I don't know how many people actually read our blog, but thought this might be a good way to give the full story of Will's emergency appendectomy. (For the record, I'm not sure we can call it an 'emergency' b/c some of the folks at the hospital were moving slower than molasses when it came time to get him admitted, scanned, etc.)
Will had been having abdominal pain since the Monday before Thanksgiving. He thought it was a GI bug, but didn't feel sick enough to miss work. The pain came and went for a few days but he was able to enjoy Thanksgiving and the following weekend. The pain came back pretty strong late last week and he spent all weekend in bed thinking, again, that it was a GI bug. But, he never had the symptoms for that (vomitting and diarrhea), so he made an appt. with a doctor on Monday morning.
The doctor appt was yesterday (Wed) morning. Will called me at school around 10am and asked me to come meet him b/c they were pretty sure he had appendicitis and were ordering a CT scan. We met with the surgeon while waiting for the CT scan. (Will said he will apologize the next time he orders a scan for one of his patients b/c it was a most unpleasant experience.) Dr. Wallace told us that he suspected a perforated appendix which meant that they would not be able to do the prodecure with a laporascope (who knows if I spelled that correctly!?).
After the CT scan, we were sent on a bit of a wild goose chase - first to the internist's office, then the surgeon's office, then over to Day Surgery in another building, then back down to admitting. And, that's when my dear friend Gay showed up with Kristin, one of the priests from Palmer! It was about 1:30 by then, but took another hour or so to be admitted - so long that the surgeon came down to see what the hold up was. Gay & Kristin stayed with us while we waited to be admitted and Kristin said a prayer for us before she left.
Once we got back up to Day Surgery, the nurses started poking and prodding and asking the same questions over and over. Fr. Nutter, the rector at Palmer came by just before they pushed Will over to the holding area for anasthesia. We said another prayer together. The surgery went smoothly late yesterday afternoon and he made it to a room about 10pm. (To be honest, the surgery was pretty tough, according to Dr. Wallace, but the details are a bit gory so I'll leave the details out here.) It took another 30+ minutes for the nurse to come in, which had to happen before I was going to feel comfortable leaving him for the night. When we left, though, he was resting relatively comfortably and seemed to be pretty coherent.
Olivia seemed a bit concerned about the whole thing, but once she realized that Daddy was OK, she was mostly upset that she missed choir and pizza at church last night. McIver hasn't really missed a beat other than to say he just wanted to "give Daddy a hug BEFORE he went to the doctor." They are excited to visit later today b/c there is a McDonalds (with a promise of ice cream), an electric train and a playground (and the temps here are 70+ and rising - argh!).
I spent all morning with Will and he is doing great. His fever is down (only 101-ish) and his spirits are good. We went for a walk around the 15th floor and washed his hair. He welcomed visitors - Jim (Fr. Nutter) came back by with Fr. Sam, and Linda Lund, Palmer's Pastoral Care Coordinator, and later, his fellow fellows.
I did hear from O's school that she was having a bit of hard day. (She's probably tired b/c she woke up about 5:30 this am!) They had a bad-weater drill which, combined with everything else, sent her over the edge. She was OK by the time I talked to her and was excited to go to French class. So, I let her stay at school and will pick her up shortly so that we can head back for a visit. She's taking a few Christmas presents for Dad to open early - a book and a picture of O & Mac!
Please continue praying for Will's recovery and for the team who is taking care of him. (I gave his day nurse, Mercy, a package of our ECW SINammon pecans which were a hit!)
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