A Scare from Mr. Dramatic

 {I love this boy more than you'll EVER know! ♥ My little drama king.}

I spent yesterday driving Joshua from doctor to doctor, or really from hospital to hospital. Okay, so we only ended up at {1}Urgent Care {2} Hospital #1 {3} Hospital #2. But it was a looooooong, long-long, long, long, very long day. Monday afternoon Joshua mentioned not feeling well when he came home from school. He seemed to be acting fine though so I let it go. It wasn't too much longer later that he really started to complain. He {very dramatically} gripped his tummy and told me "My stomach HURTS!".

Being the dramaking he tends to be, again, I really thought nothing of it. I told him to try using the bathroom. He did. And he seemed okay for a while after that. When the dramaking again embraced the theatrics and did a full on, "I'm dying, oh man, my stomach hurts SO BAD.", I kind of started to worry. "Do you need to poop? When was the last time you pooped? Is it gas? Do you need to fart? Are you nauseated? Do you need a bowl? Are you going to throw up? When you went potty did you have diarrhea? Where does it hurt? What does it feel like?" For the next several hours I was asking every question I could think of. By the time he was finished with his evening bath he was nearly in tears with pain, and I was nearly in tears with frustration.

I got SO many descriptions of what the pain felt like, "My stomach is boiling! It's burning into my chest! Someone's punching me! I can't breathe it hurts to breathe! It feels like I'm being stabbed!". I couldn't decipher what it could BE! He didn't want to eat dinner so I gave him two tums, and a small glass of milk and sent him to bed. For the next 2 hours he wasn't able to sleep, and I was really growing concerned. I called his Grandma and we agreed that it would be best for me to check on him through the night in case a fever hit or anything got worse. If he wasn't better in the morning I would take him to the doctor.

Around midnight I snuck in for one last check on him. He was FINALLY asleep. I reached around him and pushed on his belly some to see if I could feel any bloating. It woke him, yelling, from a dead sleep. I was really worried then. I couldn't sleep all night and continued to check on him. Anytime I touched his belly he'd wake up whimpering.

By morning he seemed a lot better. He actually ate breakfast, but he was still complaining of pain. I asked him to lay down and pressed all around his belly. His right side was the most tender. I asked him to point to me where it hurt and he pointed from his belly button to the lower right quadrant of his belly. All I could think of was "CRAP, it's his appendix.". Even though he had no other symptoms, no nausea, no fever, etc. I thought it may be in the beginning stages, and also knew that everyone's experiences were different. {I know 4 people closely that have had appendicitis and all 4 have completely different stories of their experience and symptoms.}

I waited for the docs phones to switch over, calling REPEATEDLY until someone picked up. Unfortunately they wouldn't be able to see him until the afternoon and I didn't think that was soon enough. So I decided to take him to Urgent Care. Luckily they were just opening and we barely had to wait. They checked him over and sent us immediately to the ER. {Luckily they very kindly refunded our copay since there was nothing they could do for them.}

We also lucked out with a very short wait in the ER. Although once we got to a room things slowed down dramatically. They started by starting an IV {just in case} and drawing blood from the same spot. They also took urine. Then, he was rolled in for an ultrasound. The doc checked him over, feeling his belly, asking all the normal questions. His blood came back normal, which was great, no elevated white blood cells so that pointed away from appendix. But the place it hurt still raised red flags. It turns out that the ultrasound couldn't get a view of his appendix.

It was then we were sent to the uptown children's emergency center to see a pediatric surgeon. They were still really concerned that it was appendicitis. They wanted to send him by ambulance, but I declined and said I could drive him. After signing something saying I WOULD take him to the other hospital we were on our way.

I picked up Mel from work on the way to the hospital. I was worried about surgery and did NOT want to have to go through that by myself.

Miraculously from the the time we left the first hospital to the time we arrived at the second Joshua made a complete turn around. He was hungry! STARVING! And his stomach was hardly hurting at all. He did complain that each step hurt as we walked in though.

I was so frustrated at this point.

Finally we saw the peds ER doctor who said he really didn't think it was appendicitis. He said 9 times out of 10 it's constipation so they did an x-ray. X-ray came back normal. All we could do now is wait for the surgeon to come in, review everything and give their opinion. The entire time Joshua was FINE. Absolutely fine. And I was frustrated and aggravated, and FRUSTRATED.

The surgeon came in and said that at this point everything was pointing away from appendix rather than towards it. HUGE relief. He said that basically he didn't know what it was. His best guess was swollen lymph nodes in the intestines caused from a virus.

I have NEVER heard of lymph nodes in the intestines.

We were give the regular speal. If this happens, this happens, this happens, call them, or them, or us. Do this, don't do that, call if this. You know all the regular stuff. Joshua left, literally bouncing out of the hospital ready to eat a horse.

Mel and I left more than a little peeved.

Don't get me wrong, we were SO thankful that Joshua was okay, and wouldn't need surgery. But so frustrated with Joshua! He is so dramatic that it's really hard to know when something is really wrong. In fact that's why when he said he didn't feel well I really didn't think nothing of it. He tends to make mountains out of molehills. The frustrating thing is that we now have to deal with the "Crying Wolf" syndrome. I never know when to know if something is really wrong, and then I'm left worrying that I may be overlooking something serious.

Joshua went back to school today, not complaining once of a stomach ache.

We shall wait and see if he comes down with anything else very soon. And I just hope I can take him seriously. He's got my mom spidey senses and instinct all jacked up.

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