Clicking my ruby slippers

There's no place like home. There's no place like home.

Wednesday night Eli woke up crying and I thought it was a bad dream and put him back to bed. Then Emma woke up vomiting so I assumed they both had the flu and waited for Eli to start throwing up too. By the next morning he still hadn't but I was worried about him because he was walking funny, all hunched over like an old man and said his stomach hurt. I still thought he had the flu but asked David (who had taken a sick day) if we should take him to the doctor. We ended up going to see our pediatrician that afternoon.

Our pediatrician asked a couple questions, watched him walk around and then did a quick exam. After pushing on his stomach a couple of times he said, "It's appendicitis and I think it might have already ruptured." With that he turned around picked up the phone and was talking with the pediatric surgery unit at Banner Desert Hospital. He told us to get in our car and go straight over there and the ER would know we were coming.

David is probably facing several speeding camera tickets for our 10 minute drive from the doctor's office to the hospital. My parents met us there and took Emma with them for a sleepover at Granna's house. In the ER we were taken back and then hunkered down to wait. He had an X-ray and a CAT scan ordered but before we could do any of that we had to get an IV in.

I just want to take a moment here and say I was amazed by the lack of urgency in the ER. I mean his appendix had possibly ruptured and they were all walking around like it was no big deal if it had. I know some of the nurses didn't believe that he had appendicitis because he didn't have some of the normal symptoms like diarrhea and vomiting. But I know it was a direct blessing of the Lord that he didn't have those symptoms. If he did I would have assumed it was the flu and not taken him in. Who knows what would of happened then>

Anyway, back to our story. I'll spare you the 90 minutes of IV hell, and just tell you it took 6 tries to get an IV into that boy at the end of which we were all shaking, crying, and wanting to go home. Those little kids know just how to break your heart. During attempt number 4 or 5 Eli looked at me and screamed/cried "Don't do it, don't hurt me, Mommy please take me home, please no more ouchies!" I was not the only one crying in the room. All the nurses were very nice except for one who was brusque and not sympathetic who I almost smacked during her attempt to put an IV in.

After that we were ushered out for X-rays and cat scans. Both of which came back showing a badly ruptured appendix.The pediatric surgeon came to see us and tell us that he wanted to treat it with strong antibiotics and do the surgery itself in 4-6 weeks. We were going to be admitted to the hospital for 4-5 days.

Thursday Night- Admitted to pediatric ICU. Antibiotics started.

Friday- PICC line placed. This is a type of permanent IV, it goes through his upper arm and into his chest. This was so he could continue getting IV meds after we went home.
Friday night moved to the regular pediatric floor.

Saturday- Anitbiotics and waiting. Eli is very bored with hospital room, we spend a lot of time in the pediatric playroom. We also buy him a DVD player so he could watch movies and so Mommy doesn't have to watch anymore Cartoon Network.

Sunday- Antibiotics and waiting. Mommy comes down with Flu. Lovely.

Monday- Antibiotics and waiting. Eli feels much better, Mommy feels much worse.

Monday Night- released from hospital and home health nurse comes to show me how to administer Eli's antibiotics. We all fall into bed a sleep like the dead.

For those of you who made it this far here is a brief series of pictures that Eli took of his hospital stay.

Eli is tentatively scheduled to have his appendix removed the first week in May. Thank you everyone who helped, especially Mom, Dad, Adam, Christy, & Chris for watching Emma. Bryan for bringing me food, Lindsay for wanting to help even though she and her kids were all very sick, my homeschool group for meals for the week, and everyone who prayed for us. We love you all! And by the way, if you haven't seen me or my new haircut before that is NOT the way I normally look. That is my "5 days in a hospital, with the flu, and no sleep" look. :-)

Thank you Thank you Thank you!

We have definitely felt your prayers the last couple of days. I'm on a quick break from the hospital for a shower and a nap. I'll post a quick update and fill in the details when we are released.

Ell is doing very well, the doctors say they've never seen a ruptured appendix patient who is so cheerful. His white blood cell count is going down and his fever is much lower now. He's on 2 different types of antibiotics and once he's finished the dosages of those he will be released. Hopefully Monday or Tuesday. He had a PICC line put in on Friday which is a type of permanent IV through his upper arm and into his chest. He will be on IV antibiotics for 2-3 weeks and then in May will go back for surgery and have his appendix removed.

Emma has been having a great time with her Granna, like one long sleepover! Although she has been a little worried that Eli is having more fun than her at the hospital. LOL!

David is holding up well under the pressure. Poor guy has a hard job keeping me sane, working both his jobs, and trying to spend time with Eli. I'm tired but doing well. I'm going to go crash for 2 hours now and then back to the hospital. If you need to call us use David's cell phone or call the hospital and they'll put you through to our room.

Love you all!

Sharp Pointy Rocks at the Bottom? Bring it on...

Hey all. So last night we spent the night getting up every other hour on the hour to help Emma vomit and put Eli back to bed. Emma's problem ended up being a typical case of the 24-hour flu...Eli's ended up being a ruptured appendix. So, right now we're prepping for a five-day, five-night stay at Banner Desert Hospital with lots of expenses included :-)

We're grateful to have caught it and that Eli is stable. The doctors will be treating his condition w/ antibiotics for the next five days in the hospital. If he responds well to this, we'll go home and continue antibiotics and return for surgery in about six weeks. Please pray for us and help this happen! We'll be pretty out of touch for the next while, but you can hit us on my cell phone or call the hospital directly. Love ya!

David

The New Emma

On Saturday Emma and I enjoyed a Mommy-Daughter Date. I took her to a salon for her first pedicure and haircut. Here she is getting her toes painted.
And here she is getting her hair cut and styled.
After I took all her pictures and she was admiring herself in the mirror she asked me if I could put the pictures on my blog and type in the words "The new Emma." Thus my title. That's my girl...already designing blog pages! SO here's she is...the new Emma. And oh yeah, I got my hair cut too. It's not a great picture to see what it looks like but it doesn't matter because my hair will never look like this again. You know how you get your hair cut and they style it so cute for you and then you go home and wash it and it's like, "how the heck did they get it to look like that?" So I'll take another picture in a couple days when I figure out how to style it myself.

Photo Shoot

My sister-in-law Lindsay is so lucky because her mom is a fantastic photographer. And lucky for us she is willing to share her talents so I took my kids over there on Thursday for a quick photo shoot for Emma and Eli. She posted a few of the pictures on her blog Debe's Place and I loved how they turned out. I'll post some more after I get the CD.

Hair, hair and more hair!

Eli definitely got his hair from his Daddy. It's thick and grows at the speed of light! But we're going to get pictures this afternoon and it was time for a trim so...here's the before.

Here's all the hair I took off his head.

And here's the finished product. Not bad if I do say so myself, considering I've had absolutely no training.

School Wall

So we use our kitchen as our "school room". For those of you who don't know I homeschool our two children. So despite having a whole room that we call the school room we do all our work in the kitchen. So here is our school wall, brought to you by IKEA.

We have our master calendar for the whole family with doctor's appointments, David's work schedule, school events, field trips, church activities, birthdays, ect. The bins open out and Emma and Eli each have one for their school books and the third one is for library books.

The little buckets hold all our school supplies like crayons, pencils, scissors, and glue. And the buckets lift off the bar for easy cleanup and transport.

And then we have our display area, originally a curtain line but now used to show off Emma and Eli's work and creations. Daddy likes to see what they've been learning when he comes home from work.

So thank you Mom and Blondie for your birthday present of IKEA giftcards!