There's No Place Like Home

This weekend certainly didn't turn out as I had planned! We spent 2 days in the hospital with Meg, and it's so good to be home! It's a long story, but here's the scoop:

For about a week now, Meg has been complaining of tummy pain. Usually she would start screaming and crying that her tummy hurt and that she had to go the the bathroom . . . sometimes even in the middle of the night. I assumed that she was constipated and started adjusting her diet to take care of that.

On Friday morning we were out running some errands when her pains got really bad. I decided to head home early and call the doctor. The whole way home she screamed like she was on fire! There was no consoling her. When she got home she was really restless . . . moving all over the house, sometimes sitting, sometimes standing, sometimes rolling on the floor. Mostly she just wanted to sleep. She even dozed off once on top of the laundry pile. A few times she stopped suddenly and said that her tummy felt better, but that only lasted a few minutes and she was screaming again. My little girl was literally writhing in pain.

Amber took the other girls so I could take Meg to see Dr. Lowther (and, lucky her, Meg even barfed on her couch! - It's so nice to have good friends!) At the Doctor's office they didn't figure out much. He wanted to get a urine sample and after trying for 2 hours we still had no luck with that. An x-ray of her abdomen showed a pocket of what the Dr. thought was air and he had no idea why that would be there. In an effort to give Meg some rest, he sent us home with his personal pager number. He gave instructions to take her into the ER if she wasn't eating and drinking by 6 or 7 o'clock and to page him with any developments. Also, we were still hoping to get that urine sample before the office closed.

I REALLY didn't want to make a trip tot he ER, so I did everything I could to keep something in her tummy. No luck. Anything that she drank came right back up. For a few hours she was either throwing up, crying or sleeping. So, at 5:30 I paged the doctor and we headed into the ER.
Our Doctor sent us to St. John's. I was really disappointed by this at first - I hate St. John's! However, they do have a Pediatric ER and the people there were awesome! They put an IV in her little hand faster than I've ever seen an IV go in! Everyone that took care of us was excellent. However, everyone who saw her was very concerned for her. She had no fever but was charted as "listless." In situations like this I like to hope that I'm just overreacting. Unfortunately, I'm usually not, and this was no exception. It's nerve racking to feel so helpless and to find that the doctors don't even know what's wrong. I felt like I was on House. I was just waiting for Dr. House to walk around the corner . . . okay, so maybe I was letting my imagination run a bit wild! : )
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The ER pediatrician at first thought that she had an intussusception. After taking another x-ray of her abdomen, they did a procedure to check for that, and it was negative. (You can click on links if you want more details.) The x-ray showed that same pocket that Dr. Lowther had seen, but this Dr. thought it was fluid rather than air. They thought it could be appendicitis, or an abscess of some kind. There were a few other possibilities that they mentioned, and basically they all meant the same thing: Surgery.

They called the surgeon, who said he wanted a CT scan. She was then admitted to the hospital and put on antibiotics, with plans for the surgeon to examine her in the morning.

It was about 2:00am when we finally got to our room. Aaron went home so at least one of us could get some sleep. Meg and I shared a bed and dozed off for about 20 minutes before the barfing began. Yep, every 20 minutes or so. I asked the nurse to re administer her Zofran (anti-nausea meds) which she did after taking 40 days and 40 nights to get approval for that. The vomiting stopped and we snoozed a bit until the tummy pains started again (they had previously given her Motrin to help that). I called the nurse for pain meds, and by now, it's morning! Nothing like a sleepless night to start your day off right! : )


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The surgeon came in and said that he had looked at her tests and thought that the "fluid/air" that they were seeing was actually stool. I looked at him and said "Are you trying to tell me that she's constipated?" (While I'm thinking, "Good grief, I've been treating her at home for that for a week now!") He said that she wasn't constipated in the traditional sense. This stool that he thought he was seeing was in her small intestine, which usually only has liquid in it. So now he wanted to do a CT with contrast. So now my little peanut who hasn't been able to keep anything down for 24 hours now has to drink a nasty barium contrast (probably about 20 ounces of it) in 45 minutes. He said that would have a dual effect: 1) It would help them to better see things on the CT. 2) It would start things moving in her intestines and hopefully clean her out. If she couldn't drink it and keep it down they would have to put a tube down her throat to do it for her. Yikes.

