Kurt's Appendix (or lack thereof)

Sunday night Kurt started having pretty bad stomach pains. He was pretty sure he had food poisoning due to a questionable jalapeno pepper he ate with his fried chicken for dinner. He ended up spending the whole night in the bathroom and in a lot of pain. The next morning he called in sick. I just assumed that he was exhausted from being up all night. He called Kaiser's Advice Nurse and they both agreed is was probably just the stomach flu or food poisoning, but if the pain persisted for another 5-6 hours to call back. So, I left Kurt at this point and took Kelsie to her 'well check' appointment I had scheduled. When I returned, Kurt looked awful and he was in too much pain to get himself up to get water or anything else to eat. After some juice, apples, and bread he looked a little bit better. An hour or so later Kurt was still in a lot of pain so he called the Advice Nurse again. The pain was now isolated to his lower abdomen. Our regular doctor was booked with appointments, so they suggested we go straight to the ER. I called my friend Rachel and asked if she would watch the kids for a little while so I could take Kurt to the doctor to make sure he DIDN'T have appendicitis.
After waiting in the ER waiting room for about an hour, they finally took Kurt back to examine him. The ER was abnormally busy for a Monday afternoon, so Kurt was placed on a gurney in the hallway (and I got to stand) for hours. The doctor took a look at Kurt and was 95% sure he needed to have his appendix taken out. They ran a couple other tests and then had the surgeon come take a look. Dr. Ramirez (the surgeon) was also certain it was appendicitis. He hoped to get Kurt in right away, maybe after about 15 minutes. I then called our friend Noa and asked if he could come down to give Kurt a blessing before going into surgery. He grabbed our friend Jeff and they were on their way. Right before the guys showed up all sorts of fun stuff happened, and we had a great view since we were in the hallway. A car drove up to the ambulance parking and 3 teenage boys got out and hobbled through the door. One collapsed and hit his head on something as he fell down. The car then drove off. (I found a little bit about what happened here - http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/east_bay&id=7293565 But the story I overheard from one of the parents was a little different. The scariest thing to me is that the stabbing occurred in a park that I take the kids to all the time. And it was during daylight hours!)

So Kurt's 15 minute wait for surgery turned into a 2-3 hour wait. His surgeon was called up to perform surgery on one of the boys. The rest of our ER stay was filled with a police officer and lots of extra security officers.

Around 10pm, Kurt FINALLY went into surgery. The surgery was laproscopic and took about an hour. A little before 11pm the surgeon came out and said things went well but that Kurt did have a little bit a fluid in his abdomen which meant his appendix had ruptured. Upon arrival in the ER they were fairly certain it hadn't ruptured yet so my guess is that it probably happened while he was waiting for his surgery. It upset me a little bit, but I suppose the kid with the knife wound to his intestines probably needed the surgery more than Kurt did at the moment.

Shortly after my visit with the surgeon, Bishop Lee showed up and kept me company until Kurt was out of recovery. Can I just mention we have the BEST Bishop ever? We got to go see him at about 11:30pm. He was pretty groggy and he vaguely remembers us being there. I stayed for a while longer and helped Kurt get settled in and answered all of the nurse's questions. Once he was pretty much out for the night I left (around 2am). Unfortunately, when I got home I was wired, so I did the dishes, took out the garbage, and sent out some important emails.

The next morning I packed up some clothes and supplies for the kids and dropped them off at Rachel's house. My wonderful sister-in-law Anissa agreed to drive over and take the kids until Kurt was out of the hospital.
When I arrived at the hospital, Kurt was still pretty out of it. They mentioned on Monday there was a chance he could go home on Tuesday afternoon, but I was pretty certain that wouldn't be happening. He was having a hard time breathing (he said the nurse had to wake him up and tell him to breathe a couple of times because he dropped out of consciousness and the alarms started going off) and could not get out of bed. He also took several shots of Morphine that made him sleepy and a little out of it.
As the day progressed he was looking better and better. Once he found out they wouldn't let him leave the hospital until he could walk down the hall, he was up for trying it. We did 3 laps in the afternoon/evening. He also had his first real meal since Sunday night - a cheeseburger, etc. for dinner. He had a few other pick-me-ups too - President Gingery stopped by to visit and said his wife (my VT) would be bringing us a meal Wednesday night. My sister's family and my mom sent him a "Get Well" balloon and teddy bear that brightened up the room. I then decided to come home and sleep Tuesday night but once again didn't get to sleep until 2am. Our bed sheets felt gross from Kurt sweating in the them the previous day and a half and our house was a mess. So I washed our sheets, started some laundry, and vacuumed. (I figured it would be easier to do without Kurt and the kids to worry about.)
I finally made it back to the hospital around 9am and he looked great. The surgeon came to see him and said he'd be able to leave that morning. Kurt was able to walk to the bathroom (slowly) without help. We made it home around 1pm and both took a LONG much needed nap!

Kurt can't drive with his current medication and is still pretty sore. He'll be home at least through next Wednesday. The kids will also be coming home tomorrow morning. We're excited to see them, but will have to make sure Kurt doesn't do any lifting and that Logan doesn't "boom" Daddy's belly.