Jordan's MRI

Jordan and I arrived at Spectrum for her MRI at noon.

Jordan's wrist band

Her nurse, Sherri, took us back to the pediatric sedation room and basically explained what would happen over the course of the next few hours. A few minutes later, Dr. Kim Winterhalter, the Dr. (who I thought was a nurse) I had spoken on the phone with a few days earlier, came in. She talked with me for a few minutes about Jordan and her referral from Dr. VanDyke and her feeding issues. She wanted to listen to Jordan’s chest to hear her rattle sound. She was concerned that the traditional method of oral sedation might not be strong enough to keep her asleep if she started coughing. She was also concerned to go with the IV method because it would put her in a deeper sleep and might be so deep that she wouldn’t cough if she needed to and would be more likely to aspirate. After processing things, she decided to start with a medicine that would reduce her secretions/mucus and hopefully reduce the rattle in her chest. At 12:55 they gave her Robinul and waited about 20 minutes.

Playing while waiting for the medicine to clear her chest.

She listened again to her chest and decided it sounded better and they would move forward with the oral sedation. At 1:25 they gave her Chloral. Jordan fell asleep within a few minutes because it was naptime anyway. They waited 20 minutes and checked on her and she was sound asleep in my arms.

Sweet Dreams!!

I laid her in the bed they use to transport her to the room for the MRI and she woke up. Instead of falling back to sleep, she started kicking her legs and looking all around the room. Sherri left and gave her a few minutes to settle down and fall back asleep, but she didn’t. I tried to pick her back up and get her back to sleep, but she decided to give her another small dose of Chloral at 1:55. She fell sound asleep and this time Sherri was able to get the actual table used in the MRI and bring it to the room and I placed Jordan directly on that table and Sherri put in ear plugs and they took her away at 2:15.

On the MRI table w/ earplugs in

Sherri returned with a sleepy Jordan in her arms at 3 and I took her and held her for a little while.

Sleepy Jordan - time to wake up!

I changed her diaper and she woke up briefly a few times, but let her sleep until 4. At that point, we got her awake and decided to try some liquids. I put her in her stroller and gave her 1 oz thickened apple juice by spoon. She seemed to be quite fussy but I figured she was still very sleepy and very hungry. I waited a few minutes and then gave her a bottle of thickened Pediasure – she took 6 oz and wanted more! I decided that was enough for this feeding and I would just continue to feed her every 2 hours until bedtime. Jordan was discharged at 5 and we returned home. It was a very long day but I look forward to hearing what Dr. Burdo-Hartman has to say about it next week!