Stevens: Our family tale: ....Continued

The continuation of 2 Months.......

June 14th..... We were awaken by Bobby at 3 am. He told us he vomited in the bathroom and that now his hips were hurting. We cleaned him and it up. We checked his temperature (102*F) gave him some fever reducing medicine and back to bed we all went.

6:45 am........Bobby woke up crying. We got up to check on him. He still had a fever. We asked him if it was still his stomach and hips that were bothering him. He told us all the pain moved to just his right side. *DING DING DING* Then we knew exactly what it was. We woke everyone up and got them in their seats. We searched for the nearest children's hospital.

Our plans to tour around Kirtland that morning turned into a trip to the emergency room. Luckily we weren't too far from Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital, in Cleveland, Ohio.

After we found it we had to figure out how to get our RV around the campus and to find the ER entrance. Colt dropped Bobby, my Mom and myself off on the side of the road near one of the entrances to the hospital, while he drove around looking for somewhere to park a 37 foot RV.

Turned out we were on the wrong end. After following signs we made it to the ER. The nurse called Bobby back to triage, before I even got a chance to fill out the paperwork. They had him back in a room right after triage. The resident came in and checked him out right away. She said it did look and sound like an appendicitis but that her attending had to say for sure. The attending came in and did the same exact exam and agreed with the findings. The attending said they were going to skip the scan and just call straight up to peds surgery. The on call surgeon and her residents were down to Bobby's room in 5 minutes. She also said no scan was needed based on the exam and his story of how the pain started and progressed.

A nurse came and drew labs and started an IV. I tried calling Colt so he could come give Bobby a blessing before they took him to the OR, but there was no cell service in the hospital. My Mom left to go find him.

Colt was still circling the hospital when my mom was outside and got as signal. She told him there were 3 spots open in a row but that he would have to parallel park. Colt is amazing and perfectly parallel parked our rv, like a BOSS!(or so I was told). He made it to us just in time. We had to ask the nurses to stop wheeling Bobby away so we could say a prayer and give him a blessing. They were very kind and understood.

We followed them up to pre-op where they took one more set of vitals and the doctors came to talk to us about what they were going to do.

It was a very slow day for the staff there because while we waited the pre-op/post op nurses sat and talked to us about our life. They were very interested to hear all about our traveling life and all the place that we had been to. They thought it was pretty cool. While we were waiting for Bobby we had to figure out what were going to do with our RV and where we were going to stay while we were in Cleveland.

That parallel parking job Colt did was a metered 1 hour only parking spot. I stayed in the waiting room while Colt went and figured out what to do with our RV. We were very lucky that the doctors, staff and security personal were all willing to help us out with that matter. The head of security took Colt around in his car and showed him all the places we could stay for the next 3 days while Bobby was recovering. As luck would have it, the stop where the Ronald McDonald house RV normally parked was open because their RV was in the shop. Tender mercies from the Lord.

The surgery took longer than we were told by at least an hour, which had us worried. Finally the doctor came to talk to us. Bobby's appendix had already ruptured. She thought it had been leaking for a little while because he already had infection that was borderline gangrenous. She told us that normally kids go home the next day but Bobby would be there 3-5 on IV antibiotics.

Long story short 3 days came and went. 5 days came and Nana went home. On day 8, June 21st, Bobby went back to the OR to have fluid drained from his incision site. The Nurses at post op were surprised to see us again., but they did enjoy talking to us about our travels again. On day 9 Bobby had to learn how to take a pill. The antibiotic they were going to send him home with only came in pill form. We tried every possible way to teach him.

Day 10, June 23rd, he was discharged!

It was a long 10 days. Thankful for the hand of the Lord in making sure all of our needs were met. The kids loved taking care of their brother. We finally felt like a complete family again.