SNAFU

A lot of people talk about hitting a bit of a snafu but actually, grammatically, that can't be correct.
SNAFU technically is a military slang term which stands for Situation Normal All F**ked Up.
Not the politest term around and sometimes the way and the people who use it surprise me.

However - it really does describe the last couple of months for us!

We've had around 16 medical appointments in the last 2 months, the vast majority for the younger two kids although my own recent curve ball has added to that as well.

Apart from my own medical testing with the cardiologist the paediatrician also decided that N's situation merited further investigation in the form of a gastroscopy and colonoscopy.
Gastroscope we've done before - for W once pre his Nissen Fundoplication and twice for T - once pre Nissen and once post Nissen while dealing with the mysterious 'gloopies'. So that part didn't concern me much. It's a general anaesthetic but only a short one so not a huge deal.
A colonoscope we've only had the pleasure of dealing with once before and for P. So I knew the prep was going to be a very large challenge with N anyway but my biggest concern was keeping him stable while not being allowed to drink any Ensure or Fortisip. When trying to get him to drink 2 litres of laxatives the last thing we needed was for him to get one of his puky/retchy cycles and lose whatever he'd drunk!
With very careful planning and management - lucozade and iceblocks at strategic intervals - we did get through it. It took a little bribery and corruption to get the laxatives into him but really, I don't blame him. I think you'd need to bribe me too!

He got through the GA fine as I knew he would. He was fine with it during his Nissen after all.
There were glitches with his care at the hospital but I've let them know that in their Evaluation form and was fine when I got him home that evening.

However it was the next day that we hit our SNAFU. Because, you know, life just can't be simple, especially for us.

The morning after he was in pain. It wasn't too bad so I wasn't too concerned. But he got progressively worse all morning and got to the point where even swallowing his Ensure hurt and he didn't want to drink anything. I already had a doctor's appointment for T so I rang and just changed the kid's name!
The doctor was concerned but recommended keeping on keeping on. I obviously didn't pick up some of the concern though because she actually called us at home that night to check on his status and stressed again that any change and get him seen again.

The pain worsened and worsened. He couldn't sleep that night even with pain relief. So we made the call to take him to the ED late that evening. P volunteered to take him in - so I accepted! 
Since he's been working from home he's well up with the play with the kids' health status and meds etc so that was easy. What wasn't easy was being the one at home waiting from info and not knowing what's happening at all!

The poor kid was finally admitted to a ward at 5:30am the next day. He ended up with two nights in hospital while we worked to get him stable enough and tolerating drinks properly.
The next big part of the SNAFU was the morning he was finally taken to a ward was W's birthday!


I have long had a rule (which I've posted about before) that we don't do hospital on anyone's birthday. Out patient or clinic appointments I can just about handle but NO ADMISSIONS at all, categorically, totally positively.

We nearly wound up booking surgery for T on his birthday once - just at an appointment not doing the actual surgery. P ran it very very close to the wind by having surgery the day before W's birthday one year. W broke an arm during his own birthday party but that was a few days before his actual birthday. But over the past 14 years no one's actually blown it - until this year!


Poor W was fantastic about it but it really was an awful birthday. Right from when he woke and was hurried round the house and unceremoniously dumped outside his grandparents' house with T so I could race off to the hospital to relieve P, through to a take-away dinner rather than his favourite dinner he'd especially picked. The phone calls to the house that day were all about N not him. He did have a couple of great birthday parties to make up for it but still it was absolutely NOT the way to feel special!


Continuing the SNAFU is the fact that no one can really explain why N's gut reacted so badly to the scopes. Even if you consider the fact that he has a fairly tight Nissen, so does T and he didn't have these issues following his scope. No one even suggested these issues could be a potential complication from a colonoscope, certainly P was back to normal the next day and that's what they tell you to expect.
Even now 2 and a bit weeks after the scopes he's far from his normal state and experiencing pain more often than he was before the scopes.


Throw into this SNAFU the factors that my BP still isn't properly controlled yet and we've had to scramble around to find T a new swim school as his old one got liquidated - yes, I know that swim schools and liquid go together and it does sound funny but the notification of that and resulting uncertainty around lessons, timing and if they were happening all coincided with the day of N's scopes!

Add in the factor that we're still struggling to find out W's enrollment status and what's actually expected of him and us and what's happening or likely to happen next year - but I had a report today that they feel he's settled well at Correspondence School, doing well, he's apparently lovely to teach and talk to on the phone (yeah I know that - I've taught him for years!) and they'd be happy to keep him and you just continue the SNAFU. Yes, we pushed for the right thing and he's happy, settled and excelling - but they could snatch it away at any moment.


And so you see that SNAFU is actually entirely appropriate for where we are right now!


On the bright side of the SNAFU ledger is the fact that T seems happier with the new swim school than he did at the last, N is feeling well enough to annoy everyone again and at least we know his gut really does need looking at in detail because they don't admit for two nights lightly, and W got yet another Excellence grade on his Latin work! He's been collecting Excellence and Well Done grades for most of the time.
And so we continue onwards.