Louie's Penny Saga--Chapter 2

We arrived at the hospital. Louie had fallen asleep on the trip and he stayed that way while I rolled him in the stroller. I had no trouble from either security or the desk people in getting up to where we belonged; they did know we were coming.

Our first room already had a patient, a little boy on a trach tube in a crib. His parents had that Steve Martin--Queen Latifah movie going and loudly. I just tuned it out as I answered the questions: Lou's medical history, medications, what happened this time. When the first movie ended, they put on Apollo 13. I was wondering if they'd just let it go as it was close to midnight, but I guess they were listening to it (they sure weren't sitting where they could see the TV). I didn't even ask--Tricia our nurse brought up a room change, and we did that.
A while later Tricia started talking IV. Since Lou was NPO (meaning no food, no nothing), the docs wanted him on something. He'd need it for his surgery later--it wasn't a sure thing he'd need it but it was the prognosis at that point.
I acquiesced to the IV. I could have put it off, but they had the nurse from the pediatric ICU there who could do it. So I said yes.
They brought him back hooked up to his machine and I held him. He did NOT like the board his hand was taped to and tried to pull it off more than once. I resorted to what I had before when it was wrapped up after his burn--the socks I had in the diaper bag (thanks, Heather!). However, the machine kept beeping that it was "occluded," so Tricia came in around 2:30 and tinkered with it and retaped everything. We put his sock back on and my son and I tried to sleep.
Lou was restless, waking at least every 45 minutes just to cry and wrestle for five or ten, then give up and go back to sleep. I thought it was due to not being nursed, or too warm, or in a strange place, or something.
Various people came by through the night to ask about him, tell me they'd do another X-ray to see if the coin had moved and if not go in and get it. I was told they'd take him for the X-ray between 6:30 and 7.

It didn't happen. What did? Well, along about 8:45, Dr. Rondon came in to check him out, asked about the X-ray, and when he found it hadn't been done he put a "stat" on the order. I finally realized something wasn't right with Louie's arm. The skin seemed very taut, it wasn't bending well, the tape for his IV seemed very tight. I took off his sock.
His hand, swollen to twice or thrice its normal size, looked like it was made of wax.
"Um... Someone!" I called, too far from the phone to call my nurse. The door was open and, God bless him, my hero Dr. Rondon was out there.
"The tape for his IV seems really tight. Can I take this piece of it off?"
He looked over at me. "Yeah, you can do that. Let me check that out." He came right in and looked at Louie's hand. "Oh, this all needs to come off." He pulled a pair of scissors out of his pocket and started cutting tape.
"That isn't supposed to happen," he said, indicating Lou's hand. "His IV went sub-Q."