My oldest is a softball player. She's really good. She made the All Star team. As #1 catcher. This means 2 practices a day. This means it's Up, Down, Up, Throw for 2 hours at a time, twice a day. Well, 2 days into this, she comes to me and says "Mom, I think I've pulled something." Great. Just effin great. We begin the Heat, Ice, Ibuprofen regimen. All better in like, 2 days huh? Wrong bitches! The story is just getting good. Because then, THEN she starts throwing up like a frat boy on a Saturday night. A stomach bug too? Just what we need.
Like a responsible parent (stop laughing) I take her to the Dr on a Thursday. Explain all the symptoms and he pushes around on her stomach, Asks if she's had a fever (He hadn't) blah, blah, blah. Send her for X Rays just to be sure. Anti barfy meds and to home we go. She starts feeling a little better on Saturday, Actually eats on Sunday and then.....All Hell breaks loose.
Monday dawns with her doing a walk similar to that seen on The Exorcist (The good one, With all the weird stuff put back in it) and barely able to stand. In the truck and to the ER. We had all hopes of them saying "Yeah, Here is some more stuff, She just pulled her muscle REALLY bad." They didn't say that. What they DID say however is... "We aren't sure what is wrong with your physically effed up daughter because her body is like a total weirdo thing and we're trying new stuff" I may be paraphrasing ."But we're going to do blood work and ultra sounds and X Rays and Oh hell, Let's do a CT Scan too. We haven't used that machine in a while. We aren't sure what's wrong, But no one is leaving until we are."
Then we get the fantastic news that her appendix, WHICH has shown no signs of anything, has ruptured. And she's like, Septic and shit. Surgery, ASAP. Ok, This is a fairly routine thing. We'll have it done and that's that. Riiiiiight? Wrong motherfucker. We were in that hospital for 24 days!
4 days after the FIRST, yes that says first surgery, She begins throwing up AGAIN! It's that nasty dark green, infection filled puke too. You know what I'm talking about. "We're doing ANOTHER blood test and another CT Scan in the morning." And then, AND THEN..... "There is more infection and 4 abscesses in your daughter because she is some weird freak of nature and the antibiotics aren't working. again, paraphrasing We're going back in!"
The next morning, She's rolled downstairs and into surgery. They go in with their little sucky thing and get the infection out. She comes back with 3 drain tubes hanging out of her stomach. Oh and she's totally fucked up because she got the good pharmaceuticals. We sat in that hospital for 24 days. Me watching and not being able to do anything and trying to do what I could Just try and eat something, I'll change the dressings, You have to get up and walk, No I said that medicine doesn't work, Don't make me make you visit the ER. And her, Coughing crap up, Crying from the pain, Hitting her Dilaudid button, Getting nauseous when they flushed her drains, Irritated from sitting in that room, Getting depressed because none of her friends came to see her after the first week. My friends came. But that's different.
24 days. I never left the hospital but once and for about 45 minutes. I watched my daughter lose about 20 pounds in 24 days.
On a serious note. I never, And I mean never want to go through anything like that again. You don't realize how helpless you are until your child is that sick and you can't do anything. Not a fucking thing.
On the plus side, I'm glad to see you're back on here writing.. but I hate that she had to go through all of this. Too bad doctors can't remove appendixes at birth (or at an age where the drugs are fun enough to enjoy) to save all of that possible hell later on in life.
ReplyDelete