October 3, 2009 - World Card Making Day - I take the day to go to 2 different card making events while D and M head off to the coast for company bowling. They are going to stay over night out there and mosey their way home on Sunday. AHHHH! A night off for BJ!!!
I get home from the card making day totally exhausted (did I mention I was working at both of the events?), grab a little dinner with Mom, then head home to bed. I decide that even though the house is a wreck, I'd just get up and clean in the morning.
4:00am, October 4 - the phone rings. I head to the caller ID, then realize that NO CALL at 4am is going to be good, and answer it. It's D - he's in a hotel room at the coast w/ M and is sick. He is having extreme pain in his lower abdomen. Now, we've done the kidney stone thing many, many times over the past 14 years (D gets them regularly, has had 10ish surgeries (we've lost count) and seems to pass a stone about every other month or so in between time). He tells me that this is NOT kidney stone pain and actually sounds to me like some sort of intestinal blockage based on the location and type of pain. By the time he's called me, he's been up for about 3 hours trying to get the pain to go away. No luck. SO - he asks me what to do (mind you, I'm 2 hrs away in bed, barely awake). I tell him I'm on my way and to hang on... I call Mom and the 2 of us head out. The plan is for me to leave Mom with M and take D to the ER. Mom calls into work for the day (she's scheduled to open at 7am) and we head to Dutch Brothers. On the way we're discussing it and decide that perhaps it's better to leave her here in town with the dogs and I'll head out solo if we can find someone to go get M. WELL, I call my cousin in Salem and before we're done at the drive thru, she's agreed to head out and pick up M. I take Mom home and drop her off and head out. In the meantime, D calls and tells me that he's in a cab on his way to the ER and that his boss has come to stay with M in the room. My cousin and I are on our way... and somehow manage to get there within minutes of each other. I stop by the room to drop off the keys to D's car with her and give her hugs and make sure she's not too freaked out. In the meantime, I'm (shhh!) texting with cousin & D's boss to coordinate the plans. I'd call it blind texting, though, b/c I was doing it without looking at the screen at all. Still not safe, but sue me!
M is doing just fine - is up and wearing her fancy dress (what happens when you let the 9 year old pack her own bag with Dad's supervision...). I give her hugs and kisses and the keys to D's car and head off to the ER. My cousin brought her by the ER to see D and see that he was OK before they headed back to the valley. Thank goodness she grabbed her mother-in-law to tag along so they were able to bring D's car back with them.
D is in the ER - he's the only one there - and by the time I get there they've done an x-ray and given him morphine and decided on the plan of attack. He's got kidney stones blocking BOTH ureters (tubes between kidneys and bladder...so sad that I have such knowledge of these things). He's at risk of losing kidney function and will need surgery ASAP. The urologist in town is on his way in and they admit D to the hospital.
The first surgery is to move the stones back up into the kidneys since obviously they are not coming out on their own. AND, to put in stents (I think of them as straws) to relieve the pressure and prevent the stones from trying to escape again. Turns out he had a 1.1cm stone in one ureter, and a 1.4cm stone in the other, not to mention several other smaller stones in the kidneys and around the big ones.
His co-worker came to the hospital to keep me company and hangs out most of the day with me (& him, too, although with the morphine in his system, he was great company!). She is an awesome friend and really went above and beyond throughout this whole thing.
As soon as he's out of surgery, we walk over for some much needed coffee, then head our separate ways after checking back in with him. I'm off to the local Fred Meyer to get his prescriptions filled and pick up a few things (I literally didn't bring anything with me besides a book...I needed clean undies, a bra, change of clothes, etc. since we were spending the nite).
The nurses brought in this cool recliner and I just curled up in it for the nite while D slept in his morphine enhanced state next to me.
Just a quick note to say that we had the absolute BEST CARE I could imagine during our stay at Columbia Memorial Hospital in Astoria. Not a single person was any less than nice to us. The nurses brought me food vouchers for the cafeteria and when I asked about the vending machines, they showed me the "pantry" for care partners and staff. The "pantry" is a fully stocked fridge and cupboards - we're talking food, beverages, sandwiches, ice cream - you name it, it's there... I also have to say that the people of Astoria were very nice as well to the strange zombie woman wandering around in PJ's for the day.
