Life.

Zach had his appendix taken out on Sunday morning.

Saturday he woke up with a consistent pain in his stomach. As the day wore on he noticed that whenever he moved or got up the dull pain would localize into a stabbing intense pain in his lower right side. By about 4pm the pain had not gotten any better. It hadn't gotten any worse, but it had not improved at all either. We decided to call a couple of our friends from church over to give Zach a blessing. One of our friends is studying to become a Physician's Assistant. He had recently shadowed a man in our ward who works as a PA. He remembered a case while he was shadowing when a girl came into the Urgent Care with abdominal pain and the man from our ward was able to tell that she didn't have appendicitis just by pushing on different quadrants of her abdomen. Our friend called the PA from our ward to see if he would come over and do that same thing for Zach. Unfortunately, the PA was at work when we called. He asked about Zach's symptoms and asked if we had insurance. He then said that if we had insurance (we do) that Zach shouldn't wait on it, that he should get to an urgent care facility right away.

After our friends left, Zach decided to give it one more hour to see if his pain improved at all. When it didn't, he drove himself to the nearest urgent care. While there they treated him for the flu and when that didn't improve his condition they ran some blood tests. In a normal person the white blood cell count should be about 10 thousand. When they ran Zach's blood, his count was 21 thousand. With this new information, the nurses and doctor at the urgent care told Zach to call someone for a ride (he drove himself to urgent care, I was home with Ryan) and to go straight to the Emergency Room to "rule out appendicitis". Ryan was in bed at this point, so I had one of my dear friends come over and sit at the house while I went with Zach to the ER. The clinic called ahead and sent us with all his paper work so we only ended up waiting for about ten minutes before being called back. They took some more blood for some tests and ran a CT scan to check his appendix. While they were waiting for the results of the CT scan a doctor came in to access Zach's condition. His pain was still only about a 6 or 7 and wasn't getting any worse. He had a similar pain about 2 months ago, just not as intense. After hearing this the doctor ordered an ultrasound because she thought it might be his gallbladder. Luckily before they gave Zach the ultrasound, his CT results came back. He had chronic appendicitis.

The only treatment was an appendectomy to remove the appendix. After speaking with the surgeon, they decided to operate first thing in the morning. Zach was admitted to the hospital and moved to a room. While all of this was happening I was able to arrange for another one of my amazing friends to go get Ryan and transfer him to her house for the night. I stayed with Zach until about midnight and once he was comfortably resting I went home to try and get some sleep before we met with the surgeon at 5am.

I couldn't sleep at all once I got home. I took a shower and laid in bed until about 2:30. I think I may have drifted off at 2:30 because the next time I looked at the clock it was 3:30am. At this point I got up, got dressed and researched appendicitis and appendectomy recovery online before heading back to the hospital at 4:40am. I got to Zach's room about ten minutes before 5am. We then proceeded to wait around for the surgeon for two hours. Once the surgeon got there they took Zach down into surgery and I waited in the operating waiting room. Surgery took about 45 minutes and then it took Zach another 40 minutes or so to wake up from the anesthesia. Once he was semi-conscious, I was allowed to come in and see him. I was with him for about 5 minutes when all of the sudden I started feeling nauseous and light headed. I got up to walk around a little and then my vision started getting dark around the edges. I told the nurse that was attending Zach that I was feeling dizzy. She didn't realize that I was talking about myself until I grabbed her chair, sat down and fainted. They called another nurse in and put me in a wheel chair. My blood pressure was super low so they got me some orange juice and crackers. I hadn't had anything to drink since the evening before and I guess I was dehydrated. So all of this is going on while Zach is just coming out of surgery and is in pain. Poor guy.

The nurses started asking us for the phone number of a friend to come pick us up since they wouldn't let me drive Zach home after I fainted. We were both confused that they were trying to discharge us less than an hour after surgery. We were told that we would be going back to the room that Zach had spent the night in. And we were initially told that if surgery went well that they would discharge us that evening. We asked if we could stay a little while longer and the nurse started calling around to see if they could find us a room. I told her that we already had a room and after that they were more than willing to let us stay. It was weird.

