Sorry everybody....I had planned to make some big announcements today and then other things happened...
Usually I don't like personal stuff going up on business blogs, but I know a lot of people are looking for the full story of what has gone on with our family in the last 24 hours and I figured this would be a good place to put it.
Friday, I was thankfully home with the kids for the day and noticed Titus just not being himself. He would hold onto his stomach in pain sometimes, sometimes walk hunched over, just wasn't moving as fast as he normally does and other times he would act fine. So, about 4:30 I decided to call the dr. After getting off the phone with them it was in the car to urgent care. The dr took one look at him and it was straight to the ER.
Now, even though I will have to pay for the Urgent Care and ER co-pay, it was totally worth it. Because urgent care called ahead, gave me a special band to wear and as soon as we walked in the door we were whisked past the others waiting (sorry others) and straight into a room.
At first the dr was not thinking appendicitis because he just didn't have the normal symptoms. So, they did an x-ray trying to find a blockage in his colon and then a bunch of blood work trying to find a virus.
Those both came back clean. So, then it was off to the sonogram to check his appendix. By that point Titus was exhausted (it was about 10pm) and in a lot of pain from so many people poking and prodding his hurting belly. The sono tech quickly found what he thought was the problem, brought in a resident, she saw it to and got the pediatric radiologist that was on call to look them over and she saw the same thing.
Titus was diagnosed with having anti-septi.....yeah, I don't know the name. But, part of his small bowel had inserted itself into the large bowel. Now this can happen in kids and it can come and go, but Titus' wasn't going. So, between 11:30 and midnight last night Titus had to go through a very rough procedure.
A tube was inserted into his bottom and his bottom was taped shut. He then had to lie on his back under an xray machine while the radiologist pumped air into his rectum. The goal was to "blow out" the small bowel from the large one. After the second attempt, she said she was successful. Now, the worst part about this was that Titus had to be awake with no pain meds at all. So, our job was literally to hold him down to the table while he screamed....it was awful!!!
After this he was given Morphine and we were admitted, he fell asleep about 1:30am and then woke up for the day at about 6:30am complaining of a little bit of belly pain. This was to be expected because of all the air that was pumped into his belly....but it kept getting worse.
About 10:30 we realized that his bed was broken in his room so they brought in a new one. The nurse lifted Titus out of the bed and set him on the floor and he doubled over in pain and the screaming began. The surgeon quickly called for another sono where again three people looked at it and the diagnosis was that his bowels had done it again.
The surgeon wanted the radiologist to try the procedure again, but the radiologist didn't feel comfortable with it. She saw the amount of pain that Titus was in and felt that he just needed to go into surgery. So, we were sent straight to surgery.
My wonderful Aunt Teresa who is a nurse here at OSF came in and was able to carry Titus into the operating room and stay with him until he was asleep which made this momma feel at least a little bit better, in the craziness of the past few hours.
After an hour and a half the surgeon came out and said that his bowels were perfectly fine, but she noticed a strange fatty area. After some further digging they realized that his appendix was indeed inflamed and actually had a tumor/mass on top of it. So, they quickly removed the entire thing, and even had to make a bigger incision because it was about the size of a golf ball! No wonder the poor kid was in so much pain!
The mass has been sent off to pathology and the initial report is that it was just filled with puss. So, we will get the official test results probably Wednesday or Thursday but the surgeon is thinking that as Titus' appendix started to become enlarged some fatty tissue attached itself to the inflammation and then possibly the appendix did rupture but the fatty tissue kept it all contained.
In other words it's very strange, and not something this dr had really ever seen before. Bad news is that we put Titus through the horrible procedure the night before when nothing was actually wrong with his bowels. Good news is that he will only start feeling better from here.
They have had some problems gaining pain control today. He really hasn't responded to Morphine, so they did give him a higher dose tonight hoping that that and one other med will get him through a restful night. The poor little guy is in desperate need of sleep.
Right now Aaron is cuddling with him and as soon as I hit post I will be trading him places to cuddle up with my poor little guy for the night....So, that is what is going on in the Yoder's lives. Oh, and Mikaela is enjoying the weekend at her cousin Micah's house. She is SO super excited about that! :)
Thanks for all the calls, texts, facebook messages and prayers today we will keep you all updated. Hopefully tomorrow is a much better day so we can go home on Monday. And hopefully the beginning of the week I will make some bridal store announcements on here, but right now, it is family first!
Blessings,
Janice
And kudos if you actually read to the end of this thing!!!!
