(Saturday)

Well, after a decent few hours during which Preston was laughing and being himself again, he woke about 2:30am crying with stomach pain again. We made it through the night (mike spent the night in the room with him) and called the dr in the morning. By the time it was time to leave for the doctor, my poor little man could barely move without screaming in pain. After a quick check with the neighbors to take care of Matt, Mike took P and I followed.

Blood work, CT Scan, X-rays, Ultrasound…. 7 hours later we had a confirmed diagnosis of appendicitis. (Apparently, it’s difficult to diagnose in the very young because they are all small and not clear on pain verbalizing and their organs are all squished together).

Unfortunately (fortunately? I’m still not sure), they decided against doing surgery right away because they thought his appendix had perforated, and was thereby leaking lovely infected fluid into his body (ew). The course of action was to treat with IV antibiotics, so he was admitted to the hospital.

It hasn’t been easy, but admittedly, could have been much, much worse. The very worst thing for him was the blood draws (my baby has very very few visible veins and even the pediatric er nurses were struggling). They even tried his foot once – can you say TRAUMATIZED?!

Mike and I switched off staying the night with him so one of us could be home with Matt. On Monday he was finally allowed to have actual food instead of liquids and was able to have his beloved juice, and his turnaround (well, plus the antibiotics, I’m sure) was nothing short of amazing! He came alive again, being silly, talking, smiling. SUCH a relief! His pain has lessened tremendously, and he only had pain meds ONCE this whole time!

The one horrible thing that happened was that once he was feeling better and had visitors, he was playing and throwing his stuffed animals back and forth with my dad and he pulled out his IV line, unbeknownst to all of us until later. Talk about TRAUMA. Poor kid. So not only did they poke him again, more than once, after saying they wouldn’t need to, they had a hell of a time getting the IV in and had to switch to the other hand. UGH.

We’ve been keeping him busy with Legos and (lots of) television; books, ipod games and shows, playing cars, etc. He’s really been SO good; I am so proud of him.

This morning they told us his white blood count was great and his fever had been gone for 24 hours so we get to go home!! YAY!

He’s still sleeping right now, so he doesn’t know yet, but I’m SO ready and I know he is too. It was heartbreaking when he would cry to go home – I just wanted to pick him up and run (but of course I couldn’t – (a) he’s like 70 pounds and (b) he has a security tag on!)

The nurses have been pretty good, some better than others, of course. They’ve teased and bribed and smiled and tried so hard with him and I truly appreciate it.

He’s going to have a hard time when he gets home though – no one at his beck and call for juice all night long; not being able to watch tv all day and part of the night – but I’m sure he’ll be fine. I know I will be!!

The idea is for 7 more days of antibiotics then a follow-up with the surgeon, and then schedule surgery for about 8 weeks from now to be sure everything is a-ok and not infected (less chances of complications, so I’m glad about that! Although I do have to admit it would have been nice to get it over with already!!

So that’s what I’ve been up to, how about you?

I, of course, have a million things to do at home and have promised Matt his room would be done by this weekend so he can move back in to it. Oh, and my wedding anniversary is this week – oops.