Mother's Intuition

I'm pretty sure that this has happened to you at some point. You've been walking down the street, noticed a large child spilling out of a small stroller and thought, "Huh. That kids is way too big to be in that thing." I know I have.

I remembered this earlier today while wheeling great big 5 year old Sam around in our Volo. I had taken it along as a precaution. You see, Sam had his appendix out on Sunday and it was our first attempt to walk around the block. Sure enough, half way there he was all worn out. As I plopped him in the stroller and watched him close his tired eyes I vowed never again to judge the size of a kid vs. the size of his stroller. There are valid reasons to pull them out of storage and this is just one of many.

It all happened like this. He felt generally unwell. Maybe he was coming down with a cold. He threw up a bit. Maybe it was strep. I took him to the doctor. It was strep. But then later that day he started throwing up again and again. Instead of complaining of a general stomach ache, he pointed to his lower right side and said, "Mommy, it hurts right here." He looked terrible. I called my father-in-law (who is a doctor), described the symptoms and he said, "Get him to an emergency room right now." I threw both boys into a stroller and almost ran the 5 blocks to the nearest hospital. I accidentally left the front door open. Sam was still in his pajamas. I just sensed that something was very, very wrong.

Usually I trust the doctors. The triage nurse who examined him agreed that it was probably appendicitis and wheeled him into the pediatric ER immediately but after that things went downhill. The obviously harried doctor on duty gave him a cursory stomach probe "ouch! ouch!" then announced, "No way does this kid have appendicitis" and left us alone for a long, long time. I know that I don't know anything about these things. I'm not a medical professional. But I knew this. I had to get him more help.  So I totally breached protocol AND acted like a real ass and got my father-in-law on the phone with the doctor on call. Soon more tests were being done and the CT scan revealed that there was a problem. It could have been something else, but the appendix was enlarged.

Now I know that there are several conditions that mimic appendicitis that are not at all life threatening. And as my father in law noted, young doctors are trained to  be more cautious  with their diagnoses. They don't just go in and take things out anymore.  "But I'd rather be the schmuck who went in there and found nothing than the person who let it go," he said and I agreed. I had heard too many nightmare stories of burst appendix and thought it was worth the risk of the operation to truly find out. Up to the last minute, no one was really sure. The operating surgeon wrote on Sam's chart, "I do not think this is appendicitis but am willing to do the operation." We all went ahead.

In short, it was appendicitis - early stage. If we had been sent home as everyone wanted to just wait and see who knows what would have happened. We may have been back there the next day when it was bigger. We may have been back in a few days with Sam running a dangerously high fever and suffering from a burst appendix. We were very very lucky.

I keep thinking at that when I look at my tired out little boy. He is recovering well. The wounds are healing up nicely. He is still too weary to complain about staying still and doing quiet things. The biggest problem is keeping his brother from hugging him too much.

Sam's pediatrician predicts a rise in doctor visits whenever Hank has a tummy ache from now on. After this, I will bank on that.