On October 28, Olive had her appendix removed. She had lost her appetite the day before, vomited once, and then became very lethargic. She woke in the night complaining of pain in her right side. She couldn't sleep anymore and was crying out in pain every couple of minutes. We were pretty certain of the diagnosis even before going to the emergency room. We got to the emergency room at about 6:30am. Olive was in pain, and scared of what was to come. She ended up having an IV placed, getting some morphine, and then having a very long ultrasound to try and diagnose the appendicitis. That was not as conclusive as the doctors needed, so they ordered an abdominal X ray to see if that would show it clearly. That didn't show it either, so we moved on to a CT Scan. Olive was a trooper through all the tests, and the morphine helped!
Here she is in the ER, after the diagnosis, waiting to go to surgery. There were a lot of stickers obtained during this adventure:
The surgery was straightforward and went well, though Sam and I felt it lasted about 2 weeks. It was torture to wait. Olive had a rough time coming out of anesthesia. She was bright red - her temperature was 104, she reacted to some of the narcotics and was very itchy so was clawing at her her whole body and scratching herself. Her oxygen kept dropping, alarms would go off, and we had to hold the oxygen in front of her face which made her VERY angry. It was not fun to watch her be so out of sorts. We joke about it now, but mostly she spent the next several days saying, "don't look at me!", "stop looking at me!". She just wanted to be left alone, and I don't blame her.
This picture pretty much sums up how we all felt about it the whole situation:
The 2 days after surgery were rough. Olive was still in a lot of pain, her belly was full of air and she was miserable. She endured a whole lot in that amount of time. More blood draws, more X rays, a catheter insertion (and later removal, of course!). She had a myriad of drugs for pain - morphine, versed, percocet - none of which helped an incredible amount. Time was ultimately what helped. It was so hard to just sit by and watch.
The next two pictures show Olive's belly. The first shows how incredibly distended it was for the first days after surgery, which were very tough for Olive. She was terribly uncomfortable with this belly full of air and barely moved because of it. The second photo shows how much better it looked on day 3!
Quite a difference, huh??
Our sweet girl did her best to sleep, but it was hard in the hospital with all the noise, vitals checks, and our 4 month old roommate!
Here's Miss O, finally feeling a little better and interested in her new stuffed animals from Irene and Papa and Nana:
Heading home on Halloween. She really enjoyed the wheelchair ride:
For about a week after we got home, Sam slept with Olive at night and I napped with her...just because. Sweet sleeping girl:
This was such a lesson for us.
It was terrifying to see Olive so sick, it really was. We saw lots of other sick children, too, and realized how lucky we really are. Not only was Olive able to recover fairly quickly, but we had access to and the means to pay for great and quick medical care. We are so, so lucky. One of Olive's nurses shared with us that her twin sister had died from appendicitis at age 16 because there was no way for her to get treatment in their town in Ethiopia. She just kept saying, "It's such a simple procedure here, but there was nothing to be done there". Ugh. I can't imagine.
As usual, we were surrounded by our families throughout the ordeal. My parents came to our house at 6am to be with Mae the morning we went to the ER, and then spent long hours at the hospital distracting us with conversation and bringing us food over the next days. Sam's Mom came down and stayed with Mae at our house for very long days, even managing to make cookies and food along the way. My siblings worried with us, checked in, and bought Olive presents.
And Mae. Sweet Mae. She, of course, didn't have a clue what the heck happened and where her family disappeared off to! But she was such a trooper - she learned to take a bottle, slept very little, and was as sweet as can be to whomever was taking care of her at any given moment! She proved just how flexible she was at 3 months, and we were so grateful that we didn't have to worry about her. She was in good hands.
We are so, so thankful for the health of our children and ourselves today.
More than ever.
