without being able to eat or drink, we all could have slept longer, etc... I don't know why I was SO sure we had to be there at 9:15. I didn't even double check the time of the appt before we left, which is weird because I never trust myself. I always double check everything I think and do. And to make things even better, I was so sure where we were supposed to check in at that I didn't even bring the papers with us. We checked in on the wrong side of the hospital. They seemed to be confused and sent us to the lab. The lab was confused but finally got us over to where we needed to be. When we got to that area, they were confused by the papers I had gotten from the original place I checked in and from the lab... It was a big mess. Oops... So, we finally get to the room where you wait for your child to be taken to their procedure. They were asking Dakota questions, which he was only partly paying attention to. The nurse asked Dakota if John and I were his parents and Dakota shook his head no. *Sigh* I'm lucky they didn't think that John and I abducted this boy so we could take him to get an MRI done. A little later, we found out there was an emergency so they were running behind. Dakota watched a movie for a little while but he told us to just shut it off. I think he was too scared to pay attention to the movie. He cried a little and said that he wanted to stay with us and I cried a little... They brought Dakota some medicine to make him not really know what was going on. It was hilarious really, he was saying some weird stuff. He told me that I looked like a little boy and he told John that he looked like he had small eyes, a big trunk, and lots of teeth. He was so serious about it too, I haven't laughed so hard in a long time.

They finally came in at 1:10 to get Dakota and take him to get his MRI done. They told us that the MRI itself usually takes 30 minutes, but it would take a total of 1 1/2 hours by the time they put him to sleep and have him wake up afterward in recovery. They didn't bring him back to the room until 3:15. I was freaking out a bit, you know how my mind works... And I was dying of boredom, and going stir-crazy, and had a bad headache from stress and lack of sleep. I was so relieved when they brought him back in and saw that he was doing good. From there, it was another hour before we could leave the hospital.

We finally ate lunch around 4:30. Dakota was determined to have a cheeseburger from McDonald's. I reminded him that the hospital said that he needed to stick with soft foods and he was like, "Well, hamburgers are kinda soft". We gave in, and luckily his food stayed down (even though he said his stomach started bothering him). Then started the adventure of trying to get out of Omaha. They were having rush hour around that time and either we would miss our turns/exits, or other cars wouldn't let us in the lanes we needed to be in. We had all sorts of trouble. We ended up on some back roads. We even had to stop and pay at some toll bridge that was in the boonies. It was really weird, like we weren't supposed to get home. We seriously had the worst luck. While we were trying to get out of Omaha, we got a call from John's mom saying that his dad went to the ER with chest pains and it was frustrating for us to not be able to be there. John's dad is ok, but is still in the hospital for testing. I think it was about 7:30 before we got home last night. I'm not looking forward to making any more trips to Omaha. What a day!