"This is the end of my life!"

Max started complaining that his stomach was hurting right before dinner. He had no appetite and wanted to go to bed...but he couldn't walk there his pain was so bad. I carried him into bed where he sat crying for 10 minutes before he fell asleep. I went to attend to the other kids when I hear Max waking up by screaming in pain. He was hysterical (not that abnormal for Max), but he was also begging to go to the doctor (VERY abnormal for Max). I tried to find out where the pain was coming from and when I tried to touch his belly he freaked out. He pointed to his belly button as to where the pain was originating from, but then when I tried to lightly touch his stomach it was obvious the pain was predominantly on his right side.

This is when I start to get a little nervous. David was at a football game with his mom, my sister is taking 11 thirteen year old girls to a haunted house, my two neighbors are nowhere to be found. I call my good friend Jenn and she informs me that she is checking out from Target but can be here in 5 minutes. I get all the kids ready while Max is screaming and crying to hurry and take him to the doctor because "life was ending and he was facing his doom" (literally his words).

Jenn comes, and magically takes the kids and reduces my stress 100 fold. We get into the emergency room and they put in an IV (which was hilarious as he was screaming "where am I, where am I" as the needle is put in (I had to shove my face into the mattress from laughing so hard). They take a urine sample and then we go back to the ultrasound room. Max gets a thorough exam of his intestines where the tech points out to me that there is a lot of gas build-up in his abdomen. Yes, gas.

When we got back to the exam room Max starts tooting like a machine. It was extremely impressive. The doctor came in and the "aura" in the air gave him a clear (murky?) indication of what he was dealing with. While his white blood count was elevated, he said the fact that Max was smiling and seemed to be in better spirits was a good sign. We left the hospital with the IV still intact. He told us to monitor him for the next 12 hours and if he doesn't get worse then we can remove the IV. (They think his white blood count was up because he got the flu-mist vaccine on Thursday).

All in all I felt a little silly for taking him in for a gas bubble, but I also felt relieved that I did see the signs, I didn't ignore them....and all signs did point to appendicitis.

"Reporting on their review of the frequency of the most common symptoms of actual appendicitis in children, the researchers concluded that beyond fever, the most telltale signs are 'rebound' tenderness or pain that occurs after pressure is removed abruptly from the lower right part of the abdomen; abdominal pain that starts around the belly button and migrates down and to the right; and an elevated white blood cell count (10,000 or more per microliter), which is a marker of infection in the body." (Taken from Medical News Today website).

I'm so thankful for modern medicine.

And I'm so thankful that all my boy had was gas.

Phew!