December 2009: Luca's Story

First off, let me apologize to everyone for my acute lack of information. Many of you asked daily for updates that I simply could not provide. Please do not take this personally, I truly appreciate your concern for our well being.

Now on to the dirt.

On Wednesday, December 9Th Luca began acting strangely. He insisted his tummy hurt and would not eat or drink for most of the day. Since he was not running a fever or showing any other outward signs of illness, I let it slide. The next morning I dropped him off at preschool at 6am. At 6:56 am I received a call saying Luca had vomited massive amounts of fluid and blood... but had not eaten anything at all.

I picked him up from school and took him to Urgent Care here in Yuma, Arizona. Within ten minutes they were sure it was his appendix and sent us on our way to Yuma Regional Emergency Room. After this, things get blurry and rushed.

Things moved quickly as doctors and nurses began I.V lines and drew blood. The plot thickened immediately when his labs came back ridiculously out of whack. His blood sugar was 30 when it should be at least 104, his sodium was low, and his white blood cells were off... but not high to indicate infection. It took three doses of sedative and one shot of Morphine to calm him enough for a cat scan.... which revealed his bladder was grossly distended. It was three times the size it should be.

Back in the hospital room, hit vitals dropped. His blood pressure went up, then bottomed out. His heart monitor was constantly going off due to severe tachycardia....his heart wasn't beating right. His pulse oxygen showed he wasn't getting enough oxygen.

Throughout the rest of the day they tried to get him stable. Late in the evening, Danny arrived at the Hospital. (Note: He had been in Yuma for over a month for Marine Corps related training.) After the sun went down, the decision was made that he belonged in a Children's ICU and that this general hospital could do nothing more for him. The life flight was called. We were told we'd be flown to San Diego where doctors would be waiting.

As you'll see in the photos, they strapped Luca's green car seat to a stretcher. He was loaded onto a four seater beetch craft airplane. The seats were lined single file down the left side of the aircraft, with Luca's stretcher on the right. We then found out we'd be going to Tucson, a 5 hour drive from Yuma. Every 20 minutes on the flight, Luca was pricked for blood. Twice he was given a shot of Dextrose to prevent a coma. We landed in Tucson and were loaded into an ambulance. On the way to the hospital, we saw a helicopter in the air on a police chase. Welcome to Tucson, ya'll.

The next few days are again foggy.... Luca was NPO for over a week, meaning no food or water by mouth. I certainly wasn't about to eat in front of him. I was however hoping to lose some weight and get hot while I was there. His blood was drawn and his vitals were taken every hour on the hour, so we also had NO sleep. Read: NO SLEEP. After each blood draw it would take a good thirty minutes to calm him down and settle back in, then it was time for the next one.

Literally everything you can imagine was done to this boy. MRI's, cat scan, ultrasound, X-rays, Upper GI barium scans, endoscopy.

He was put under general anesthesia for surgery... which was the hardest thing I've done in a long while. Walking away from him.... They went into his small intestine and found lesions and growths. Biopsy results have not come back yet.

Four times over the two weeks he cried out in pain as his stomach grew to four times its normal size and became rock hard. This occurrence was followed by vomiting of massive amounts of fluids. (Keep in mind he had not eaten or taken any fluid by mouth)

Twice they blew out all his veins and had to take blood from his ankle. I stopped counting on day three at 64 needle pricks,

Once he pooped blood.

Twice he ripped out his I.V ports by accident.

Six times he hit this one scary looking doctor.

Three times he asked the goofy janitor to come home with us.

Not one time did he complain.

By the end of the first week, we was telling the doctors and nurses where they were going to draw blood from, and exactly which cartoon character bandaid he was going to receive.

Today was his 4Th birthday. We spent the day in the hospital of course. I'm exhausted and scared. But shit, this boy is strong.

Worst case scenario, it's cancer. Best case, it's some type of metabolic disease that can be treated symptomatically. Only time will tell. Regardless, I'm lucky to have this boy in my life. Every beautiful, funny, stressful, sad, explosive second is a blessing.

(Note: Yes, Ava did stay in the hospital with us for some time, and YES. That is a PONY. In the freakin' children's ICU.)

(Note Also: There are a couple photos where Luca is surrounded by a bunch of Goobers in ugly clothing holding books. They were from Barnes and Noble. They brought a News crew to document them "reading" to the kids in the hospital for the holidays. Ahem. They gathered around Luca for about 7 seconds, enough time for the film crew to shoot some footage and some chick to snap a series of photos. Then they bounced. Exploit my kid? K. I stole 6 of their books. Ugh, tools.)

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