I'm Back!

Well! That was a hiatus and a half. We had a bit of a wild ride this summer, and I had absolutely no energy left for blogging. The cousins came for VBS and stayed for 2 weeks in July, which is always a good time. I spent the week after they left trying to catch up on some work and get myself organized before we headed to Syracuse at the end of the month for Sam’s birthday.

We got to Syracuse on the 24^th, which is when things started getting hairy. Within an hour or so of arriving at Kimberly’s house, Darren said “hmm…I’ve got a real cramp” and he pointed at his lower abdomen. I said “GOOD LORD, IT’S NOT A KIDNEY STONE, IS IT?” (like the kind, compassionate person that I am). He said “oh no, I don’t THINK so”. HA. Within 5 minutes, he was doubled over in agony, and we were on our way to the hospital. We had travel insurance, but I was uptight anyway because I was immediately envisioning all kinds of huge problems…like he wouldn’t be able to pass the stone, or maybe the morphine wouldn’t work, or it would be obstructed and maybe he’d need surgery, etc., etc. I’m basically a “the glass is bone dry” kind of person.

Fortunately, after about 10 mg of morphine, an x-ray and 2 ½ hours at the hospital, the pain eased off and we were able to go home. But now I was worried about how the week would shape up. The kids and I were planning to stay for the week, but Darren was heading home on Sunday because he had to start work at a new job on Monday. I did not at all feel good about him driving home by himself…what if the stone started up again? However, he passed the stone on Saturday, and I felt that I could safely let him go home while the kids and I stayed. We said PHEW! GLAD THAT DRAMA’S OVER.

So Darren left on the Sunday. On Monday morning, Emma told me that her tummy hurt. You have to understand, she says this quite a bit. So I told her that probably she was a little constipated, which is my usual response. She didn’t seem too bad during the morning, but as the afternoon went on, she was obviously not feeling well. She threw up at dinnertime, and Kimberly, Richard and I said “ah…stomach flu”. We entertained some less than charitable thoughts about Richard’s sister and brother-in-law for a few minutes, thinking that their kids had brought the plague to the house on the weekend.

I was up with Emma all Monday night. And I was anxious. Something about it didn’t seem right. At about 3 or 4 am, I was googling “kids green vomit”, but surprisingly, there was not a lot of pertinent information. On Tuesday she seemed better. She didn’t have a fever and was able to keep down crackers and ginger ale. But at dinner time, she told me her tummy really hurt A LOT when she got up to go to the bathroom, and when I took her temp, she was 100.3. To make a long story short, I googled symptoms for appendicitis, and after calling Darren and our travel insurance people AGAIN, Kimberly and I headed to the ER.

What a night. Even now, it’s a big blur, but some of the things that stand out in my mind include the image of Emma’s little face, so pale under her tan…Kimberly bribing her to drink the CT contrast stuff for her x-ray (“just 5 more sips Emma, and then I’ll let you sleep for 10 minutes”)…trying to catch even a few minutes of sleep while leaning on a hospital laundry hamper type thing…steeling myself to use the hospital bathroom (blech)…Kimberly and I cleaning out our purses at 1 am, and finding the whole process inexplicably hilarious…shivering in my lead vest with a combination of anxiety and cold while Emma had her CT scan at 1:30 am…my enormous sense of relief and dread at hearing that she did in fact have appendicitis…and Kimberly and I squeezed into an oversized chair, trying desperately to get some sleep before Emma’s surgery (no such luck).

It all felt very surreal. Emma went for her surgery at about 7:30 Wednesday morning and was very brave as they wheeled her down the hall. I really don’t think she had too much of a clue about what was going on. Kimberly and I went and got some really crappy tea from the cafeteria and then cried in the waiting room for a while until Emma’s wonderful doctor came in and told us that the surgery was over. Her appendix had ruptured, so she was a pretty sick little girl and would wind up being in the hospital for a week on IV antibiotics.

It feels like this one event took over our whole summer. Our annual camping trip had to be scrapped because Emma had to take it easy for the first 2 weeks after she was out of the hospital, and couldn’t do any lake swimming for the rest of the month, anyway. She really didn’t feel 100% until about the last week in August. And by then it was time to get organized for school.

I still feel like I’m trying to catch up and get into the fall routine, and yet the other day when I was driving to school with the kids, I felt like the summer hadn’t even happened…like this has just been the longest school year EVER. This post certainly has been long enough, so I'll post my Emma-in-the-hospital pics separately. Thanks for stopping by!