Day 3: Davis and I discover our first hospital experience where every person today shows us extraordinary attention and compassion. Perhaps because I initially walk around the room like the hunchback of Notre Davis, I am allowed to use the empty other patient bed in the room to sleep in for the coming night. A person comes from the cafeteria kitchen department to be sure they set up an extra food tray because I cannot leave the area to get food for myself. A CNA offers to sit with Davis while I shower. The physicians for each specialty are in and out sharing what tests show and suggesting a plan forward that may include going home on Day 4.

When I explain on the phone to Rick about South Meadows Renown in Reno has great room options with space and storage, he laughs.

“Not good,” he tells me, “to have a favorite hospital room.”

I get his point.

Above Davis’s bed I place the book about him, Tao Of Davis, to remind us both we have been here before, probably will be again, and we can both look forward to that sweet spot ahead.

Day 4: I sleep long. I wake up tall. Davis wakes propped up and eager to get out of bed, which he does with two of us assisting him for a short walk to the bathroom. His balance is off and even he seems ready to submit to more time in bed than on his feet.

He remains quietly content as long as I repeat the same few SpongeBob episodes on his iPad. He pulls off his cannula, I place it back, prongs into his poor nose. Another scan on the first floor and the team’s creativity kicks in as we find a way to keep Davis as still as possible while the device circles his head as he sits in a backless chair with his chin on a shaped chin shelf. Masking tape helps hold him still with his forehead against the face rest. I am the chair back. When that fails another person serves as a front source of support to keep him still. Success.

New plan includes surgery on day 5. An oral surgeon will explore Davis’s dental situation because this boy has not had full dental attention for years. He used to go to Loma Linda’s dental program but they rejected him once they learned that he had seizure aspiration induced pneumonia periodically. His appointments for X-ray and teeth cleaning require sedation. Any comparable program had a two year wait before covid. We tried a local hospital option with small success until they too felt his needs were better served elsewhere.

The challenges of children and adults who cannot follow simple requests to open their mouth or to hold still feel daunting as we, the caregivers and parents search out alternative methods and options.

While the oral surgeon has Davis under sedation, the pulmonologist will perform the bronchoscopy to better address the abscess in the right lung.

The plan is in place, and can change with a seizure. Normally the turn of the phrase would be ‘can change in a heartbeat.’ But in a seizure the heartbeat is temporarily muffled, and a seizure comes around every 5 or 11 days. One is due.