Sunday, October 17, 2021

Sunday, October 17, 2021

Tonight's picture was taken on October 10, 2008. I can tell exactly what was happening here because Mattie was sitting on a gurney. This meant that he had a scan that day and the sedation team was preparing him for radiology. Because Mattie had his initial MRIs during diagnosis without any preparation, he developed intense fear and anxiety about even being in the same room as the scanning machine. Therefore, all subsequent scans had to be performed under sedation. That may sound easy enough, but it was anything but easy. With sedation, you have to be without food and water for 12 hours and after the scan was over, Mattie's recovery from the sedation was difficult. He dealt with uncontrollable agitated, which meant he needed a drug to counteract the sedation. If Mattie had been introduced to a child life specialist right from the beginning, his initial scanning experiences may have been more positive which could have potentially avoided his need for sedation. 

Quote of the day: Today's coronavirus update from Johns Hopkins. 

• Number of people diagnosed with the virus: 44,927,783
• Number of people who died from the virus: 724,177

It hasn't been a good weekend for Peter, ever since he received the flu shot. The irony is I typically get flu like symptoms from the vaccine and Peter is fine. Not this time around. When feeling like this, it is hard to know what to eat. I know this feeling well, so I went to the grocery store today and bought all the ingredients to make homemade chicken soup. 

Meanwhile, as of today, all the walls in the garage have been painted. I will paint the staircase, from the garage into the house, sometime this week. It is a thrill to have this big chore behind us!