Adiós, Appendix

On Monday Owen woke up with a slight fever and was complaining that his stomach was hurting.  I figured that he had a stomach virus and so I asked my Mom to watch him instead of send him to school.  When I went to pick him up that afternoon, Mama said that she didn't think it was a virus because he wasn't throwing up. Instead, he was grabbing his side and acting like it hurt to walk.  She suggested that it may be his appendix.  So, I took Owen to the doctor's office for him to be checked out.  The doctor examined Owen, and ruled out a virus.  She said she couldn't tell if there was something wrong internally without blood work- and they didn't do that at the office.  She suggested that we go to the emergency room.  And so we did.  We arrived in the ER at 7:30 and we sat... and sat... and sat for several hours.  During this time, they took a blood sample and ordered a CT scan.  Finally, the doctor came in and told us that Owen had acute appendicitis and that she had already called in the surgeon on-call.  As soon as she left the room, a parade of hospital staff began filtering in to prep our little buddy for his appendectomy.  I know he had to be miserable, but he was a real trooper.  They rolled Owen back to the operating room a little after midnight and he was out of surgery about an hour later.  He had to spend some time in recovery, so it wasn't until after 2 a.m. that we were able to see him- and he was zonked out.  Poor fellow.  He did great, though, and was even allowed to come home about 12 hours after surgery.  He is still recovering, but he seems to be bouncing back fast.  Still, he will be out of school for the rest of the week.  Monday was certainly a rough day for little Owen, and I am glad that it is behind us.