Let It Be

Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be, whisper words of wisdom, let it be.

And when the night is cloudy, there is still a light, that shines on me, shine until tomorrow, let it be... --Beatles


What I remember about the morning of Liam's MRI:

4:30 a.m. -- I awake because I hear a child coughing, not sure which one. I jump up to check on the kids, hoping it isn't Liam since he can't be sick for his MRI in 2 hours. I find out it is Lily.....wait, TWO HOURS?! Yikes, I can't go back to sleep now. What if I miss the alarm clock? I lay there wide awake until about 5:15 a.m. when I go ahead and get up.

5:15 a.m. -- I get ready to go, eat a quick bowl of oatmeal, and load up the car with my stuff.

5:45 a.m. -- I sneak into the boys room, pick up a groggy Liam and rush him downstairs to the garage. I strap him into the car with his loveys, he smiles as if exited for the adventure and off we go.

6:15 a.m. -- Having forgotten to grab Kurt's GPS, I take um, 'a different approach' to getting to the hospital. A few extra turns later and we are within sight. (Glad I left a little early.)

6:25 a.m. -- We arrive at Children's Hospital in downtown Minneapolis. As we head up the stairs in the parking garage, I trip on my own shoe and Liam and I go gracefully down, well, actually it was kind of like falling up really. Ever fallen going up a staircase? It is quite interesting...like a chicken...

6:30 a.m. -- We register with the front desk and then head into the wrong pre-op area. After being redirected, we find radiology, completely dark and empty. We wait.

6:35 a.m. -- Still waiting....Liam crawls around collecting any possible germs that could be sitting around the hospital floor.....eeeew, is that a puke stain on the carpet? Oh, please tell me it was just someone breaking the rules and spilling coffee.....

6:40 a.m. -- The radiology front desk person arrives and checks us in.

7:00 a.m. -- We are escorted back to the first of several rooms. We meet several way-too-chipper-this-early-in-the-morning nurses and doctors and after talking us through the entire procedure, twice, they get Liam's IV set up. He's thrilled...if all that screaming and crying means thrilled....

7:30 a.m. -- The Radiologist comes in to takes us back to the MRI room. Liam gives her the grumpiest look I have ever seen on his little elfin face. Apparently the thrill of our early morning adventure has come to an abrupt halt.

7:35 a.m. -- We put Liam on the table, he starts screaming so hard his eyes are clenched shut and it takes a couple of us to hold him down as they administer the meds. He falls asleep mid scream to a chuckling mom. I am sure this is out of some movie....it is like the part in Monsters Inc. when Sully is trying to get Boo to go to sleep and she is laughing and carrying on and then ZONK. She's out. Really, it was very funny. You know, in a sort of sick kind of way. The nurse tells me I can kiss him and I look at her like she has spoken some foreign language. After all, I am trained not to mess with sleeping babies and I've already had to break that once today....

8:05 a.m. -- They come to the waiting room to escort me to short stay, the room in which he will awake. He is already coming to when I get there and they all act amazed at just how quickly he is waking up. After having told me just thirty minutes ago not to touch him when he is waking up as it can agitate him, they now tell me I can pick him up if I like. Despite the mixed messages, I pick him up and hold him. He snuggles in, eyes open now and the nurse asks if he would prefer a popsicle or juice. Pop, definitely.

8:10 a.m. -- They administer the aforementioned red pop, Liam tries desperately to get it into his smiley mouth but keeps missing. I help him out, laughing.

8:15 a.m. -- We are dismissed and head on home for the rest of our VERY long day.


What Liam remembers:

Mom woke me up in the middle of the night. We went for a car ride and then I woke up again and she fed me a giant red pop for breakfast! It was totally awesome!

****

Well, the results are in and there is nothing wrong with his tiny brain in his tiny head on his tiny body. And although they couldn't rule out the possibility of a DNA mutation causing Elven-syndrome, we are free to just let him be.

Now, if the doctors will just leave him alone for a little while, he's got some walking* to catch up on....




*Speaking of walking, we finally figured out the hang up. We were down in the basement over the weekend and I put on some salsa music for the kids. They all got up to dance and there was Liam, walking around the room in circles as if the only thing he had been missing this whole time was a little salsa music to get his little feet movin'! Who'd've known?!