This has been an interesting week for our family! Monday afternoon Owen calls me on his cell phone [while I'm over at a friend's house so our kids can swim and play together] and tells me that he's on his way home and he's feeling really nauseous. All weekend he'd had what he described as discomfort in his abdomen and just wasn't feeling right. But that afternoon at work, his secretary said he looked positively green. So, I gather up the kids to get home, hoping that whatever Owen is suffering from isn't contagious. When he gets home, he Googles his medical ailments and comes up with appendicitis. I offer to drive him to the ER, but says he can get there by himself. So, I call my mom and she comes over after I give the kids dinner, have an abbreviated family home evening, bathe, and get everyone into bed.
I get to the ER at about 9 pm, where Owen is waiting to be taken in for a CAT scan. They take him for a scan at 10 pm and he's back by 10:20. 90 minutes later [our hospital's version of 30 minutes] we hear word that Owen's appendix is in the early stages of inflammation and that he will be admitted for an appendectomy. But alas, there are no available beds upstairs yet, so we endure listening to a pregnant crack mom alternating between screaming and laughing hysterically and the cries of a newborn-sounding baby [both sad]. And since I drank a Pepsi at midnight in an effort to have one of us coherent throughout all this, I am wide awake. Wide. Awake. I turn off the lights and close the door so that Owen can rest, and I perch on my hard plastic chair and lean over to lay my head on the end of his gurney. Really comfortable. But at least I don't have appendicitis, I remind myself.
Just after 2 am [and about 10 minutes after I finish praying for a room to become available] we are taken up to Owen's room. Or should I say deluxe suite, because I have rarely seen such a nice hospital room. Evidently our hospital has a newly renovated wing of upscale rooms. Since there were no other beds available [and since Owen's ailment is of the non-communicable variety] he was able to use a room there as overflow. The room was huge. And nice. There was a nice sleep-chair and a padded window seat that could be used to rest on. And they offered me blankets, sheets, and pillows. Unlike the time 3 years ago when I spent 17 days in the hospital, and my poor mother and husband had to beg, borrow, or steal even a crappy blanket to use in the crappy chair in my crappy hovel of a room. Not that I'm bitter about it. I even took pictures [of Owen's room, not my crappy one]; they're back up at the beginning.
They come for Owen at 5:30 am and surgery is at 6, where everything goes very well. He's back up in his room at a little before 8 am. My parents and sister-in-law Ana save the day for me by getting kids to school [parents] and watching Collin for the day so he doesn't have to hang out at the hospital [Ana]. Owen did really well after surgery. We were worried that the anesthesia may cause him nausea [as had happened in the past] but he was great. He was actually discharged that same night at around 8 pm. He could have gone sooner, but I had to attend Back to School Night for the kids before I could get back to the hospital.
And he's still improving every day. He laid low from work this week [and got out of 2 days of working in 100 degree plus humid heat at the church vineyard-excellent timing] but has been up and around at home a lot. He's tender, and can't do much lifting, but because the surgery was done laparoscopically, his recovery will be quick. So, that's been the highlight of this week! I'd planned on posting earlier, but Owen has been spending most of his convalescence in front of the computer. Thanks to everyone who called and emailed-we appreciate your concern!
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