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Thursday, February 11, 2010

He is feeling better but we are still at the hospital

I think they want to be certain - so we are staying another night. He is receiving fluids in two ways. One way is by an IV and the other one is a drip of electrolytes via his g-tube by a pump - I am hoping to begin purred foods tomorrow morning by mouth.

Our hospital stay has had its ups and downs - on the night we arrived the admitting nurse was asking me to confirm his diagnoses. He first said epilepsy - and I said yes - then he said microcephaly - and I said yes - then he said mental retardation - I lost it - and I mean I LOST IT - tears just rolled down my cheeks! In our almost 3 year adventure with our son - he has never been referred to being this ugly word - and I quickly voiced my comments to this young nurse - I could not believe he just said that ugly word to me - he then stated he was only reading what was stated in his medical charts - I gave him a quick lesson as to what other words that could have been said in place of that word - such as developmental delays, challenged, etc.

The odd thing is - just before I went to the hospital I read an article in our local newspaper health section that stated this the medical dictionary is changing - . . .WASHINGTON (AP) -- Don't say "mental retardation" -- the new term is "intellectual disability." I was going to clip the article and send it to the ER nurse. I fully understand that my son does have his challenges ahead of him - however I never want that word associated with him. Here is a link to the article http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/feb/10/changes-proposed-diagnosing-mental-disorders/

One of the good things that has come out of this visit - is that we were visited by a variety of different staff members who remember Brextin when he was here in the past (when he was around 9 months old) and they were interested in being updated in his condition - so we were blessed by some old visitors.

1 comment:

  1. I know exactly how you feel. I remember sitting in the geneticist's office when a young graduate student gave us Aaron's diagnosis and prognosis. She said it so matter of factly like it was not big deal. Like he would just have big feet or something. Her supervisor was with us and she had this ridiculous smile plastered on her face like what they had just told us was no big deal. I felt as though the whole world was caving in on me.

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