Chloe's Surgery Part 1

Well, anyone who has been on Facebook lately knows that Chloe has been in the hospital. It all started last Sunday after church when she began complaining of an upset stomach. I should start by saying that Saturday, she had a play date with a friend from school and they were everywhere. They played, they ran, laughed, ate, etc. So, on Sunday, I thought that maybe we were dealing with hunger pains or possibly a 24 hour bug. I had no idea that stomach ache would land us in the hospital prepping for surgery.
By Sunday night, Chloe had been throwing up and was writhing around on the couch in pain. She was whimpering and couldn’t get comfortable. For Chloe to be showing that much pain – that’s a big deal! She is a tough little cookie who only cries if she’s feeling emotional – not from pain. At around 7pm, we decided to take her to Good Night Pediatrics. She was crying and couldn’t walk out to the car. Lowell carried her out and we wrapped her in a blanket. While I was driving, she fell asleep and was still sleeping when we got to the doctor’s. I hesitated to even take her in, I figured that maybe sleeping would help and she would wake up fine. She said she was feeling a little better, but she still thought she needed to see the doctor. (Honestly, my hesitation was financial – none of the kids are insured and I didn’t want to go pay $150 for them to tell me she had the flu… Terrible what we have to think about – choosing between our children’s health and money..) So I decided to take her in. I, blessedly, got a parking spot right in front, and went in the office before her and signed her in. There were about 35 people in the waiting room and I didn’t think it would be good to wake her up if I could leave her in the car until they were ready to see her. I explained her symptoms to the lady at the front desk and she suggested that Chloe be seen immediately. Instead of charging me for the visit, they took her back to the triage area where she was seen by the doctor. He said that he thought the risk was too great and that it was all too possible that she might have a problem with her appendix so he wasn’t comfortable with her being seen there and suggested that we go straight to the emergency room. They directed us to Banner Thunderbird hospital and said that they’d call ahead so that the children’s emergency department would be ready for us.
On the way to the hospital, Chloe fell asleep again. When we got to the ER, it was quite a walk from the nearest parking spot to the door and she wasn’t very happy with the fact that I couldn’t carry her. She did a great job, only complaining a little bit and then curled up in the waiting room. Again, we didn’t have to wait long before they took us back to triage. Chloe got an IV (didn’t cry) and they took blood and set her up with IV fluids. Then they scheduled a CT scan to take a better look at her appendix. The doctor said that “Clinically, she had appendicitis, we just need the CT to prove it.” So we waited and waited and waited…. Chloe slept a little here and there but basically we just watched tv and waited for the call to have a CT scan. The doctor came in a couple hours later and stated that she was furious that she had placed the order for the scan and also for IV antibiotics 2 hours before and nothing had been done. So, she decided to admit Chloe based on her findings. She said that even if the CT didn’t show appendicitis, she would need to stay for 12-18 hours to have another CT just to be sure. So, we waiting another hour or so and then got taken upstairs to a room in the pediatric ward. The CT scan didn’t come until 7am but when it did – it confirmed that Chloe definitely had appendicitis and, likely, her appendix had already burst. So, the surgeon PA came in to speak with us and get us prepared for what the day would bring. Surgery was scheduled for 12pm. We were told that Chloe would be put under anesthesia and that the procedure would be done laproscopically. She was supposed to be in surgery for about 1 hour unless they found something significantly wrong. We saw the surgeon about 75 minutes after surgery started. He let us know that, yes her appendix had ruptured and that her stomach was quite full of pus and junk. They used 5 liters of fluid to wash out her belly and removed the junk that they found. He said that she was doing just fine and that we would be able to see her as soon as she came out of anesthesia.