It seems appropriate to post about June, since I last posted on the first day of June and I am now finally posting again on the last day of June. Of course we are always busy in June, but this year we had an unexpected event to rob us of 2 weeks of this wonderful month.
On June 6 my oldest daughter, Alex (14), ruptured her appendix and had to have it taken out. It is rather a long story and I am going to write it all down here, so that in the future I have a written account of it, which comes in handy when doing her scrapbook years from now! If you do not want to read the lengthy story then skip down to the bottom to see my June Uppercase Living creation.
On June 4 she complained of a cramp on the upper right side by her ribs. A few hours later she said she had a belly ache in addition to the cramp and that she just did not feel right. At that point I thought nothing of it, except she may have some sort of bug. It is easy to brush everything off on a "bug"! She had jumping lessons on her horse that night and when it was time for me to go to a meeting she said she did not want to go to her lessons. That sent red flags a flying! She had a few hours before the lesson, so I told her to come with me and we will see how she is doing. She did decide to go to the lesson, but called me after an hour or so to tell me to come and get her (mind you, I was in a middle of a Relay meeting that I was conducting so I did not go get her until 45 min. later!). By the time I got her home she started to throw up.
She was sick every hour until Friday, June 5 at noon. By this time I was concerned, especially about dehydration. She also said the cramp had moved from her chest to the lower right side below her belly button. But she would also sometimes say that it was all through her lower adomen. I got out the medical book that evening because the cramping had not gone away. Now at this point her pain was a 5 on a scale of 1-10. I asked her the pain level all the time and it never really got above a 6. So when we were looking at the medical books and I noticed she had all the symptoms of appendicitis, I ignored it based on the fact that she did not have high pain level nor did she have much of a fever. By this time I had figured it was the flu or some "bug" and possibly her period starting.
She slept with me that night and at 6am woke me up to tell me to call the doctor. After explaining to her that the doctor was not in until 9 so we would have to go to the emergency room, she said she would wait. The "cramp" was so bad that she could not get out of bed. I gave her two motrin and told her to rest some more. Within an hour she was up and said she felt much better. In fact she even had breakfast and sat downstairs watching TV. So I figured it was better and the rest of us went to Curt's ball game. She called me half way through the ball game and said that the pain was back and was worse than ever. OK I finally came to my senses and figured something major was wrong. I had a friend leave the ball game with me and come and check her out. He is an emergency nurse so he sees appendicidis cases all the time. After examining her, he said she had some of the signs my not all, but that we need to take her NOW to the ER. So I went and got Bill from the game (which of course was going into extra innings) and we headed to the ER. (Here is a GOD thing... our good friends who often watch our kids for us were at the ball fields so they could take Curt and the rest of them home and we did not have to worry about what to do with the other 4!).
So we got her right in at the ER. Well right into a room. There we waited and waited and waited. Now mind you, doctors and residents and students of all types came and checked her out, but none of them did anything for her or ordered any testing. Finally the surgeon came in and ordered her to get a ultrasound done. By now her pain level is a 6-7 (still not excrutiating like you would think). The ultrasound was terrible. Imagine having someone push on your belly so much when it is irritated. Alex said later that it did not hurt that much, but she cried through the whole thing... because of the anxiety of what was going to happen! After doing an adominal ultra sound, they were expecting to do a pelvic ultrasound. The technition told us to do this they had to "blow up her abdomen" with carbon dioxide (I think) in order to do it. She said if the first ultrasound hurt the next one would be even worse. Then she left the room. Ok, NOT the thing to tell a 14 y.o. who is already upset and crying. We sat there for at least 20-25 min. waiting on her to come back and tell us the results. It seemed like hours, Alex was so upset! She finally came back and said they did not have to do the pelvic ultrasound, because her appendix had ruptured. So back to the ER we were taken (after waiting another 20 min. for a transport - which never came so the technition finally took us).
Finally Alex was given morphine for her pain and she slept comfortably! It is so hard to watch your children suffer and not be able to do anything but hold their hand and try to reassure them. They said she would be going to the O.R. soon. So we waited and waited and waited. Finally a doc. came in and I said shouldn't this be an emergency and she said "we have to wait until a room opens up." Hmmm what do they do when a trauma comes in and it is an emergency wait until a room opens up? I guess since it had ruptured it was not an emergency? No big deal... just millions of bacteria swimming throughout her body!