Had we not been 2 hrs from home, he probably would have been released Sunday evening, but since we had that drive ahead of us, we decided to stay the night, and the staff obliged. The next morning the plan was for us to contact his usual urologist to make a follow up appt to blast the stones now that the danger was gone. The Dr out there said he could do it on Thursday, but not until then as they don't have the equipment there on a regular basis. I guess it's the traveling stone blaster show that comes to town once/week. WELL, D's normal doctor is basically retired (I suspect he may be partially dead...kinda like a "Weekend at Bernie's" situation...) who works both in town and up in Portland. He doesn't do his own surgeries anymore and, we found out, has not been in the office and won't be in the office for a week or so. His associate agrees to see us on Wednesday in Portland. We wanted to set this up before we left town in case we needed to head to Portland first. Turns out this stand-in doctor didn't see the urgency of the situation, so we headed over to the urologist in Astoria and scheduled surgery for Thursday. Screw the to/from Portland thing only to have it scheduled for who knows when.
Once that was all worked out, we headed back home - a very uncomfortable trip for D despite the pain meds. We got home Monday in time to meet Mom and M at the pool following swim practice. Apparently M was having a rough time with D being sick and the surgery and all that and the sooner we could see her the better.
Home sweet home with a sick hubby and an exhausted me, but we're all together again.
Wednesday, October 7 - D and I head back to the coast in the evening, after I get back from taking M and her classmates on a field trip, leaving M with Mom for the night. We are staying at his co-worker's friend's house (conveniently across the street from the co-worker) as she is a "weekender" who lives up in Washington during the week. It's a cute little bungalow and we are so happy to be in a home vs. a hotel. We even had a cat to keep us company for the nite!
Thursday, October 8 - up early and off to the hospital for the surgery. We check in, go get the x-ray done, then back to day surgery. They're doing construction in the day surgery area so I'm not allowed to wait in the room while he's gone. They gave me this little beeper/pager type thing (like what you get at Macaroni Grill when you're waiting for a table). I asked what the range was on it - could I go shopping or something or did I have to stay in the building. Just kidding, of course - no way on God's green earth I'd leave the building while he was in surgery. SO - I hang out in the hospital waiting for word. What was odd though was that they wouldn't even let me go back into the day surgery area. They called us in from the waiting room, handed me my beeper thingy, and took him away down the hall - a little different to say goodbye standing up before he gets wheeled into surgery. ANYWAY...Dave's co-worker comes through for me again and brings me fish and chips from a local place (YUM!!!! Don't let the boat-like exterior fool you - those fish and chips are yummy!)
The doctor came out of surgery and told me he felt really good about how it went (this one was to blast the stones with soundwaves - hopefully to obliterate them into sand vs. boulders). Dave was cleared to leave the hospital, but preferably not the area. Fine with us - we headed back to our home away from home for the night. Again, the co-worker came through with take out mexican for dinner, then we all hung out and watched IronMan (apparently I was the only one in the room who hadn't seen it before...surprisingly I enjoyed it...).
FRIDAY - our plan was to leave about 11am and head back home. Well, at about 9am I get a call from my cousin who has M with her (she picked her up at school Thursday and the plan was that she would keep her for 2 nights and we'd pick her up on Saturday). She says that M is not doing real well. She's complaining about her leg hurting and has just been laying on the couch all morning - doesn't want to get up to play or anything. THAT'S NOT M!!!! So, I talk to her about it and she describes the pain to me. It sounds like a groin pull to me and she's not complaining of anything else hurting, just her "leg". I'm thinking that maybe she hyperextended her leg doing the breast stroke at practice on Wed, but she said they only practiced freestyle and backstroke - I have NEVER heard of anyone pulling a groin doing a flutter kick. Although, she said they didn't do any bSO, I text my sister who is a trainer in California about what the proper treatment of a groin pull is, and I pass that along to my cousin, who gave her some ibuprofen.
Obviously we hit the road ASAP to come back and get her. We were not sure if she was milking it (she has a tendency toward the dramatic) or something truly was going on, but there was no way I wasn't rushing home to her. I dropped D off at home (it was on the way) and headed to my cousin's house to pick up M. We went ahead and made a doctor's appt for her just in case. I am SOOOO glad we did b/c when I got there, she was burning up and just laying on the couch like a limp noodle. She was very weak and said she nearly passed out coming back from the bathroom.
The drive home was horrible for me. She was mostly asleep in the van on the drive home. I was grilling her about other symptoms and she was consistently saying that the ONLY thing that hurt was her leg. It hurt so bad that she could barely walk on it and whenever she tried to walk, she'd end up crying. Nothing breaks a mother's heart more than her child in that level of pain, and there's nothing I could do about it.
