Appendicitis

It all started on Wednesday with him coming home from school with a tummy ache.  Nothing new, really.  He gets them often.  He seemed to feel well enough to play with his friends and shoot a few hoops with Dad that afternoon.  He didn't eat much dinner.  But again, nothing out of the ordinary.  He's a picky eater.  By bedtime, he was moaning and complaining that his stomach was still hurting, but he seemed to settle down enough to go to sleep - or so we thought.  About 10:30 that night, Hayden came downstairs to tell us Kyle was sobbing in his bed.  We went to check on him and as soon as we heard him and saw him, we knew it was time to go to the hospital.  He was in pure agony.

Once he arrived at the hospital and saw the doctor, they were able to give him pain meds.  He felt much better!  This was taken right after the meds kicked in...

After an ultrasound showed nothing wrong, he had a CT scan that confirmed what the doctor had suspected all along - appendicitis.  We had caught it in the early stages and thankfully, it had not ruptured.  We had taken him to our local hospital, which had recently opened  a new children's wing on it's premises.  Unfortunately, though, there was not a pediatric surgeon on staff.   Though I am confident that the regular surgeon could have taken excellent care of our baby boy, we opted to have him transferred to Vanderbilt Children's Hospital in Nashville.  So, at 2:30 am that same night/next morning, Kyle and I had our first ambulance ride, with Dad following behind us in the car.

After a very long night in the children's ER, surgery was scheduled for later in the morning.  After waiting for several hours for his turn in the OR, he was finally wheeled back about 3:45 pm.  For me, that was the worst part of the whole experience.  Seeing your 10 year old baby taken away from you for surgery was heart wrenching.  His well-being was completely out of our care.  We placed our faith in God to guide the hands of his surgeon and medical team.  Appendectomies are very routine surgeries that happen everyday at this hospital, but it's not so routine when it's your child!  The next hour was filled with lots of prayer and lots of texts to/from family and friends.  A little over an hour later, the surgeon came out to inform us he came through with flying colors!  Thanks be to God!

It was a little slow going the remainder of the evening, but by the next morning he was up walking around and was able to go home before lunchtime.  

Back at home, it was so good to see this sweet smile!  It was an eventful 48 hours, no doubt.  So thankful to God for his healing hand and for the wonderful doctors and nurses that took care of our little boy during his latest adventure.  He always keeps us on our toes!

Take care,

Angela