Emergency appy!

Hayley in the OR holding room - she looks pretty happy to be having surgery!

Being wheeled to the OR holding room..........

Hayley just before surgery.........

HAHA! Looking funny in a cap!

Peace out! I'm having my appendix out!

After surgery treats! YUM!

Chillin' in my hospital bed.......

IV..............

Rockin' the unisex, one size fits all hospital socks!

Hmmm............what's in this bag?

Chocolate milk........mmmmm, good!

Sweet balloon from her stepdaddy!

On Tuesday evening, January 19th, 2009, Hayley awoke with a stomach ache and extreme nausea. She immediately informed her soundly sleeping mother of this, and her wise mother prescribed a Tums. Hayley requested to sleep on her mother's floor (a very unusual request), and spent the rest of the evening sleeping soundly. However, upon awakening, she was still very nauseated with stomach pain, so she spent the rest of the day sleeping. Evening came, she had some dinner, and all seemed well. She arose at an ungodly hour to go to school and settled into preparing for finals. But alas! The relentless stomach ache nagged and she went to the nurse.......twice! The wise nurse called her mother, who arranged a doctor's appointment. Doctor said appendicitis, scheduled a CT scan, and a visit with the surgeon. Surgeon said classic appendicitis, canceled the CT scan, and admitted her to the hospital to perform surgery at 7 p.m. Before surgery we spent an hour in the "holding room" laughing and making jokes and having way too much fun before a surgical procedure! As a joke, Hayley and I arranged to push a button on my "Cartman" app on my phone and right as the anesthesiologist, the OR nurse and the aide were getting ready to wheel her away, I pushed the button that made my phone say (in Cartman's voice) "This is gonna suck donkey balls!" which made everyone dissolve in laughter. Hayley was cracking up as they wheeled her away for her hour-long surgery. At 8 p.m. the surgeon announced the appendix looked fine! GAH! What? Unnecessary surgery? Well, he explained, it was most likely esenteric adenitis, a viral infection that mimics appendicitis. The treatment? It goes away on it's own! However, it's the number one misdiagnosis of appendicitis, and the procedure is often to take the appendix out to be safe. We won't know for sure which it was until the pathology reports come back. Needless to say, though, Hayley will never have to worry about appendicitis again!

Thus started the overnight from hell in the hospital. Hospitals, ironically, are the absolute WORST place in which to get sleep, which is much-needed by recuperating patients. Our friendly, sweet nurse had been replaced by an uptight older woman I'll call Nurse Beep. This is because said nurse did not know how to work the machines correctly, thus setting off numerious beeps and alarms ALL NIGHT LONG! She admitted this and apologized for it, but poor Hayley had to listen to this racket all night long and didn't sleep well at all. Not to mention her poor mother.......anyway, Nurse Beep also thought a good way to wake a sleeping patient was to stand by the sink and purposely crinkle an empty IV bag repeatedly. WTF? We both woke to a "what the heck is that?" Hayley was not happy to be awakened repeatedly to be poked and prodded, forced to walk the halls, and pee on command. However, she performed like a circus monkey, and finally got a little sleep in the wee hours of the morning.

We awoke to breakfast waiting for us (wow!), but Hayley didn't really want it. Instead she wanted a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup and a Rice Krispy Treat! The nurse said ok so we took a little walk to the vending machines (finally released from the IV pole - yay!) and procured the treats. A few more hours of watching Ellen and Scooby Doo, and Hayley announced she was ready to go home. We packed up, picked up her prescription for Vicodin and headed home. Besides being a bit doubled over from post-surgical pain, she was her chipper self, watching TV, visiting with her best friend and posting on Facebook. And, true story, she never stopped texting the entire time! The only time she didn't have her phone in her hands was the hour in surgery and the hour in recovery. I believe that's a good sign, right? Ahh.......never a dull moment!