We went straight to the doctor's office and got there 10 minutes before her appt was scheduled. I ran in ahead of her to use the restroom, and asked about the "mask" requirement for patients with flu symptoms. They said that "just" a fever would not require a mask. Thank goodness b/c I can't imagine the drama of asking her to wear a mask. I went ahead and checked her in before going out to get her. I helped her into the office and we sat down to await our (I hoped) immediate call back to see the Dr since by that time it was EXACTLY 3:30. 20 minutes later, M says, "I'm leaving if they don't call me back soon". 30 minutes later a little hispanic boy came in with his mother, took one look at M and said to his mother, "Ella esta mala!" NO KIDDING!!! 35 minutes later I asked M if she could sit up on her own (she was leaning on me and snoozing), to which she said she couldn't. SO - I did the only thing I could think of - I called the office on my cell phone. "Hi, this is M's Mom, I'm in your waiting room" (at this point heads start popping up over the desk to look) "Her appt was at 3:30pm, I was just wondering if we have an ETA on her getting seen?". Needless to say, we were taken back pretty quickly after that. They put us in an open room and took vitals (her temp was 103.3), then moved us into the regular room to see the Dr (technically a physician's assistant, but we like her and she's good).
They ask if we can give a urine sample since her pain could be a Urinary Tract Infection or something of the sort. Mom (who had made it there after her work shift...I called her from the waiting room too) and I assisted with that process. They did a test and found high white blood cells. They did a flu test and it came back negative and diagnosed her with a kidney infection given the elevated white cells, which indicate an infection. The area of her pain (groin) would indicate urinary tract, and the lack of other symptoms apparently are common with kidney infection. Made sense to me, so we got a prescription for an antibiotic and headed home thinking all was good.
We decided that it would be best to keep all of us under one roof, so we all stayed at Mom's house - M and I in Mom's bed (with TV), Mom in M's room, and D on the couch (he wasn't sleeping much anyway post-surgery, so it really didn't matter where he "slept"). We were able to get M's temp down with alternating Tylenol and Motrin every 4 hours. Saturday was OK, at least until M's second dose (dinner-time) of antibiotic. She immediately threw it back up. BUT (gross out alert) the contents appeared mostly antibiotic and not dinner, so I was thinking it was just a gag reflex from the antibiotic. I called the on-call doctor and he said I would need to give her another dose, since the first one came back out, but recommended splitting it into 2 smaller doses (his exact response to the 3tsp dose was, "OH MY! That's brutal!"). We did that and all was well - no more vomiting. Her temp was down to under 100, so we were OK with not giving her the motrin/tylenol.
Sunday, October 11 - I was heading up to bed at about 1:30am and noticed M was burning up again. I took her temp and it was like 102. I gave her some motrin/tylenol and headed into bed with her. I no sooner close my eyes than I hear her get up to go to the bathroom. She then proceeds to throw up all over the bathroom (this was NOT just a gag reflex...). I ran out of the bedroom, yelling down the stairs (and into where Mom was sleeping), "HOUSTON, WE HAVE A PROBLEM!!!" Not sure why those words came to my mind at the time, but they did and that's how I decided to tell Mom and D that M had just hosed the bathroom with lasagna. M, Mom and I headed to the Emergency Room at 2am, leaving the other patient behind to continue healing.
The ER was amazingly empty for a Saturday night/Sunday morning, although apparently only the waiting room. We get her checked in and go sit down to watch whatever lame show was on TV. I begin to get increasingly upset as time starts ticking on and we're still sitting there with my little girl dry heaving into a garbage can we brought with us. SERIOUSLY???? Mom goes up to the reception desk and actually has to pick up the phone and call the woman (I knew her from kids' activities...not a fan of hers in general, but especially not after this) - she was literally sitting a few feet from the window eating while Mom stood there and tried to get her attention.
ANYWAY - I digress...
FINALLY, we head back to the triage nurse, then on back into a room. The doctor comes in and does her examination saying that it's clearly NOT a kidney infection, and seems to be appendicitis. Mom of course says, "I KNEW IT", and continues to say that several times over the next hour or so...luckily she stopped before I completely lost it! They do a sonogram, but the tech can't tell us anything (damn rules!). I did ask her if she had seen something conclusive, to which she said yes. Either way, we knew. Then we were waiting again for the radiologist to read it and the surgeon to take a look as well. By this time D had driven himself (on pain meds...) to the ER to meet us there. Mom and D fell asleep leaning on each other waiting (I was asleep leaning over M's bed, except for time to take this pic:
By this time, it is about 7am and we have called my cousin to fill her in on what's going on. Surgery is appearing to be imminent and we are just waiting for the surgeon's official call on it. The surgeon comes in at about 8am to consult and says that there is "something" on the ultrasound, but it's not 100% conclusive. If she were fat (that may be a direct quote) they could do a CT Scan, but she's clearly not fat, so it would be a waste of time and money (THANK YOU!!!!). He tells us that he'd like to go in with the scope and if it's NOT the appendix, he can look around and see what is causing the problem, and he'll go ahead and take the appendix while he's there...worst case scenario, he takes a healthy appendix out, but we'll never have to worry about it again (funny that he'd suggest that - I tried to get the surgeon who removed my gall bladder...different surgeon...to also take my appendix out while he was in the area and he flat out refused...but, I digress again...).
