my friends from college) second little guy. The boys had lots of fun playing with all the other kids and it was great to catch up with Nikki and J.R. We are so blessed to have so many good friends...wish there was more time to see them all more regularly! After the party we headed to the Residence Inn by the Galleria, which is kind of becoming 'our' hotel in St. Louis because you can get it so darn cheap and it's a big room! Complete with a full kitchen and hide-a-bed. LOVE that. So here are the boys snuggling on the hide-a-bed watching Cars before going to bed.
That night as we're getting ready to go to sleep, the following conversation takes place.
L: Mom, are they gonna put a needle in me tomorrow?
M: Yes...just one though. It'll be a quick poke and that's it. And then when you have to have blood taken they won't have to poke you again.
L: I just don't wanna do it.
M: I know. I wish Mommy could do it for you but I can't. Maybe when you say your prayers tonight you should ask Jesus to help you be brave to
morrow.
L: (hesitantly) okay
He does his 'Now I lay me, down to sleep' routine and does his thank yous and then at the end says...
L: And Jesus, please help me be brave tomorrow cause they're gonna put a needle in me. Amen.
M: Jesus will help you be brave, Landon. You know, Jesus knows what owies feel like.
L: He does?
M: Yep. You know what happened to him before he went to heaven?
L: No
M: They put nails through his hands and feet.
L: (his face and voice shocked) They DID?! Well that had to hurt way worse than one little poke.
M: (laughing) yes I'm SURE that it did.
We'll come back to that in a minute. Now you know Grant's gotta have some time in this post, so here's a Grant story from the next morning. We all get up and Chad heads over to pick up some free breakfast from the lobby. (yet another thing we love about this hotel) He comes back with a waffle for Grant, one of his faves. We get Grant set up with his waffle and open one of the containers of maple syrup for him to dip it in, and I tell Chad I'm getting in the shower, to watch Grant. He gives me the okay, and off to the shower I head. I get out of the shower, and Grant's sitting on our bed, brow furrowed, maple syrup from head to toe, and Chad is scrubbing the carpet. I say, 'what happened?!' and Chad explains that Grant was done with his waffle so he threw away all of his mess and then answered a phone call and when he got off the phone, Grant had opened the other container of syrup himself and proceeded to dump
it on the table and finger paint in it. While Chad was cleaning THAT mess up, Grant got down and dumped his can of Pepsi all over the carpet. Two regrets from that story: 1) I didn't take a picture or two to document it and 2) when I washed the jammies EVERYTHING in that load of clothes smelled like maple syrup when they came out of the dryer. :)
So after we cleaned that all up, we headed over to the Galleria to kill 45 minutes before going to the hospital. Here are the boys where we threw pennies in the fountain.
After that it was go time. We went to the procedure center and Landon started drinking his contrast. They called for him and I went with him while Chad kept track of Dirty Bit. :) We had to go up to the 7th floor because the CT machine we usually go to wasn't working. Landon was pretty quiet but was being brave. We walk in the room, and he steps behind me and says 'I don't wanna do this' and I said, 'I know but remember you asked Jesus to help you be brave.' He whimpers a little bit, then takes a deep breath and climbs up on the table all by himself. He flops his arm out and looks at me and waits for them to put the needle in. I was shocked. At this point, I start praying 'please God, give us a good nurse who can hit it the first time instead of digging in his arm like last time' and what do ya know...He did. :) From that point on it was pretty uneventful. Landon cried a little bit when they pushed the contrast through his IV because it evidently makes a yucky taste in his mouth, but that was it!
After we finished we went down to the food court where Landon woofed down a whole grilled cheese sandwich and Grant had some chicky. Then we went up to 9 to see Landon's old friends at the hem-onc lab. We saw Nurse Amy but Dr. Anim wasn't there. We saw another doctor we had never seen before. She came in and asked Landon 'how are you doing today' and Landon says:
"Well, I had kind of a rough morning. They put a needle in me. But I asked Jesus to help me be brave because you know Jesus knows what owies feel like because they put nails through his hands and feet before he went to heaven."
She says after a pause, "How old are yo
u?" and he says, "four and a half" and she says, "You're pretty smart."
The rest of the exam was great...a new nurse took his iv out and there were absolutely no tears with that and we pranced out of there with a bounce in our step. Landon was hounding us to take him to see the sharks at the zoo, and after his bravery, how could we say no?! Chad told him we could really quickly because we had to get back for a soccer game (which Chad went to late so Landon could get a quick peek of the sharks in)
Turns out, the sharks were a bit of a let down. From the billboards and commercials we were expecting to walk in and see a Great White in a tank, but they had a little petting pool for small sharks and stingrays which you had to pay 3 bucks a person to get in to. What the heck?! Landon and I did it, but he was less than amused. So we went to visit the penguins and called it a day. Grant was so tired that he fell asleep in his car seat before we had even exited the parking garage at the hospital and he continued to sleep through me taking him out of his seat, putting him in a stroller, parading him through the zoo in 110 degree heat, and putting him back in his car seat. He didn't wake up until we got home!
Oh yes, and the important part....the doctor called on the way home to let us know the scan looked beautifully clear! Thank you God for that AND the bravery. :)
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