On Tuesday, April 5th, the kids left for their spring break vacation! They spent the night at St. George with the Dibbs then went on to Disneyland! We are excited for them to have this nice break and to spend it with family. I decided while they were gone, all these projects I was going to get done! I got them all out on Wednesday and was ready to get started! I had Zander that day and he was a little cranky so we didn't go shopping for some of the supplies I needed. We stayed in and I made my list and my plans. Wednesday evening I started having some stomach pain and figured it was gas. It kept me up a lot in the night though and didn't seem to be "moving" or making any progress. Thursday I had Zander again but my stomach was still hurting off and on throughout the day. Sharp pains that would come and go. After they kept me up ALL NIGHT Thursday night I knew it was something that needed to be checked out. I was in constant pain all night long. I almost had Dave take me to the ER but figured that would be too costly and I would just go to the doctor office in the morning. It was a BAD night. Horrible sharp pains that just kept going. I didn't have Zander on Friday so as soon as I could get ready, I went to the dr. office. I had called and Dr. Brown wasn't in on Fridays so I had to go to the Instacare instead. A little costly, but nothing like an ER visit. I really liked the Dr. on call. We talked, he pushed on my stomach, and then they did a blood test. My CBC was a little higher than it should be, which indicated infection. Since my lower right quadrant had hurt when he pushed on it, he wanted to rule out appendicitis! What?! So they scheduled a CT scan for 12:30. I called Dave and told him he had to come home and take me. Thankfully he wasn't busy at work! He drove me to Utah Valley and pushing through the pain we got the CT scan done. I hadn't been eating or drinking due to the stomach pain, and they told me not to eat or drink anything else until after the scan. Well, I was a little dehydrated so she had to poke me a couple of times to get a needle in without collapsing a vein. Ouch. She was really nice and good though. She left the thing (not a needle, but a tube of some kind) in my arm after the scan in case I was going to go in and get my appendix out. Then we waited while a radiologist looked at the images. That took a lot longer than we thought it would and they kept apologizing to us for the wait. Whatever. I wasn't going anywhere until I knew if I was headed for surgery!
Dave was sure it was my appendix and he was all ready for it. They do it microscopically so it's not invasive, which was good to hear! I had basically made up my mind to deal with it if that's what it was. They finally called the dr. with the results and they put me on the phone to talk to him. The nurse said she could go head and take the thing out of my arm. So I knew even before getting on the phone it was NOT my appendix. Now I really wondered what was going on. The Dr. said that I had an infection in my lower intestines. Pain meds and strong antibiotics should fix it all up. YAY! Now the only problem was finding the right combination because of my coumadin. BOO. I went back to the dr. office so they could take more blood and see what my INR (blood test for the coumadin) is to have a base rate. More pokes in my arms...yay. He told me to cut my coumadin back about 10% and then come in a few days after starting the antibiotics to have it tested again and see how the antibiotics are affecting it. We got home and sweet Dave went to pick up my prescriptions. I just wanted the pain meds!! So tired of hurting! He came home with two bottles of pills. I took them right away, but then looking at the labels, they were both antibiotics! Where are the pain meds? I called the pharmacy, they didn't have any record of it. I called the dr. office, they said they called it in. She then told me what pharmacy and it was our OLD pharmacy! So Dave made another trip to a different pharmacy for my pain pills. I finally got one around 5:30! What a LONG night and day. The pill worked great though and I slept most of the night! WONDERFUL! Saturday I spent laying around doing nothing! I don't like that at all, but I absolutely could do nothing. I ate a tiny bit but really had a craving for french fries! I don't know why. We had a tax appointment in the afternoon so I sat through that (pretty painless and it was a quick appointment anyway) then we went to the Purple Turtle and I got my french fries! Dave got a milkshake. No foods were sounding good to me so I just enjoyed my french fries. But I still couldn't eat very many. Sunday I rested all day again and by Sunday night I went to bed without a pain pill. The pain was mostly gone. The antibiotics sure made my mouth and lips taste awful. I could not get rid of that taste! 10 days on them is going to be a long time! Schae and Bryan brought us dinner Sunday night. It was just supposed to be me and Dave (Joel was on vacation in California) but the kids got home early on Sunday evening. Sweet Schae brought enough to feed them too! I hadn't been eating very much but her sweet and sour chicken tasted really good. She told me that she found someone else to watch Zander on Monday and for me to let her know how I was doing. The kids had fun at Disneyland and I did absolutely nothing. So much for all my plans. ha ha. I am glad to be feeling better. Not much energy at all, but not feeling ill anymore. I know it will take awhile to get my energy back but I am grateful for modern medicine and for Dave taking such good care of me. I am back on my regular schedule now with babysitting, but moving slowly and still not accomplishing much. I can't wait to be back to normal!