I have to add that by this time M was getting VERY beligerent. She was telling us, "I am NOT having surgery", "I am going home NOW", and (my favorite), "I want a strawberry frappucino and I want it NOW!". I explained to her that her appendix was diseased and if we didn't take it out, it could rupture, go septic, and kill her slowly from the inside out. She repeated that she was NOT having surgery. When D and Mom returned to the room I informed them that M had decided that she'd lived her 9 years to the fullest and was ready to call it quits. That warranted a big "MOMMMMMM!!!!" from her. I had never seen this side from her, but we were finally able to bribe her to have surgery with the promise of a strawberry frappucino as soon as they cleared her to have it post-op. She gave in, reluctantly...
At 9am M is wheeled off to surgery and Mom and I head off in search of food. All of us were starving but wouldn't eat anything b/c M wasn't allowed to and that just wasn't right. Of course, the cafeteria at our hospital is closed on weekends...how rude! I wrote a strongly worded letter about that... Luckily there's a McDonald's right across the street, so we made a quick trip over there. At about 9:45am, the surgeon comes into the waiting room to tell us that it was the appendix and to bring us the pictures (they're cool - sorry I don't have them scanned to put here...maybe another time :) ).
A little after that, my cousin and her mother-in-law arrived with Starbucks for me (THANK YOU!!!!!) and gifts for M. Almost immediately after that the surgeon came in to tell me that M was in recovery and I could go in to be with her when she woke up. Of course I went. She was the only one in recovery, so they let Mom and D come in and say goodbye - they were headed home to give D a rest now that we knew M was OK. They were going to come back when Mom headed to work that afternoon. We got checked into M's room and my cousin made the frappucino run for M, then headed back to Salem to carry on with her day.
M and I got comfortable in her room and settled in for the day. M was absolutely awesome while in the hospital for awhile - she full on refused any pain meds. We kept telling her there was no shame in asking for them, but she said she wasn't in pain at all. Her IV site was giving her more trouble than her incisions (the surgeon did a happy dance over that fact!). She had full control of the TV, and nurses at her beck and call, what more could she want? She did get a little demanding and needy and not so nice to me. I actually had to tell her when we brought her home that the nurses were getting paid to jump when she said so, we don't get paid, so she better be nice. It eventually got better...
D and Mom came back on her way to work and I took advantage of the "shift change" to head home for a few minutes - just a shower was the plan. Once I got home, I thought, "I'll just close my eyes for a few minutes"...2 hours later I woke up. OOPS! Took a quick shower and headed back for the night. Mom picked D up on her way home from work and brought him home with the promise of returning in the morning.
They said she could probably go home that evening, but we opted to stay overnite. It was a selfish move on my part, but I just wanted to have professional assistance for at least one night - I was still exhausted from D's two procedures and needed the night "off". They wheeled in a fold out bed, Mom brought me a Snuggie (way cool - definitely recommend them!).
Monday, October 12 - M had decided that she wanted to go home after lunch, but they cleared her for departure shortly after breakfast. That morning I headed down to the coffee cart when M's breakfast arrived only to find that it was closed due to illness. The cafeteria didn't carry bottled frappucinos or anything and I was not going to pay money for regular coffee when I could get a cup for free upstairs. SO NOT COOL!!! I was so desperate, I almost considered actually drinking the coffee delivered with my "courtesy meal". Luckily I got a text from our church's associate pastor asking if she could bring me Starbuck's...apparently via Facebook she'd learned of my plight and she brought me a coffee and M a frappucino. (Facebook is awesome for spreading the word!). Mom and D came in just in time to see Pastor Shelley off, and to be there while M got discharged. Once her IV was out, she was ready to go...and we did.
As we were headed home we passed the Children's Minister on the way and she followed us home - apparently she was headed to the hospital to see us. She brought a cute gift for M and well wishes for all of us. She also arranged to have meals delivered to us for the remainder of the week. LOVE OUR CHURCH!!!!!
Home and recovery begins... Through it all, she refused all pain meds (although we did force Tylenol a couple times, then gave up the battle) despite being obviously uncomfortable. What a star! We had some trouble with her appetite and her being weak from not eating and the surgery and all, but for the most part it was a very smooth recovery.
