INFLAMED!!!

We had quite an eventful week, starting on Monday.  Following our emails to friends and family regarding Joshua's appendectomy.

Day 1

We have had a busy day, and I wanted to update everyone on Joshua's condition.

Early this morning, Josh woke up with right lower quadrant abdominal pain, and was restless the rest of the night. This morning, after Chris went off to school, Cathy took him into the pediatrician, who immediately sent him to Rainbow Babies/Children's Hospital here in Cleveland. After blood work (with an elevated blood count), a CT scan, and a lot of poking and prodding, the surgeons were pretty sure he had an inflamed appendix.

Joshua went into surgery around 4:45 this afternoon, and after almost 1 1/2 hours, everything came out fine. Turns out his appendix had wrapped around his intestine, and that caused his inflammation. He was able to have a laparoscopy done, and this will shorten his recovery period due to the smaller incisions. I left shortly after 8pm tonight, and Josh was still quite sedated, but does wake to his name. He is obviously quite sore, and they will continue to medicate him to help keep the edge off. Cathy is spending tonight with him.

I will be getting Chris off to school tomorrow morning, then going up to the hospital for the day. If Josh stays another night, I will spend tomorrow night with him. Chris has been a helpful big brother by getting homework done on his own and staying with friends these evenings.

Thank you in advance for your prayers for a quick healing with minimal pain for Josh. We will keep you updated on his condition and on when he is able to get home.

Jim

Day 2

Last night was kind of rough for our little guy. He had a pretty restless sleep, even with his pain meds. Cathy said they both slept best after 5am or so, till about 7:30. He was on a maintenance dose of Morphine till noon or so today, now is just using Tylenol with Codiene, which seems to be keeping the pain down.

I got to the hospital around 10 this morning, and the 3 of us watched movies, did some puzzles, and played board games most of the day. Josh was able to get up and walk twice this afternoon. Once for a very short walk, and the 2nd time for a walk to the playroom. He finally fell to sleep late this afternoon, and was still asleep when I left to pick up Chris, who stayed with our friends Brad and Asha for the early part of the evening (thanks to them also for hosting a great dinner for Chris and I tonight!!!)

The docs say he is healing nicely, but want to see him have some sort of bowel movement before they are confident of his leaving the hospital. Josh had a dinner of jello, and a lot of apple juice over the course of the day. I think tomorrow will be more hopeful for his return home. Cathy decided to stay again tonight, so I returned home to help Chris with homework and get him on the bus tomorrow.

We'll keep in touch, thanks for your prayers, phone calls, and support.

Jim

Final Day

After a good morning breakfast of eggs, bacon, and cereal (his first real meal since Sunday evening), Joshua got the go-ahead to be discharged. We played some games in the playroom while we waited for the paperwork to be completed, and then got out of the hospital clothes and into some comfortable personal items!!

Joshua was grinning ear to ear when we got the news (he seems to like hospitals about the same as his Papa does), and slept just about all the way home. Right now he is doing some coloring projects with Cathy, and we are waiting for Chris to get home from school.

Thanx again for your prayers thru this week. They meant more to us than you could imagine.