Monday night around supper time, while I was embarrassing myself at Zumba for the first (read: last) time, Savannah was home starting to feel rather yucky. By the time I got home she was in tears. But anyone who knows my Savvy knows that she tends to exaggerate her aches and pains. Just the way she is. Something about the pain, and the tears, however, seemed legit.
I examined her with my limited knowledge, and determined that a "wait and see" approach was necessary. She had abdominal pain, nausea and a headache. And generally felt really bad. Flash forward to Tuesday morning, and I walked down the stairs to find a crying Savvy laid up on the couch, where she had been since just after 5 a.m. I sent her to bed to rest, and checked on her periodically.
About 10 a.m., she started with the fever. Still had the other symptoms, but more pain, and 102° fever. The fever is what made the call for me. I've never had any child have a fever with a stomach virus, and she still wasn't vomiting or anything else nasty.
So off we went to the urgent care doctor in the nearby small city of Virginia, and the doctor there did his exam. He suspected appendicitis, and told me to head on over to the emergency room. The ER doctor also had the same exam results. The CT scan she had a few hours later confirmed their suspicions: appendicitis with a leaking appendix.
Thankfully, the surgical team had been given a heads-up before the CT scan was even performed. The same surgeon that did my vein surgery back in November was the one on-call for Savvy, and I was thankful that I knew him and knew he'd do a good job.
Savvy's recovering well this morning. I stayed at home with the kids, since I still have a little booby vampire that likes me close in the bed at night, and Jesse stayed with Savvy. Her pain this morning was down to a 1 on the chart, after a dose of morphine at 11 p.m. last night and a night's sleep.
Here's the divine intervention part.
Last week we had a little scare with Jed. Yeah, follow me if you can. I'll try to keep it simple.
Jed has ear infection. --> Jed takes amoxicillin. --> Day 8 of antibiotics, Jed breaks out in head to toe rash. --> Jed is determined to be allergic to the meds, put on different ones. --> I come home and research amoxicillin rash, and find out that it can be an indicator of mononucleosis. --> Savvy has had all the symptoms of the very contagious virus, mono. --> I take her in to get tested because we have a birthday party planned for the weekend and I didn't want to spread germs. --> She has strep test, monospot test, and a complete blood count workup. All normal.
Now we're back to yesterday at the ER, where the doctor has done a urinalysis and another CBC to test her white blood cell count. The reports come back that she did have some white blood cells in her urine, and the blood test showed the levels to be on the upper range of normal. But it's also normal for kids to have higher wbc counts because of all the stuff their bodies fight on a daily basis.
The doctor wasn't convinced just based on the lab results that she had a serious infection. BUT (here's the cool part ... ) she had a CBC just last week that was "normal". And I thought, hey, I'll have the clinic fax over her results from last week so we can compare the two levels a week apart. Last week, the count was 7.7. Yesterday in the ER, up to 13.
I'm convinced that last week's motherly paranoia was a God-send. I'm also thankful for high fevers that got my butt in gear and got her to the hospital before the appendix ruptured. Because it was already leaking, and five times its normal size. Rupture was imminent. God is good.
God is so good that he designed her little body to be able to wall off a leaking infection to keep it from running rampant in her gut.
I'm simply humbled at His great design, and thankful for that little nagging voice in my head that said, no demanded, that I get her to a doctor and soon.
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