So, after her next round of anti-nausea meds had time to set in, we started with the drink. She was a champ! She didn't like it, but she drank it. Unfortunately, she was VERY SLOW!! Yes it took her two hours, and she still didn't finish it all. It was seriously stressful . . . I had these competing thoughts in my mind: She needs to get this stuff in quickly so that the test will be effective and we can figure out what's wrong BUT I don't want to have to put a tube down her throat. This was an area where God's providence was very clear to me. After about an hour and a half she went to the bathroom, and they were right - it did clean her out! : ) At the two hour mark they decided that she had drunk enough and they were going to proceed with the CT. Results came and the pocket of "air/fluid/stool" that they had seen the day before was gone. So, thankfully she did take two hours (if she had done it in 45 minutes, it would still have been there and we would have been in for another round of tests). But also, I'm thankful that she didn't actually drink it all . . . she had pretty bad diarrhea as it was.
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So, the Dr. said that she could start drinking clear liquids when she woke up from her nap. If she kept that down we could order her dinner. If that stayed down and she was feeling well, we could go home later that evening. I could see the light at the end of the tunnel! And yes, everything went just fine and we got home at about 10:00 on Saturday night. My bed never felt so comfortable! The other girls were still at Grandma's house, so Aaron and I slept in until 9:00 and Meg slept until 9:30!
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All in all, this was a rotten experience, that I hope to never repeat . . . but I have come away with an overwhelming sense of gratitude. God was good to us in so many ways!
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-I'm thankful that this all started early on Friday so we could get in to see the Doctor before a long weekend.
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-I'm thankful that this was Memorial Day weekend! That means that we get to have Aaron home for an extra day!
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-I'm thankful that we ended up at St. John's (though that certainly wouldn't have been my choice) and had such excellent care in the Pediatric ER.
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-I'm thankful for good friends who love me even though my kid barfed on their couch! Amber also braved our messy, "getting ready to move" house to find clothes for my kids for the weekend. It was so great to not have to think about that!
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-I'm thankful for thoughtful friends who have provided meals for us and gifts for Meg (she pulled in quite a haul, and every little bit was a treat to her while she was so miserable!)
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-I'm thankful that Meg took 2 hours to drink her barium contrast and didn't drink it all (another thing that I would have changed if I could have.)
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-I'm thankful for an excellent pediatrician! He came in to see us on Saturday morning (of a holiday weekend, when he wasn't on call!) He is like a Grandpa to my kids and seeing him on Saturday morning brightened her day for the first time since the tummy pains started.
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-I'm thankful that surgery was not necessary! I can't imagine trying to move while I have a kid recovering from surgery!
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-I'm thankful that we only had to spend one night in the hospital. There are people who have to be in the hospital with their kids on an ongoing basis - I don't know how they manage it. Obviously God brought us through this, and he could carry us through something bigger, but I'm thankful that that wasn't the case this time!
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-I'm thankful that Meg was such a champ! She tends to be our manic-depressive child (yes I say that tongue-in-cheek!) She is almost always laughing and smiling . . . but when she's upset . . . let's just say that we have worked long and hard on self-control issues with her. When she was freaking out so hard about her tummy pains I was really discouraged. I kept thinking "Man, all of this work we've done with her on being self-controlled sure isn't paying off!" Boy was I wrong. She must have been in really horrible pain, because she didn't freak out for her IV, her air enema, her catheter, her barium drink, etc . . . There were times when there were people on hand to restrain her if necessary (typically necessary when working with peds) but it never was. Sure she cried some, but she was always able to get it together. I was so proud of her. It helped me to see why we're putting all of this effort into training our kids. She was saved so much pain and trauma by just being able to get self-control.
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I really could go on and on. I had to. It's so easy to pity yourself in a situation like this and the only remedy to that is to stop and focus on that which you're thankful for. Most of all, I'm thankful that Meg is well again. No more tummy pains, no more diarrhea, no more vomiting.
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I must add that we don't have any idea what caused this. Please pray for Meg. That she would continue to recover (she is still very tired and her appetite isn't entirely back) and that this wouldn't happen again. Also pray for the rest of our family as we transition back into real life and now are in final preparations for moving. I'll keep you all posted.