Thursday, April 21, 2011

Appendectomy

My sister is staying with us, and early yesterday morning (just after 2am), she woke me up because she was in a TON of pain.  Her stomach was hurting her a lot.  I asked her how I could help and what she wanted.  We called our parents, who suggested that we call the nurse hotline with their insurance company.  After talking to a nurse, we were told to head to the emergency room.  I called my sister-in-law, who came over (bless her heart, after driving 15 miles) to sleep on the couch while we were going so I didn't have to wake the girls up.

After being examined and having a few tests run, the doctor thought she was having appendicitis, but needed another test to be sure.  Since he wasn't definite on the idea (he had 2 other possibilities), he said they could do a CT scan or just wait and see how the pain went.  She didn't want to do the test right then, so she was discharged and we went back home and back to bed at 5 with instructions to call or head back when the pain got worse.  That lasted until 6 when Tooty woke us up.  So I started our morning by turning on a movie for the kids so I could sleep a little longer.  After a few hours, we thought I might try to get the house straightened up so that we could go to our parent's house in a nearby city.  When we were ready to leave, we said a prayer and asked that if she would need to be in the hospital before we could get to our destination, that we would know before we left town.  We both felt good about going, and the trip was uneventful.  The girls were quiet and slept for most of it, so really it was great.

We spent a couple hours at the house here until Dad got home from work, and he took her to the emergency room.  A few hours later, she was in surgery and had her appendix removed.  Things went great, and she is expected to come home today.  We will stay here for a few days longer than our original plan for Easter weekend, so that will be nice.  We are so grateful that everythiing went well and are hopeful that her recovery will be quick.

We are also grateful for the doctor who supported our family's desire to avoid a CT scan if possible.  Considering her age, we didn't think it was a good idea to have such a large concentration of radiation, especially when it would be focused in the reproductive area.  She was getting an ultrasound, and the nurses were telling our parents that the scan would probably be necessary, but then the surgeon came in and since the ultrasound said 90% chance that her appendix was the problem, they would just go with that.  Thanks Doc!

3 comments:

Melissa said...

Great news Missy.
I'm glad things all worked out for the best.
What a great story.
I'm glad everyone's around to help out as well.
I'm not too sure who I'd call at 3am.
I guess I should figure that out.

Becca Bingham said...

I did not realize that it took so much work to figure out if it was the appendix. Glad it worked out and you could go to your parents to make it happen.

Sun said...

I'm so glad that everything went well and that she's feeling better.