Appendicitis Part II

Just to give the most accurate picture, it should be noted that Ava is scared out of her mind for regular visits to the pediatrician.  Having a thermometer swiped across her forehead is anxiety provoking, getting her ears checked is torture, and shots? Don't even go there. She cannot stick her own finger in her own belly button.  I don't do the best in medical situations, but Ava blows me right out of the water.

But that little bunny was a trooper.  After a painful and restless night in the hospital, Ava was taken into surgery.   She was so concerned with the anesthesia and kept asking me how she would know when to wake up.

"Your body just knows," I told her.

"But what if it wakes up in the middle of the surgery?" she pressed.  My heart ached for her because I remember wondering those same things myself prior to my first surgery.  I wished I could take it all away.

But as I mentioned in the last post, at the same time, part of me felt reassured that we were in the right place and things were progressing as they should.  She was so sick, this was the way for her to get better.

A little more than halfway through the operation, Dan arrived.  We were there together when the surgeon came out to discuss what she'd found.  She came bearing photographs.  She knelt down in front of us and said, "She did fine, but it was really bad" and then she started through the pictures.  The infection and pus had spread near and far. She said, the appendix was "rotten," a fact we could clearly see right along with goop-covered organs and widespread inflammation.  "She'll be here at least a week for treatment with IV antibiotics."  That conversation took a little wind from our sails. And then we got to see her.

My little Ava  was swollen.  Her face was gray with red patches.  She had tubes from every direction.  And she just whimpered and cried.

My stomach turned over and I thought I might be sick. And of all the jobs of a mom, not giving in to emotion for the sake of your child, is a hard one.

Common in situations like hers, the digestive system kind of shuts down and "goes to sleep".  They placed an NG tube down her nose, into her stomach.  This would allow the bowels complete rest by pumping out all manner of everything.  She was to have nothing by mouth.  No medicine, no ice chips, no water, no food.  Meanwhile, two big plastic containers hung behind her bed were filling up with black liquid that had been sucked out of her tummy.

Those first two days were miserable.  For everyone.  She wanted the tubes off and out (the NG tube, the oxygen, the IV, and the catheter) and while they did take her off oxygen fairly quickly the others remained absolutely necessary.

I don't blame her one bit, but my girl was in the foulest mood.  At the beginning she decided that the only thing in the whole world that she wanted was to watch Lady and the Tramp on the ipod.  Well, she was way too weak to even attempt to hold it herself, let alone sit up to watch, so Dan (Father of the Year) sat by her bedside and held it up for her the whole time.  Twice.

 She wasn't even watching  for the most part, she drifted off into her own world, but if Dan dared to move his arm or tried to set it down, she was on him like a wolf.

She wanted to be petted and snuggled, which was a challenge given all her fetters.  She wanted me to keep my face by her face.

We were desperate to do whatever she needed or wanted.  She was just so pitiful.

The second day they ordered a picc line be put in.  It is similar to the IV, only with a much longer catheter that goes from the arm all the way up the shoulder and  into a central vein near the heart.  The antibiotics would have been too rough on the veins with a regular IV, which would have necessitated reinserting an IV over and over again in different spots.  So the picc line was the best option.  Unfortunately she had to be sedated for that on the second day, and we seemed to loose any steam for recovery that we had gained.

And then I witnessed an interesting phenomenon.  The doctor came in on the third day where Ava was lying so miserably.  He ordered out all the tubes (expect the picc) and told her she had to get up and walk around.  She had been made to walk the tiniest amount the day before, (from the bed to the chair right next to it) and it was like climbing Mt. Everest to her.  But there he stood casually indicating all the tubes that had been so requisite just a few hours before, saying, "This ones gone, this ones gone, this one too.  Ava you're not sick anymore.  If you get up and walk you can have a popscicle. The fastest way for you to get better is to start walking."  When what he said had finally registered, she was moving around like an Olympic athlete. Well, maybe like an Olympic athlete who'd just had surgery. I'd never seen such a thing.  She was so excited!

Now I was the one who was nervous.  Can she handle this?  Doesn't she need those tubes? But there is truth to the idea that if you act sick or you're treated like you're sick, you feel sick.

But with determination in her step we made our rounds of the 4th  floor.  Each day she was doing more.Visiting the fish tank in the playroom was always our first destination.

 She would wear herself out and we'd go back to her room to rest.

Eating came slowly.  She just wasn't very hungry.  And then when the fevers would plague her at night, taking Tylenol would cause her to throw up whatever she'd managed to consume in the day.  

  We had been waiting and waiting for a bowel movement to see that her digestive system was getting back on track. I won't be forgetting her little voice as she called to me with excitement from the bathroom, "I pooped! I finally pooped!" and then with some hesitation in her voice, "Well, it is poop but it's kind of more like a swamp."

Towards the end of her stay, the doctor came in to Ava's room.  She had just finished a marathon walk through the hospital.  She was tired.  But he came in and said, "Ava, I need you to do me a favor.  There's this kid.  He's 10.  He's shuffling around the halls out there, moaning and whining about how he can't walk.  He had the same surgery as you, but yours was much worse.  So here's what I need you to do: Go find him.  And then just take your IV pole and walk past him really strong and fast.  He needs to see that a six year old girl is tougher than him."

So she climbed out of her bed and started pushing.  We found him.  I tried to offer him and his mother some encouragement.  His mother commented how fast and well Ava was walking and I wished I had a sock to stuff in Ava's mouth when she said, "Yeah, and my surgery was way worse than yours.  My appendix exploded!" She was just doing what she'd been told I guess, but a little more humility might have been nice.

It was definitely frustrating to be so far from home.  Especially since there is a nice new beautiful hospital just 10 minutes from our house.  But after spending 6 days at  the children's hospital I realized what an amazing blessing that actually was.  Not only was the staff totally accustomed to dealing with little bodies and minds, the place was equipped with all the comforts a kid could ask for.  I can't imagine spending the time we did in the blank spaces of the regular hospital.

The only thing holding us back from being discharged was the dreaded fever.  She had to be fever free for 24 hours before we could leave.  Lingering fevers after a rupture can be a sign of an abscess so they are monitored closely.  Finally on Saturday afternoon she made it to 30 hours fever free.  A quick blood test confirmed that the infection was under rein.  And we loaded up our cart to go home.

We couldn't leave though without following through with the Build a Bear Promise.  Build a Bear is no dummy and they put one of their stores right inside the children's hospital.  So on our way out, me and Grandpa followed Ava around as she built her new, ridiculously expensive dog, Chilly.

And I swear, the a truer look of happiness has not been seen as we headed home.

And when we finally got there, we found that happiness, the passing landscape, and all of her hard work had lulled her into a contented sleep.