Tuesday, October 20 - M had her post-op appt and was cleared to return to "normal" activity. Since she had chosen to not swim with her class, we were going to pick her up early on Tuesdays and Thursdays anyway, so decided to just wait until Wed. morning to send her back to school. After sharing a bed with M during her recovery, it had become clear to me that her toenails were quite the claws, so I decided to take her for a manicure/pedicure in prep for her return to school. The excursion wiped her out, so we were a little concerned about her return to school, but figured she could always call us if she got tired.
Wednesday, October 21 - M returns to school and has no trouble at all - she stays all day and isn't too horribly exhausted by the end of it. YEAH!
Thursday, October 22 - I end up subbing a half-day, so Mom picked up M at school before lunch, took her to lunch, then home for a sleepover. I was headed out to a meeting that evening and D had class, so M was sleeping at Mom's (in reality, she had never STOPPED sleeping at Mom's...).
Friday, October 23 - D has his post-op appt at the coast so we'd arranged for my cousin to pick M up and take her home for a sleepover. All went well and the kids had a great time!
Saturday, October 24 - Cousins bring M home and stay for dinner...during the evening we start to get concerned about cousin P's temperature, but take it and all seems well, so chalk it up to paranoia.
Sunday, October 25 - 7am - Call comes in that cousin P's spiked a 103ish temp and we need to cancel the stamping party I was doing at their house. Spend all day keeping an "eye" on her as her temp goes up and down with meds. M very sensitive all day long - crying at the drop of a hat, Mom says she's not feeling well, I'm saying she's just being hormonal and add that to my list to talk to her dr at her "well child" visit Tuesday AM.
Monday, October 26, 12:30am - D and I head to bed and shortly after getting in bed, M comes out of her room and heads into the bathroom. She has very loud diarrhea, prompting us to go check on her despite her saying, "I'm OK". I headed downstairs to get the thermometer and returned to find her laying on the bathroom floor, too weak to return to bed. OH NO! She says her tummy hurts and she's running a temp, but she is refusing to take any tylenol/motrin because she says she'll just throw it up. I talk her into taking the dissolvables, but they are at Mom's. Now Mom is up too b/c I head over there in my PJ's and red velvet robe (lovely sight, I'm sure). We can't find them b/c apparently they came back here...DAMN! BUT, I got the swallowing motrin which she ended up taking one of. Her and D stayed up and watched a movie in bed to make sure that no other body fluids were headed out of her. At about 3am, I asked her if she wanted to stay in our bed or go back to hers. She opted for going back to hers b/c of D's snoring (I feel her pain!). Took her temp again and it was still in the 101(ish) range when I put her in bed, but she seemed just fine.
M proceeds to sleep until we dragged her out of bed at 1pm...with a temp of 102.6. I lured her downstairs where I'd set up an inflatable bed in the family room for her. She didn't want to get up, which is so not like her, but I had to get some food in her so I could give her something for that fever. By the time we got her downstairs, it was at 101.9 and stayed there for several hours.
She was just so out of it - so not herself. Her appetite came back BIG TIME and so did her energy, but I still took her in to see the doctor. Due to her symptoms, she had to wear a mask - although she decided to make a fashion statement with it once we got into the exam room:
Isn't that Murphy's Law that as soon as you get to the doctor all is well? That does NOT look like the same kiddo I'd dragged out of bed earlier in the day with a temp.
Well, Dr S said that since her only real symptom was the temp, he didn't think it was Swine Flu, but more like a virus at this point. No matter what the diagnosis it was, the treatment was the same, so we just went with that and carried on with what we'd been doing (fluids, rest, treating symptoms as she'd allow...). We were already planning on keeping her out of school Tuesday b/c of the 24 hr, temp under 99 rule, so no problem at all.
Tuesday, October 27 - today (I know, you're saying FINALLY!!!!) - she gets up and seems to be doing just fine. Then, she starts coughing. I get a phone call from cousin who says that cousin P's doctor said she has swine flu. We compare notes and M is progressing almost exactly 24 hours behind cousin P, even down to the cough, which proceeds to get worse as the day goes on. Her temp also started inching up slowly as well, although not above 100. We decided that she's probably out for the rest of the week and I began the process of homeschooling her for the rest of the week. So far so good on that...
This has been a horrible few weeks - I joke that I have pissed off some gods and need to sacrifice a goat or something to make it right. I have no clue if/when we're getting back to "normal", but am hoping that we're headed down that road real soon!
Thanks for sticking with the life and times of me...hopefully I'll have a happier post next go round...maybe some cute Halloween pix, or I can finally finish up the Tahoe pix post I started several weeks ago...who knows? All I know is that it's way past my bed time, so off I go.
