After Thursday’s trip to the ER, we were taking it easy. I went back to work on Friday, and Jessica and Namine resumed schoolwork. At least, they tried to. Namine was distracted because of how much pain she was in. As a result, Jessica didn’t push her too hard.
On Saturday, Namine seemed to be feeling a little better. She was still in pain, but not enough to be crying. So while Jessica went to a party — Tupperware? Pampered Chef? I don’t remember — Namine and I did some schoolwork.
By the end of the day on Saturday, we thought Namine was finally on the mend. This was good; my sister had a recital on Sunday, and we didn’t want to miss it. But then during the night, Namine kept coughing. She didn’t fall into a deep, more peaceful sleep until almost 5:00 in the morning. She woke up early — about 7, 7:30 — in such severe pain that she couldn’t help but cry.
At a loss for what to do, we called the Special Needs department at the hospital. We got the same response as before — all the cultures had thus far come back negative, indicating that whatever was afflicting Namine was likely viral, and was therefore untreatable. However, it was possible that something was growing now that wasn’t before, so it could be worthwhile to bring her into the ER again.
We felt we had to do something. We obviously couldn’t take her to my sister’s recital with how much pain she was in, so we left for the ER. We ended up staying there until about quarter to 2:00, with doctors concluding the same as before: it’s not bacterial, so it’s nothing they could treat. She has inflammation of her intestines and bladder, but without a way to directly treat it, they can only try to reduce the swelling. To that end, they prescribed ibuprofen every six hours. Then they sent us home.
On the way home, the ibuprofen kicked in. Jessica and I felt that Namine deserved something nice, so we asked her if she’d like to go to the mall and ride the train, or if she just wanted to go home. She looked at us with tired eyes that lit up with a smile I had been missing. “I would like to go ride the train.” So we did.
After she and I rode the train, we went home. We did nothing but lounge around for the evening, and Namine got to play for a long time in a warm bath. When I tucked her in for the night, I lay next to her. She fell asleep holding my hand.
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