On my 31st birthday, I stayed home from work with Cora because she was not feeling well and was feverish. I ended up taking her in because she was getting a bit lethargic and seemed to be pulling on her ears, so I suspected an ear infection. It turned out that she did in fact have an infection and so we got some antibiotics for her. She didn’t really improve much after the first doses, and the next morning, after she ate and had a dose, she threw up. I thought maybe the antibiotics were bothering her tummy. But then a little later, after she was having these times where she was obviously in pain, and she hadn’t gone pee the whole day, I started to worry that she was getting dehydrated and that something else was wrong. It got worse and worse in a couple hours, and then she ate again, and threw up again, which then I realized it wasn’t the medicine.
I called the doctor and said I wanted to come in because something was wrong. At first they tried to reassure me that she was probably fine, but then the nurse heard her suddenly start crying, and she realized how painful her cry sounded, and she said we should probably come in, which I was going to do anyway. We got there, and the doctor kind of checked her out and said everything seemed fine, and he first thought her crying was “stranger anxiety” but I asked him to please wait and I said that her crying would just suddenly stop. It did, and she reached out for him and wanted his stethoscope, and he did another check and this time realized that she did have some tenderness in her abdomen. I almost cried just because finally there was SOMEthing that could possibly be something and give us some answers.
I had already wondered if possibly she even had appendicitis or something, and the doctor said that was possible, but there were other things too. We got sent down to get an ultrasound, and the ultrasound tech made a sort of groan sound and I knew he found something. I asked if he would please just tell me, I could handle it, and so he did. He said he couldn’t tell me an official diagnosis, but he told me what he thought they would tell me, and what would happen. He said that she had an intussusception and that they didn’t take care of them in Corvallis.
I then had to call some friends to go get Jeff from daycare, and then was told I actually wasn’t only having to out of town, but I would have to go to Portland, and I would have to get in the ambulance right then and go have an air enema or possible surgery if that was not successful.
Of course I was so worried, but I kind of had to just get over it and do what I needed to to and pay attention to everything. I haven’t mentioned yet that as well as all of this going on, Kirby was in Sweden for work…..yeah. Great, huh?
There are many more details, but the rest of the story is that we made it to Portland and the air enema worked perfectly, and I got to actually be there for the whole thing and even kind of assist. It was pretty amazing. We were there for a couple more days to make sure everything was as it should be.
I remember having things put in perspective on the way to our recovery room, passing many cancer kids, some of whom were there in their final days, comfortable but dying. I was so so so so thankful that through this whole ordeal, my little baby was going to be just fine, and was not going to be prone to having this ever again any more than any other kid. Many parents aren’t as lucky.
Cora got home and Kirby got home from Sweden not long after, and he said if I hadn’t told him he would have never even known something had happened. It was nice to have my healthy girl again!
I want to say the biggest THANK YOU I can to our friends Mike and Staci: for taking care of Jefferson that whole time, and to Mike for coming up to Portland and staying the whole time in a hotel down the road, checking in on me and Cora, bringing me meals and coffee, getting my stuff from home like my phone charger and some clothes, and sorry to him that it was seriously about the messiest it has ever been at my house (because of course when your husband’s gone and your kids are sick and you haven’t showered and you suddenly have to leave, that’s when someone will have to go to your house and get things for you.) :) ha! THANK YOU. I am forever grateful for what they did for my family!!
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