Yes, you’re reading that correctly. This week has definitely been an interesting one for our family.
Tuesday afternoon, Zack wasn’t feeling well and began to have some pain in his stomach but not in one general area. Since he was in a lot of pain, I thought I would have him checked out just to be safe. I scheduled him for a 5pm appointment at our hospital for their extended care hours since our family doctor’s office was closed.
We arrived at the hospital and the doctor checked him out and thought that based on the fact that all he had to drink all day was a bottle of Mountain Dew and hadn’t really had much to eat that he could be dehydrated and since he had vomited shortly after arriving that it was best to pump him full of fluids and give him some anti-nausea meds.
After 2 bags of fluids, a dose of anti-nausea meds and some Toradol for the pain, Zack was acting much more like himself 4.5 hours later. (A surprise visit from his girlfriend may have helped a little).
We talked with the doctor and with the pain subsiding, the vomiting having stopped, his blood work being clear and no sign of a fever that it was okay to pack up and head home.
Well, I’m not telling you that we shouldn’t have left. We should have stayed put at the hospital and waited for the pain meds to stop working because 2 hours later, we were back in the ER having another IV put in, more blood drawn and a CT to discover that Zack had appendicitis and would need an appendectomy.
You would think that after watching him be in pain and go through not 1 but 2 hip surgeries that this would have been a piece of cake for me.
It wasn’t.
Zack was in so much more pain this time around and not even a dose of morphine helped.
By 330am we were moving him up to the surgical floor and getting him ready while I signed and gave consent for the procedure and by 4am he was in the operating room and Alex, my mom and I were in the waiting room. He was out of surgery shortly before 5am and everything went off without any problems.
Mom and I went down to his room on the pediatrics floor to wait for him and Alex made his way home to take care of the rest of the gang.
Zack made it out of recovery and back to the room around 630am and was still pretty out of it and just ready to rest. He crashed, my mom left and went to work and I went to sleep.
Since he was doing so well and was a great patient, he was discharged shortly after noon and we got him home and in bed to rest which is where he has spent most of his time since.
He’s been recovering pretty well, is moving around more on his own and is happy the worst of the pain is gone and can’t wait to be fully healed. He’s also not real thrilled that he had to take off 3 days of work and has restrictions when he goes back but I’m sure he’ll survive.
I have a follow-up appointment with the surgeon scheduled for Tuesday afternoon and hope he’ll be my fully functional Zack again in no time!
