Home at last, boy am I tired of pedaling!

Well, we're back from Riley Children's Hospital. This a picture of Mom just pulling in to the living room. Dad drove and Mom rode my tricycle the whole way. The past two weeks seem like they lasted two months. I mentioned a little bit about what was happening last week, but I wanted to fill you in on the whole story.

I came down with the rotavirus. According to the Mayo Clinic Family Health Book, rotavirus symptoms include diarrhea, vomiting, and low-grade fever lasting approximately 5-8 days. I did a quick inventory on how I felt at the time. Low-grade fever....yes. Vomiting....yes. Diarrhea......YES.

It didn't take long before I was not able to keep anything down. After I went without a wet diaper overnight, the pediatrician recommended that Mom and Dad take me to the hospital. Mom and Dad took me to Porter Memorial. After an x-ray of my tummy and an IV, I was admitted that Sunday. I still wasn't feeling well and Mom told the doctor that my diapers smelled funny. No diaper smells all that great, just ask the garbage man that gets a bag full of them after sitting in our garbage can for a week. But these ones did smell differently which the doctor told us was a common with the rotavirus.

I stayed in the hospital from Sunday to Tuesday. Everyone was a little stir crazy to go home by then. When you spend the quality time I have spent in hospitals it makes you kinda batty. Look what happened to Dad. Normally he wears a coat and tie to work, but no sleep in a hospital can make a person do some things are a little out of character. Dad had to testify in court that day. The prosecutor asked for a recess and Dad told the judge recess was his favorite part of the day.

I was feeling a little better by the time I went home; but I wasn't 100% quite yet. I was having some problems with keeping my feedings down and my stomach hurt a little. After a day or two my stomach hurt a lot. I wasn't able to keep anything down and I would double over in pain and grab my stomach when I walked around.

Mom and Dad called the doctor Friday morning. She said that she thought I had developed what is called an intussusception. An intussusception is when the small intestine telescopes into another part of the intestine. Its symptoms include sudden severe abdominal pain, weakness, vomiting, and shallow breathing. I had all of these symptoms.

Back to Porter Memorial I went. This time I went to the radiology department. The doctor told Mom and Dad that a barium enema was needed to diagnose the problem. This procedure was also known to be effective in returning the small intestine to the correct position. The test confirmed the pediatrician's diagnosis and appeared to correct the problem.

I went home and slowly started to return to my normally sunny disposition. The pediatrician told Mom and Dad that intussusception may reoccour. However, the barium enema would only be repeated one more time before surgery became the only option to straighten things out. Unfortunately, my recovery did not last. Later Friday evening and Saturday morning, I started having stomach cramps again. Back to Porter Memorial for radiology round number two on Saturday. This time, the radiologist just wasn't able to get the small intestine to budge.

At that point surgery became inevitable and Mom and Dad elected to have it performed at Riley Children's Hospital in Indianapolis considering my airway issues stemming from Pierre Robin. My Developmental Pediatrician at Riley, Doctor O'Neil, was paged and he asked that we be transported via ambulance. A blood draw and another IV later, I found myself in a car seat strapped to a gurney. Mom couldn't ride in the back of the ambulance so I was a little scared and cried myself to sleep about two hours into the drive. Dad went home and remembered to pack only about half of what Mom asked him to bring before he was driving through a torrential down pour about an hour behind the ambulance.

Dad and Grandma and Grandpa R. arrived at almost the same time. I was still in the ER about ready to go through one last radiological procedure in an attempt to reduce the intussusception without surgery. The doctor who saw me in the ER was Doctor House. She was nice. A trauma surgeon, Doctor Sherer stopped by too. Doctor Cohn, the radiologist, tried one last enema at 2 AM Sunday morning. He had a neat British accent and called me his "poppet". Wikipedia says this means a little doll. Unfortunately, no luck.

I was admitted to Pediatrics 3A. Megan was my nurse. By 5:30 AM on Sunday, Memorial Day weekend, I was headed to the operating room. An hour later Doctor Sherer came out to tell Mom and Dad that I would be in recovery soon. He said the procedure went very well. He also told them that he removed my appendix. The scar for the surgery would be in the same position as an appendectomy scar. So later in life if my appendix burst and I wasn't able to tell anyone it hadn't been removed, a doctor might mis-diagnose appendicitis.

Before too long, I was in my room and Grandma and Grandpa M. were there to see how I was doing. I slept and slept and slept. My nurses, Jenny, Megan, AnnaMarie, and Jennifer were super nice. Doctor O'Neil stopped by to check on me. After spending a little more time in the hospital I was released to go home.

I am already back playing outside with Dad.......

I read the autographed book that Great-Aunt Phyllis and Great-Uncle Gene sent me with all the great pictures of wildlife from Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. It makes me feel so much better.

Here is a photograph I took of the rare North American Daisy! How's that for wildlife!

Mom and I played in the sand a while.

And then we stopped to smell the "roses".

And then we smelled my diaper. Yikes!

From Mom and Dad.....

We are absolutely overjoyed to have our wonderful daughter back, happy and healthy. We are very thankful for everyone's well wishes, thoughts, and prayers. We are especially thankful for the nurses and doctors in both hospitals who took such skillful care of Macy.

From me.....See you guys next week!