AMANDA'S HOSPITILIZATION

by Rick Champagne

Here is the story of the past week:

Wednesday (1/31): daycare calls Rick at 2 pm and says that Amanda has a fever and has been coughing a lot.  Rick leaves work and brings Amanda home.  That night, she barely sleeps (same goes for Mom and Dad) because she is coughing constantly. 

Thursday (2/1): Sue brings Amanda to the doctor at 9:30 am.  The doctor observed her breathing, checked her oxygen levels, and then preceded to call the ambulance.  Sue calls Rick while waiting for the ambulance, and Rick meets them at the hospital.  Note: Rick actually beats the ambulance there!  They spend 5-6 hours at the hospital, while Amanda is given oxygen, IV fluids (including steroids), and breathing treatments, and then they are sent home that night when it appears Amanda has improved enough.  That evening, despite waking up 4-5 times, Amanda does seem a lot healthier.

Friday (2/2): Sue brings Amanda to the doctor for a follow-up appointment.  Amanda is well enough that Rick doesn't even bother going to the appointment because he's certain that all is well now.  Sure enough, her doctor calls for a 2nd ambulance ride to the emergency room.  Note: Rick knows nothing about medicine.  It's then a few more hours of monitoring her oxygen levels while she's hooked up to a tube.  The doctors don't see enough improvement, and they decide she needs to be admitted. 

Saturday and Sunday (2/3 - 2/4): Same story both days.  Amanda continues to need oxygen.  Sue and Rick stay with her constantly except for Rick's daily trips back to Barre to feed the cats and restock supplies.

Monday (2/5): Rick stays with Amanda in the morning, while Sue goes to work 1/2 day.  Shift change occurs around 11:30 and Rick goes to work while Sue stays in the hospital.  After three nights there, the doctors finally decide to say that Amanda has RSV.  They take Amanda off the oxygen after gradually reducing the level during the past two days.  Evening #4 of the Champagnes sleeping at what they are now calling "Sandals Lake Ave."

Tuesday (2/6): Amanda has a good night, and is breathing fine on her own, and she gets the okay to go home.  Four hours later, we actually get to leave the hospital.

Rick's list of complaints about Umass Memorial on Lake Ave:

1) Shared rooms.  In an area where there's always going to be crying babies, why must we share rooms?  On the plus side, at least we only had to share the room with one family, instead of staying in a quad like some patients.

2) Contamination.  On our first day there, they told us Amanda's blood tests all came back negative.  Three days later, they came in to tell us it's RSV, and that we weren't allowed to leave the room with her.  The problem with that is that we've been taking her for walks in a stroller around the floor, and letting her play in the infant play room during the past 3 days.  Don't you think they should've told us this earlier???

3) Sleeping arrangements.  The room has a chair that expands out to a single bed.  We tried to both sleep on it one night, but gave up quickly since there wasn't enough room for both of us to lie on our backs.  So I went down the hall and slept in the visitors waiting lounge, which contained a rock-hard love seat sofa.  Now I'm not complaining about the fact that my legs hung over the arm rest, because God knows taller people have it a lot worse than I did.  I'm complaining about the fact that there was a monitor on the wall that loudly beeped randomly.  It would beep for 30 seconds straight, and then not beep for another 5 minutes, and then beep quickly every 15 seconds, and so on.  I kept sleeping with headphones playing music and two pillows squeezed against each side of my head.  I also stacked chairs against the wall so I could place another pillow in front of the speaker.  And it still kept waking me up!

4) Free parking on discharge day.  In every room, they have a sign that says "on discharge day, parking is on us!".  How nice... they can save me $5.  Apparently, that sign is just a decoration.  First, we asked the information desk about it.  They said we need the discharge papers.  Then we went back with the discharge papers, and they said we had to go to the info desk near the ER waiting room.  We went to that desk, and that person had a blank look on their face and sent us back to the main info desk.... and so on.  Never mind... I'll just pay the damn $5!