Appendicitis

Well, we're adding appendicitis to our parental resume.

Catherine had a little stomach virus a couple of weeks ago and has complained off and on since then about her tummy being sore. But she is sometimes dramatic and complains about things hurting, so we just dismissed it. On Tuesday she said her tummy felt really sore. She even woke up twice during the night to tell us her tummy was sore.

By Weds morning, she was still complaining of a sore tummy, running a fever of about 100, loss of appetite, and very lethargic. She also said that the day before she kept feeling like she had to urinate more frequently. By God's prompting, I felt pretty sure that something was going on other than a stomach virus. Appendicitis was the only thing that kept coming to mind. I googled the symptoms of appendicitis in kids, which are often easily misdiagnosed. A kid complaining of a sore tummy and running a fever could mean 100's of different things. I called the dr's office and they said to bring her in just to be sure. So we immediately hopped in the car and headed to the pediatrician. She checked for UTI, strep throat, and a few other things. Everything was negative which really left the possibility of appendicitis as a pretty likely diagnosis.

Our pediatrician called the pediatric surgeon and discussed it with him and they said to bring her over immediately. For us not to even to stop for lunch. I still had Will and Anna with me, who at this point were rolling around the floor at the dr's office since we had been there for almost 2 hours. Thankfully our good friends Stephen and Taryn live very close to the dr's office and let me drop them off there until my family could get them. Catherine and I headed straight to the surgeon's office and Jay met me there. She was starting to feel nauseated at this point and fell asleep in the car. The surgeon met us at the office a few mins later, did a very quick exam and said that he felt pretty confident it was appendicitis based on the lab work we had done that morning. She they started the process of admitting us to the hospital.

By 2 o'clock or so, we were checked into the hospital, getting Iv's and antibiotics. By 4:30 they were ready to take her down to surgery. The only real way to diagnose appendicitis is to do the surgery and look at it. So at this point there was still a possibility that we could do all of this and it not be appendicitis. She was in surgery from around 5pm til 6pm. Her appendix was in fact infected, although thankfully it was still the early stages. We really didn't want a ruptured appendix! She was in recovery for about an hour and by the evening we were back in her room with her resting.

By the next morning, she was feeling much better. At 6:30am, she was eating a popsicle and watching cartoons.

By 10am, she had eaten a little breakfast, disconnected the IV, and wanted to go to the playroom down the hall.
By noon, we were being discharged from the hospital and headed home!

It was a crazy whirlwind day or two, but we are so thankful that everything went smoothly. My devotion from the day before all of this talked about how when our days don't go as we had planned, that is the time to look for how God is working and how He is going to provide for you. So we tried to look for those things and praise Him for it. One main thing that stuck out to us was that we ended up on the pediatric oncology floor because of room availability. Knowing that we were there for an appendix when other kids were there with much more serious illnesses helped us keep some perspective. We had great doctors and nurses who were wonderful in their care of Catherine. We also have been blessed by friends and family who have helped care for Will and Anna, provide meals, and pray for us. We are all recovering well, just a little bit tired.