So transport finally comes and gets us to take us to O.R. or at least that is where I thought we were going. We ended up in a regular hospital room. I questioned why we were not in the O.R. and they said they were told to bring her there. So we waited. Finally a nurse comes in and saids I was right that she was not suppose to be there. The nurse herself takes us to O.R. quite quickly I might add. The O.R. was waiting and were not happy about the mistake. So they explain the procedure to me then took her away. That was the worse feeling ever. In the waiting room I prayed over and over that she would be ok. Bill had went to our friends house to tell the kids and make sure they were all set for a while. I had called my dad to let him know what was going on and he decided to come to the hospital that night to make sure she was ok. How sweet!
She went into surgery at 11pm and about 1 hour later I got a call in the waiting room from the surgeon that it was going to take longer because of some minor complications. Not something you want to hear. They were done at 1am and everything went fine. We got her settled in a room (the same one we went to before!) and she slept throught the night on heavy medications. My dad and Lin arrived at 2am to check on her. I mentioned this because Children's hospital in Columbus is not in the best area, in fact it can be pretty scarey to go there. My dad actually had a security guard escort him to a parking place and then to the enterance!
Bill and I stayed with her through the night and in the morning she was doing quite well. In fact they said that she would probably go home the next day since she was feeling fine and eating some. OK, I am no medical genius but the surgeon told me that she would be there for at least 5 days, so why are people changing there minds based on one day? They took her IV out.... big mistake! After about a half day she went down hill quickly. I am sure it is because her meds from the surgery were wearing off and then not being hydrated enough. She started getting fevers and feeling quite misserible! So they hooked her back up to the IV and changed her pain meds. After the surgery they had started her on her antibiotics and gave them to her 3 times a day. Her belly started to look quite puffy. The docs were concerned with this, but said they had to wait 5 days to do a scan of it, but if she did not spike a fever for 24 hours then she could go home instead. Well on hour 23 she spiked a fever. So on Thursday, June 11 they did a CT scan of her abdomen. That was quite interesting... like going into a space ship! At least it did not hurt her.
The CT scan showed that she had 2 absesses. After taking out the appendix they try to wash out all the bacteria from her body, but of course cannot get it all. What remains they hope will be fought off with the antidibiotics. Sometimes the bacteria form absesses and grow. One of Alex's were small and was by her hip the other was HUGE and started at her pelvis and ended at the top of her abdomen. SO they put tubes in them with little balls at the end of the tubes to collect the puss. They reassured us that the procedure to put tubes in was painless. Well, they were wrong. They cannot put you under for this procedure (or they choose not too) so they give you large amounts of drugs to make you sleep through it?! Well, they gave her the highest amount of childrens drugs they could give her and she said she still felt everything. She mentioned that they had to hold down her arms while they did it. She told me all this at 2am in the morning when she woke up from a nightmare about it! I was just as upset as she was to think that she had to go through that. I searched out the doctors that next day and told them that they were wrong that it was a painful procedure. The doctor that did it said she was out for most of it, but when he had to put the tube in she woke up from the pain, but it was not the whole hour she was in there. Made me feel a little better. But needless to say that doctor was not a favorite of Alex's.
So for the next 4 days we waited for the tubes to drain. She was getting better every day. She was losing weight though and did not eat much. In the end she lost 11 lbs. She weighed 111 lbs when she went in and only 100 when she left. She is 5'7" so you can imagine how much of a skeleton she looked like. Her eyes were also sunken and very dark. But at least she was eating some and getting out of bed on her own. The home nurses came in on Tuesday and taught me how to do all her meds at home. They brought me this huge box full of stuff... I became nurse mom! I only had to do if for 2 days thankfully! We finally got the last tube pulled out on Tuesday, June 16 and were discharged!
For the last week or so she has been recovering. She spends a lot of time on the couch watching TV and even doing a little reading (because I make her!). She has been out to the barn to see her horse only a few times. I am not sure about how she feels about being out there when she cannot ride, but I do know that she just does not want to do anything. I would not say that she is depressed, just "blah" about doing anything! She is starting to come out of it now that the end is near. We go to her doctors tomorrow, July 2 to see if they will release her to do physical activity. We are hoping that they say you can start where you left off before the "surgery" but reality is that she will have to only do lite activity. I actually think that she preferrs this anyways. I am sure she will be anxious about doing anything right away. That is the way it should be! Our county fair is in 18 days so hopefully she we be good to go by then!
So that is what has been keeping me busy in the month of June. Not the best way to start the summer, but we still have 2 months left!
I now have to concentrate on getting my Uppercase Living business going! (among getting our school year planned!) So here is a photo of my latest UL creation! Let me know if you want to do a show or just order something
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