Scary Procedures…MRI

We recently had to bring Baby J. in for an MRI. The reason why? Her head had grown...too quickly. Now, big headedness runs in my wife's family; they all have these freaky watermelon-sized heads that they can barely support with their normal-sized necks. But seriously, they have large heads, and it seemed pretty obvious to us that Baby J. had simply inherited this trait. But the pediatrician insisted that her head growth was abnormal.

It could be hydrocephalus...aka water on the brain. Or something worse like a brain tumor. Or whatever. It didn't matter, the idea of there being anything wrong creates a horrible pit in your stomach. I mean, as parents, we worry enough as it is. I worry every time Baby J. has a cold or every time she makes a funny noise (could that funny noise mean something's wrong with her? probably not, she's probably just being weird.) Whatever the case, we're worriers. And something like this, a problem with her head or her brain really makes us worry. But I think what made us worry more than the potential for there being something wrong (since my wife and I both assumed she probably just had a big head despite what the pediatrician said), was the idea of an MRI.

Now, an MRI is relatively safe. It doesn't use radiation like a CAT scan. But the real scare was that Baby J. would have to be put under. The procedure takes up to 45 minutes or more, and there's no way you could keep most grown adults still for 45 minutes; can you imagine the difficulty in keeping a baby still that long? As a result of this total impossibility, it's necessary to put the baby under general anesthesia. Ug...

This is what we really dreaded. Major things can go wrong when you put someone under. And we couldn't shake the feeling we were going through a completely unnecessary procedure, one that stemmed from the inherited trait of a watermelon-like head. So for three weeks we waited until the date would come for us to go to the hospital. For three weeks, we tried to distract ourselves from the reality that we'd be putting our child under soon. For three weeks, we didn't sleep.

When the date arrived, we had to get up at 5am. We had the first scheduled MRI of the day, a 7:30 appointment that required we arrive at the hospital to fill out paperwork by 6:45. We were tired. Baby J. was happy to be on the trip. Of course not knowing where we were going, she was excited to be out of the house while it was still dark and up way before she's supposed to be. She laughed and talked most of the trip to the hospital. And when we arrived, she was all smiles, babbling to the nurses, checking out all the cool neat hospital equipment she never normally sees.

The anesthesiologist came in, explained the procedure. Nothing he said made us feel better about the situation. Only one of us could go with Baby J. when they put her under. My wife went. As much as I wanted to go, I knew my wife needed to be there for it. She came back a few minutes later, crying. The worst part was watching her baby go limp. One of the doctors joked the hardest part of the procedure was when the moms cried because their baby went limp; my wife didn't find it funny.

Then, we waited. More than an hour went by. Finally, I asked what was taking so long, and I was told Baby J. was finished and sleeping, and we would get to see her when she woke. Thanks so much for telling us the procedure was over. Hospitals, always too busy to tell anyone what's going on. Then, we were told she was waking. And 50 feet before we were to the recovery room (or whatever room it was called), we could hear Baby J. screaming. And when we saw her, wrapped in someone else's arms, bawling because she had no idea what was going on or who was holding her, we ran to her.

It wasn't long before we left the hospital. Baby J. drank some milk, but then she threw up in the car, despite the nurses telling us we didn't have to worry about nausea. Funny enough, Baby J. quickly recovered from being knocked out. She was more active that day than I was, who felt like a huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Despite not knowing the results of the MRI yet (it would take 2-3 days), we were relieved the actual procedure was over, that Baby J. had woken without any obvious problems, and that we were home again.

After waiting two days, we got the results. So what was it? Water on the brain? Brain tumor? Something somehow worse?

No.

It was nothing. Baby J. just had a big head. I'm too tired right now to explain how annoyed we were. Sure it could have been something. It could have been something really terrible, and we should feel better for knowing that it isn't anything. But seeing our baby go limp, seeing her wake up screaming and terrified. Knowing that for the next several days afterwards, Baby J. unusually woke up several times in the night (she usually sleeps the whole night through without waking once), and that she would wake in her crib screaming for us, knowing full well this was because she remembered waking up alone and in a stranger's arms; all of this, it made us angry.

D.