Our Sunday mornings are pretty scheduled. They need to be. Brandon
gets up early. He has his routine and we have ours. Somehow, we
usually manage to make it to church around on time. One Sunday a few
weeks ago we did not have a "typical" day.
Our church
services are at 8:00 and 10:30. You can imagine my startled feeling
when I heard noises coming from our kitchen at 7:50 am. M was in the
office, who could it be? Brandon quickly came up to the bathroom in
search of Pepto Bismol. Well, there are a couple of common reasons to
take Pepto and my husband, who rarely takes anything for any reason was
asking for some 10 minutes before church started. Yikes! I quickly
found a bottle of them (the kind you swallow) and told him to take 2 now
and make sure to take two more in 30 minutes and to keep taking them as
needed. My mind was spinning thinking about Brandon bolting out of the
sanctuary mid-sermon for a bathroom run of some sort. Poor guy.
When
we arrived at church just in time for the second service I could see
the bottle of Pepto on the floor and I asked how he was doing. He said
the same and I just thought oh dear!
He made it through
the services and then told me shortly after that he wanted to go
straight home. We all left quickly. He was headed to the bathroom then
changing into comfy clothes while the kids played outside. He then
just laid on the couch. I asked him a bit more about how he was feeling
and he said it was mainly knots in his stomach.
We got
the kids down for nap and I called my mom to chat. Brandon came into the
room and informed he that he thought he had appendicitis. He read the
symptoms and he had pretty much all of them. I told him to go to the
walk in right away. I was not interested in him messing around with
that! Truthfully, I thought the chance of him actually having
appendicitis were pretty small, but after his blood clot scare a few
years ago we do tend to take medical stuff a bit more seriously around
here.
Brandon went to the walk in and I went about my
normal Sunday afternoon relaxation during the kids naps. Brandon called
about 4:30 to say that he was going to be heading over to the ER for a
CT scan to rule out appendicitis. I still didn't think he had it at
this point but was glad he was getting things checked. Our church was
having its first session of the new membership class that night. It was
to start with a dinner and he was on the phone with the elders many
times that day trying to pass the baton to them. He told me when I
talked to him that if he did have to have surgery he was hoping they
would let him first come home and teach the class and gather up what he
needed and then go back for the surgery.
One of the
elders called me to help him look for something at church. I took the
kids over and we found what was needed and then mingled with the people
as they arrived for the class. It was fun for the kids and a good
distraction for me as well. My favorite thing is meeting new people and
the thought of both Brandon having surgery and putting the kids to bed
alone made me a bit nervous.
Brandon called the
elders while I was at church to arrange everything. I was nosy and
asked if he did need to have surgery. They said he did. Whoa. OK. The
kids and I headed home to eat some supper. Brandon called and verified
that he did need surgery and told me what things he would like me to
bring him. He called a little later to say, how soon can you get here I
am going to surgery within 30 minutes. The kids and I were fast and we
got there within 20 minutes. I went to the desk and they told me it
was too late. He was already in surgery, but they would show me a room
to put his stuff if I waited a minute. During that time Brandon called
me and said they were waiting for us. I told this to the receptionist
and she let us all go right back. The kids and I gave daddy hugs and
kisses and said we would see him tomorrow.
We headed
home and went back to church to play with one of the kids who has a mom
in the class. The class ended and the boy, B and his mom came over for a
few minutes. This was about 7:30. I knew that having a 5 year old boy
here would not help bedtime, but it was awesome to have them here as I
was about to fill up humidifiers, get PJ's ready, update FB to ask
people to pray, take a few bites of food myself etc.
There
was a message on the phone from the hospital saying that Brandon's
surgery went well. I missed the call, but it was a very welcome message
to receive.
I think they left about 8:30. M was very
tired and his melatonin was kicking in. T who also took melatonin was
not acting tired. The next hour was spent trying to get them to bed on
my own. It was pretty horrible. T will ONLY go to sleep for Daddy so
she wanted nothing to do with me. M didn't want me to leave him alone
either. Eventually I called a great friend Monica who came to save the
day! I knew that if I just handed her T I could get M to bed without
too much trouble. M was quite overwhelmed so it took a while, but I
think under 30 minutes.
When I came downstairs T was
sleeping in Monica's arms. She quickly woke up so we said goodbye to
Monica and round 2 began. T kept repeating this brutal pattern of
falling asleep in my arms and then crying when I put her in the crib.
When she would wake up she would ask for Brandon. I todld her Daddy was
in the hospital because he had an owie. She then starting repeating.
"Daddy Hospital (it didn't sound like hospital) Daddy died" over and
over again. Yuck! This was not what I wanted to hear. Oh how my heart
broke for her. We watched them wheel daddy back to surgery and she
thought he died. She does actually know what death is, sort of... I
just kept rocking her and telling her that Daddy is going to be fine and
we will see him in the morning. Finally after her sleeping for many
minutes in my arms I laid her in the bed and said good night and left
the room. She was crying (OK screaming) but she had been asleep a
minute ago and I needed to go to the bathroom and to breathe and take a
minute's break. I went back on FB to a group I am in to ask for more
prayers. 10 seconds after I posted the request she stopped crying, laid
down, and went to sleep. She fell asleep at 11:10 pm.
Now,
if you know my kids, you know they both love to wake up in the night
for many hours multiple times. I had no idea how I was going to handle
the night. I was scared. I read for a little bit and then went to
sleep in M's room as usual. I knew I could not have T's monitor in the
room with M and I or he would wake up when she did and they wouldn't go
back to sleep again. I am a pretty heavy sleeper so I kept telling
myself as I went to sleep that I needed to sleep lightly so I could hear
T. Well, sleep lightly I did! I barely slept. I was so nervous I
would miss T crying. After her fear of Brandon being dead, the last
thing I wanted was for her to cry for a long time without me hearing her
and her to think something happened to me to.
Amazingly
my kids rocked it. Going to bed super late, taking calm kids and
melatonin, and LOTS of prayers resulted in both of them sleeping for
several hours in a row. M got up super early, but that allowed me to
shower and get things picked up and the laundry started before T woke
up. M was thrilled to watch a movie and I was thrilled to let him.
Brandon
called later and said we could come and get him and take him home! We
were so excited to see him. He was sore and the pain did come, but he
said it wasn't too bad. He really enjoyed his time in the hospital and
the food he ate there. He has told many people about it and how much
more relaxing it was than our vacation to the Smoky Mountains.
After
naps that day we actually took a walk around the block. It happened to
be that one warm day in March when it feels like winter really will
end. We had much to be thankful for. We saw almost every neighbor as
we walked. It was very lovely.
Brandon was back at
work the next day. He was wearing warm up pants and an ice pack around
his waist, but he didn't miss any work. What a trooper. After taking
his Rx one morning and being in a deep fog he opted for OTC pain meds
for a couple of days instead.
We feel so very blessed
that his appendicitis happened when it did. We were home and not
hiking in the Mountains or on a plane to even in a different state
visiting family. The timing during the week was perfect too. He got
through Sunday and then had an entire week to heal before the next one.
We saw God's faithfulness over and over again in the process. We are
so thankful that nothing ruptured. Aside for needing to be a little
more gentle with the kids for a little longer, Brandon is back to normal
and we are so thrilled. We sure hope we don't have any more emergency
surgeries coming up!