The Glesser Family Blog: May 2011

On May 16th I made Alex's favorite dinner. Homemade pizza and brownies. He stated his tummy hurt and would not eat anything ( except a few bites of brownies). We really didn't think too much of this as he had just gotten over the stomach flu. He had lost nearly 5 pounds with this sickness which is why he got to eat the brownies without dinner. We really wanted him to gain back some of the weight.

On May 17th, I was preparing all day for my Mother in Law, Janice to visit. I was to pick her up at the airport after a fun filled day. We had plans to go to the park for a homeschool social, Alex had piano lessons and we had to drive to Boston to pick Adam up on the way to the airport. After eating no breakfast due to tummy issues I cancelled the park outing and continued about my day of cleaning. I was thinking, "yay, I might actually get the place cleaned up in time." At about 2pm, following no lunch being eaten I started to worry. Alex's tummy was really bothering him at this point. But none of the really obvious signs were there. No fever, his tummy hurt all the time, everywhere; not just on the right side or when you let go from pushing on it. He hadn't thrown up or anything else that is suspect. I decided to cancel piano lessons and then called my mom. She is always my backup. I figure why pay out the copayment if Mamaw can figure it out. Immediately she said call the doc. Ok so when was I going to fit that in considering I had to leave in an hour to do pickups which would take at least 2 hours. So I made an appt for 6:45pm. I love my peds office. They are open 7 days a week, even late hours. I got everyone in the car at 3pm and headed into town. (I did remember the barf bucket and it did come in handy). We grabbed Adam and then grabbed Janice and headed home for a quick dropoff. Alex and I headed over to the doc. She was not our primary but I had her before and love her. Dr. Sachs couldn't be sure what the issue was. He was still doing weird things, like jumping up and down, laughing and running. I had to mention that he has been moaning all day long and I had to carry him to and from the car. She decided the best thing to do was to send us to Winchester Hospital. I called Adam on the way and we felt it was best he stayed with the other boys and just I went. For all we knew Alex just needed to take a big dump. We arrived at 7:15pm and things went slow and quick. Here he is before any needles when they were letting his draw on the sheets.

It seemed to take forever but by 9pm we had finished a sonogram that couldn't find his appendix and by 10pm he had an IV so that he could get a CT scan. He had to drink 4 oz of the juice stuff every hour. This was not easy considering he was exhausted and thoroughly pissed about the IV. At 1am we were bumped from the CT scan for a real emergency. Finally at 2am he was brought in for the CT scan. He cried through the whole thing. The dye they put in him made him feel like he was going to burn up and wet himself at the same time. At 3am they came back with news that he had appendicitis and that he had to be transferred to Tufts Childrens in Boston. Yay Ambulance Ride! He woke up for this and didn't get upset for the whole half hour. We arrived there at 4:30am. By this point I was so tired I could barely stand yet so scared that I was wide awake. My phone had died and I was borrowing doctors phone to call Adam. I couldn't use the hospital one since Adam's phone is a CA number. By 6am we met the anesthesiologist and got the happy drugs. (For Alex not me) I went into the operating room with him and said my "see you laters" right before he blissfully went to sleep.

Waking up for him was very difficult. The drugs made him very upset and I wasn't there. They actually had to knock him out again since he wouldn't settle down. Of course, I was in the room next door and could hear him screaming. But I was basically locked in to this sitting area. This may have been the worst 20 minutes of my life. Hearing him cry and scream for me and not being able to go to him. By 8:30am he was up in the children's wing.

One thing that has not been mentioned yet is that we only have one car. And since I rode in the ambulance with Alex it was at the other hospital. Adam was basically stuck. He ended up repeatedly calling our neighbor and got her to take him up to the hospital to pick it up. I think he was a few minutes away from renting a car from the Enterprise that is about 100 yards from our house. He made it up to the hospital by 10am and I was very relieved to see him.

Here is the first pic of Alex when he was still nicely drugged.

The drugs were wearing off at this point.

I had to go home in the late afternoon to feed Jacob and get some sleep. Adam stayed when Alex all night making sure he was comfy and happy.

Here we are taking him home on May 19th. All in all it was not quite 48 hours of hell. Of course, the recovery has become another story.

We were so lucky to have Janice fly in the day this all happened. She did a great job at taking care of Jonathan and Jacob. When Alex got home she was ready to play games with him anytime.

I know that an appendectomy is a fairly minor surgery but when it is happening to my 5 year it is major. I hope that none of the other kids ever have to go through it.

Today we took the train into Boston to see the Big Apple Circus. We thought the boys were finally old enough to sit through the whole thing and that Jacob is yet to become very difficult in that sort of setting.

An absolute must was that we get cotton candy. Love it !

We got there about 20 minutes early. Which is actually not that great considering how hard it is to keep these kids still. They munched on their cotton candy and sang with the music playing.

They were both really great during the performance. Somehow Jonathan fell asleep halfway through. With how loud and exciting it was this really surprised us. We had a great time and plan to go next year. Although, we may leave Jacob home then because an almost 2 year old would not do well in a 2 hour performance.