Ringing in the New Year!

We had an exciting New Year's, Liam ended up in the hospital needing an appendectomy. The story goes like this. Thursday December 30th, I took all 3 kids to see the movie Tangled. We were at the 4 o'clock show and Liam complained about a tummy ache right at the beginning and cuddled up next to me the rest of the movie without any more complaint. When the movie was over we went home and he started to complain that his tummy was hurting again. I gave him ideas like maybe try to go to the bathroom, take a warm bath, go lie down. Well, he did all of those things and ended up falling asleep about 8 that night. Well about 8:40 I hear a blood curdling scream from his room and of course I go running in there to see what is going on. He is sitting up and in a lot of pain. After talking to him and narrowing down where exactly the pain is I ran into the other room and told Devin that I think he needs to go to Urgent Care, he quickly gets dressed and I get Liam dressed and ready. I tell Devin that I think it's his appendix while secretly hoping it was just gas. He went into Urgent care, I stayed home with the girls, because he was in so much pain they take him back right away and start running through questions and possibilities. I get a text from Devin that they think it's strep throat to which I replied "It's his appendix, I know it is!" The Dr. there finally tells Devin he needs to go straight to the E.R. at Cardon's Children's Hospital and she would call ahead and let them know they were on their way. She now thinks it could be his appendix, and the Hospital was better equipped to run the tests that needed to be run to figure it out. When they arrived at the hospital (about 11 p.m.) the Dr.'s were waiting for them and they immediately started X-Ray's, CAT scans, ultrasounds. They also started an IV and were able to give him Morphine for the pain, which quickly allowed him to sleep comfortably. They were still going back and forth between Strep and appendix, and about 2 a.m. it was decided that he had appendicitis and he would have surgery in a few hours to remove his appendix. None of us slept that night and our parent's and Julie got very little sleep. Ryleigh ended up going to Grandma McCoy's house to spend the night and I kept Meghan who slept through it all. I dropped Meg off with Julie about 6:30 a.m. and got to the hospital by 7. Surgery was scheduled for 9 but didn't end up happening until about 45 minutes later.

Liam was so brave through it all, which really surprised us, but I am so glad because that helped make it easier for us!

This is right after surgery, the first thing he said while coming out of anesthesia was,
"Where are my underwear?"
He is a very modest boy.

It was really hard to see my baby with all of these things hooked up to him!

He had to take walks, which was really painful for him at times.
I can vouch for him, walking after abdominal surgery IS very painful!

He asked me once "if we could just park this thing?" (his IV pole)

He got to take out his own IV, he was really excited to get it out!

Some of his favorite things about his Hospital stay were:
1. Being pushed around in his bed.
2. laying around watching movie after movie!
3. As much juice, Popsicles and smoothies as he wanted.

What he hated most:
1. Peeing in a urinal every time he had to go.
2. The IV and everything else he was hooked up to.
3. Coughing!!!!

When they checked him out, they recommended he walk out on his own but that if he needed to they would push him in a wheelchair. Of course he picks the wheelchair, and says to me "I just wanted to see what it was like!" He is so funny! He had a lot of great visitors, we are very lucky to be part of such a loving family!