the unnecessary organ

I'm way overdue to write here, but the pace of our life these days doesn't allow much time for blogging or reading blogs anymore.  Until now.

On Thursday I woke up at 4:30am in a lot of abdominal pain, and by 8am the pain had centralized in my lower right abdomen.  At that point I thought it could be my appendix, and that would likely mean surgery, but I was only speculating.  A friend came to watch the kids and by 11am my Mom and I made it to the hospital emergency room.  By about 3pm I had a CT scan done to confirm that it was my appendix, and I called Stew to come home from work early and be with me, knowing I'd get a diagnosis soon.

Stew arrived at the hospital about 2 minutes after the doctor told me I had appendicitis and needed surgery.  I've always hated the idea of surgery, so was feeling pretty nervous, especially about being put under and the possibility of bleeding (I've hemorrhaged twice after giving birth).  We were told the surgeon would come see me, then he'd book the surgery and it would likely be a few hours before they could get me in.  After the surgeon saw me around 5, my Mom went to pick up Jackson so I could breastfeed him, and Stew went to add money to his parking meter.  The surgery hadn't even been booked yet, so we thought we had a few hours.  While they were both gone, the nurse came hurrying back to me and said I needed to go to the OR immediately!  I went to use the bathroom first and stalled a little bit, and when I came out Stew was just walking back into the room from the parkade.  Off I went into surgery at 6pm!

I was still feeling pretty nervous about it, but Stew and I had been praying together and I knew many others were praying too.  The Lord really answered my prayers: the surgical team was amazing and totally put me at ease.  The anesthetist and a nurse talked with me for a while before the surgery and addressed all my concerns, asked about my kids, explained what was happening, and joked about this surgery being my "grand opening".  I felt totally at ease by the time they wheeled me in to the OR.

The next thing I knew, I was in recovery, waking up from one of the best sleeps I've had in a long time!  I actually asked the nurse if I could keep sleeping like that!  By 9pm I was moved into the surgical unit and was breastfeeding my Jackson-man.  Recovery has gone well, and I will admit that I actually really enjoyed my time in hospital.  It's been a very long time since I had two days/nights to myself, and thanks to the morphine it was a pretty relaxing time!  lol.  I don't think I've been by myself like that since I was hospitalized during my pregnancy with Halle, and it was under much more stressful circumstances.

I came home from the hospital yesterday afternoon, about an hour before Micah's birthday party.  Everyone had offered to help, so all I had to do was lie on the couch and be there.  I am so thankful for my husband and amazing friends who pulled off a great little party to celebrate my boy, even while I was out of commission myself.

And I just need to brag about my 4-year-old boy for a few minutes...
Yesterday Micah asked his Daddy to stop making his special birthday breakfast because I wasn't there and he knows I love special breakfasts. I called him for his birthday and told him it was okay to have his birthday breakfast without me, so now Stew is making another special breakfast that they can share with me! Micah has been so sweet and thoughtful since this whole thing started on Thurs.

Thursday morning I was lying on the couch in a lot of pain, and I asked him to please get me a blanket.  He looked up at me and asked, "Do you want my comfy comfy comfy blanket?  Because I really like to sleep with my comfy comfy comfy blanket!" and he ran and got the fleece blanket his Grandma made him and brought it to me off his bed.

All that to say, life is always an adventure.  You never know what's going to happen next!  For the most part we're doing well over here.  We'll be happily accepting offers of food, help, etc for the next week or two.  :)  I'm not supposed to really lift anything more than 10lbs for a week, and well, my smallest child weighs about 20lbs, so it could be an interesting week!  We appreciate your prayers, as always.