They wouldn't let me walk back with Zach to his room, so they wheeled me up in a wheel chair and wheeled Zach up in his bed behind me. I'm sure we looked pathetic. I certainly felt pathetic. While Zach was still down in recovery and I was out for the count we texted our friend who said he would come pick us up after his church got out at noon. Our sweet friends who had Ryan said they would take him to church with them from 11am-2pm.

Our plan was to leave at noon and be home and settled in time for Ryan to get home from church. Noon rolled around and Zach was still pretty out of it and sleeping soundly in his bed. Our nurse had all but forgotten about us and when I brought up leaving she said that we had to stay until they ran at least one more bag of antibiotics through the IV and until Zach ate something and could keep it down. So our noonish departure quickly turned into 1:30 or 2pm. As 2pm got closer I started to realize that we weren't going to make it out in time to be home for Ryan so I decided to get Zach's prescription from the nurse, fill it on my way home, get Ryan, put him down for a nap, call another friend to come sit with him and then go back to get Zach. This seemed simple enough to me, but when I requested the prescription, our nurse continued to ignore us until it was 1:50pm and I had to go. So I left Zach at the hospital and went home to get Ryan. My new plan was to go home and take a nap with Ryan and when we woke up, go and get Zach. Zach was comfortably resting in the hospital so I thought the more time he spent there the better.

I made it home in time to get Ryan from my friend's house as they were coming home from church. Ryan had been running a fever all night and was acting very lethargic. When I got him home I took his temperature and it was 104 degrees! This freaked me out so I called his pediatrician. In my mind I was thinking, "Great, we will get Zach out of the hospital just in time to take Ryan to the emergency room." I took Ryan's temperature again about three minutes later and was relieved to see that it was only 101. The first read must have been off from the hot ride in the car home from church. It was about this time that Zach called me and told me that they were there with his discharge papers and could I come get him now. Talk about stress! So, I decided to put Ryan down for his nap with a fever and put out that fire (no pun intended) once I had Zach home from the hospital. I called my friend who had helped me out the night before (have I mentioned that I have awesome friends?) and she came and sat at our house while Ryan napped and I ran back the hospital to pick up Zach. I got Zach and we stopped on the way home to fill his prescription and buy some fever reducer for Ryan. Finally, we made it home and I was able to send my friend home.

Zach got comfortable on the couch and I ate some dinner (prepared by my friend who let Ryan spend the night AND go to church with them. Like I said, awesome.) Ryan ended up waking up crying and was still very hot so we gave him some medicine and he spent the evening cuddling with me. Ryan woke up once more that night crying and calling for me, but other than that, we were able to enjoy a nice, comfortable night in our own beds.

Zach is recovering well. He has a "drain" that I get to empty every few hours. Yippee! I call it his blood balloon. He is up and walking and the most self-sufficient patient I have ever seen. He made Ryan and I eggs on Monday morning, less than 24 hours after surgery. He has to stay on top of his pain medication, but when he does he doesn't seem too bad. He even went into work this morning for about 5 hours (His boss told him he was crazy and that he didn't want to see him again until at least Friday and probably not until Monday.) So he will work from home until we meet with the surgeon for his follow up appointment on Thursday morning and then he will see how he feels after that. I thought he was crazy for going into work this morning, but if you know Zach, he is going to do what he is going to do. :)

It has been a crazy few days, but we have been so blessed by the people around us. We have had dinners coming in and will get another dinner tonight. It has been such a blessing to have people that were willing to help us out with Ryan or whatever we needed. For every person that has helped, there have been at least three others who have offered to help. It has been a very humbling experience and we are so grateful for the generosity of the ward members here. (Thank you!!!)

Also, Ryan woke up fever free this morning and seems to be back to his happy self. Thank goodness.

Sick Ryan on Sunday night.

Monday morning. Still feeling punky, but recovering! :)

And this is a picture taken after our walk last Friday morning because, well, um, cute.