Someone's a little spoiled by starting off her days with chocolate:

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Well December Could've Started Better...

Oy. It was the first day of the month...a full month of budget left to spend. So we headed out to dinner at Texas Roadhouse. We were finishing up when a suddenly green Easton looks at me, says, "My tummy hurts" and then pukes all over the booth, the napkin I was trying to catch it in, his brother next to him...me...

My kids are pukers but this was clear it was illness, not a fluke. Poor guy...and poor Roadhouse. I took Easton to the car to change clothes and sit on the curb while we waited for Jason, Dalton, and Autumn and then we headed home. Easton got into a bath and acted like he was feeling just fine. I wasn't convinced and brought him a bucket. Sure, enough, as he was heading to the potty right before bed, he yakked again.

And again. About every 20 minutes for hours.

At several points, he was in tears about his tummy hurting. That is not like him, even when he's got a tummy bug. One time he'd said, "My waist hurts" which I thought was noteworthy and when we asked him to point to where it hurt another time, he pointed right under his belly button. He eventually asked to get in bed with me and Jason said he'd sleep on the couch.

Well, with Easton next to me intermittently writing in pain as he slept and then puking I decided that I was going to take him to urgent care. I'd worked on peds long enough to know I didn't want to be messing around with that belly pain.

So, I loaded him into the car and off we went just before midnight:


We got there and they kind of checked him out, of course, he got sick a few more times and they gave him a Zofran...he puked the first one right out of his mouth and then gave him another. We waited awhile...no puking...so they had me give him syringes full of Power Ade every 2-3 minutes. Poor guy did not want to wake up for it.

But he was trying to be a trooper because tolerating fluids meant we could go home. At one point as I'm squeezing it into his mouth he's all, "I've had enough!" of the PowerAde. I hated that I was having to talk him into it. Well, it was maybe 4-5 syringes into things before he yakked it all up again. :( Noticing the non-PowerAde colored undertones to it, the doctor decided she wanted to do some x-rays of his belly and start an IV. I said, Easton would much prefer an IV over that PowerAde anyway. And I was right. He thought it looked kind of like a battle droid.

He was fabulous for the IV, but that's not saying much as he was pretty out of it. They collected some blood as well for testing.

However, he really perked up when we were heading to his x-rays around 2 a.m. and by then there was talk of admitting him for obs. So, we got back from his xrays which showed nothing too unusual...I think she was largely looking for an ileus and his xrays came back clear. He was so great for all of that. And then he was wide awake so they set us up with some Star Wars: Episode 1:


They told me that his blood work showed a high white cell count (not too surprising) and also that his glucose was high (she thought that was likely a stress response). She also said they thought an ultrasound was an appropriate next step to look at his appendix, if they could.

Unfortunately, we were at a less than full-functioning branch of the Children's Hospital and their sonagrapher wouldn't be in until 8 a.m. What?! So, we were there for the night. Jason was at home with Autumn who still usually wakes to nurse once in the wee hours of the morn. And she did. Jason offered her cows milk, thawed breastmilk, chocolate milk...she didn't want any of it and eventually gave up.

I hardly slept at all. They brought me a bed around 3 or 4. Easton finally got tired again around 3 and I was texting and chatting with Jason to get him all up to speed. I think I lay down around 4 but E didn't have his rails up on his bed so I'd wake up and say, "don't roll any further!" any time I heard him move, plus his IV beeped several times in there. And we were up for the day around 6 when the IV fluids caught up with E and he needed to hit the potty.

At that point I also noticed Easton was running a fever when he hadn't been. Great.

We headed to his ultrasound where the tech furrowed her brow at the screen nearly the entire time and Easton was uncomfortable anytime she got over his lower right side. He had to give a urine sample too.

We went back to E's room and they told us they couldn't see his appendix during the ultrasound at all and that they next wanted to do a CT scan...with contrast. Up his bum. :(

So, my amazing little trooper headed down the hall. We got him on the table and he knew what was going to happen. Oh, you guys, he was so awesome...I felt awful for him but he was just being such a big brave guy...they had him roll over and put the stupid thing up his bum and we had to tell him not to push while she left it in there and sl-o-o-o-o-wly filled up his bowels with the contrast enema. He was like, "I'm not trying to push! But it's coming out!!!" and we're having to have him do the fast breathing like a labor patient might when she's trying not to push. He was so awesome. Finally he was all filled up and it was time for him to go into the CT machine. He was great...followed all the directions like having to put his hands above his head and holding so still. He'd have to hold his breath per the machine's instructions and he just rocked it and in between I'd see him doing his fast breathing to not push. Broke my heart.

Finally he was done and they emptied what contrast they could back into the bag and then we headed over to the bathroom to get rid of some more. He was just so amazing through everything. Sweet, sweet boy.

The CT had to be read by actual radiologists at the downtown location so we had to wait on that and they finally came in and told us that they were able to visualize his appendix which looked fine but that he had some inflamed mesenteric lymph nodes (right around the appendix) that looked to be blame for all of this. She said it was called "mesenteric adenitis" and it's the #1 thing that mimicks appendicitis. In years past, people presenting with the same symptoms as E would've likely had their appendix taken out and they'd find a healthy appendix in there. So, while it was miserable to have to go through all the tests he did for all that time, I'm super glad that he was able to avoid an unnecessary surgery.

However, even with that, they weren't clearing us to go home just yet. What!?!? They even moved us to a more comfortable room to start trying fluids again. Well, we were itching to get home...my boobs were leaking all down my shirt after so long away from my nursling (I had the car with the car seats so Jason couldn't come to me and we kept thinking we'd be discharged any moment). Easton had some juice and we settled in to watch some Wall-E in the hospital bed together. He kept it down and got to start on some crackers. And then Jason was begging me to "lean on them" pretty hard about getting discharged. So they let us go.

And as soon as we got in the driveway, Easton puked again.

He and I got all cleaned up from our germs and I was finally able to greet my other two children and nurse Autumn (and pump a bunch too!).

E just took it easy on the couch all afternoon getting to play Star Wars Wii as a treat. He had some more fluids around dinner time but puked twice during the night. Ugh! We tried fluids again in the morning and he puked 'em up again. We were instructed to take him in again if he continued puking so we made an appointment with our regular Dr. Groovy for that afternoon.

By then he was keeping some fluids and 3 Goldfish per hour down. :) Dr. Groovy thought he'd continue improving. And he did.

The next morning (Saturday) we got a call that Easton's strep culture they had done while he was at Children's came back positive. The rapid screen was negative but the culture grew strep. That can certainly go along with his mesenteric adenitis diagnosis as it's some sort of infection inflaming those lymph nodes down there. She'd done the culture on a whim trying to find reasons to explain his symptoms...he's never once complained of a sore throat.

So he's on antibiotics for that and really seems to be nearing 100%. Thank God! I'm so glad it's over but am still slightly terrified that it was really all just a tummy bug and the rest of us are about to be plagued by it in a moment's notice. So far so good and Dr. Groovy said he really did not think that this is what would happen. I'm trying to go with that.

And there ya go.

A blog from me.

Not as fun but certainly something to remember for our family journal.