Ava and Her Appendix Part 2

Our picture journey through Ava's appendix adventure. Many of these photos were taken on our cell phones but I figured out how to get them to my computer for your viewing pleasure or discomfort.

Ava not feeling good Friday 9/16

At the peditrician's office 9/19
In the ER, 9/19

ER, 9/19

Post-surgery, night of 9/20

Following ng tube removal on 9/22

Band-aid not necessary but made her feel better!

In the playroom on 9/23

Even riding the tricycle on 9/23

Feeling much better on 9/24

Her 3 incision marks

IV out! Going home on 9/24!

Incision marks again

The crew back together again 9/24

It was quite the ordeal that I hope to never have to repeat again in my life. However, we are all happy to have Ava home and be together under the same roof again. As you can see in the photos, she progressively and rapidly improved after the doctors took out her appendix. She even came home prescription free and is only taking Tylenol and Ibuprofen for pain. Our little girl is home and almost back to her normal spunky, precocious self! Hooray!

Ava and her Appendix

Ava and her appendix have separated ways. How did we get to this point? Thus begins the long ordeal:

Wednesday night (9/14) Ava complained of her tummy hurting. She had a hard time falling asleep and wanted me to lay with her. After she tossed and turned for several hours, I finally moved back to my own bed at 12:30. She followed me in there, curled up with Jake, and a few minutes later, puked on him (feel free to snicker to yourself here. I still do, primarily because Jake doesn't do well with bodily fluids). She threw up a few more times during the night and into Thursday.

Ava threw up one last time Friday morning but did run a fever all that day.

Saturday she was still warm but towards the end of the night, seemed to be on the mend. One thing that we noticed was that she walked hunched over and still complained a little of her tummy but we attributed this to her lack of food consumption the previous few days.

Sunday morning, Ava was still warm but her fever wasn't as high as it had been and she seemed to be her spunk self. As the day went on, she started complaining of her tummy hurting, cried when she tried to potty, and wanted to be carried everywhere as it hurt too much to walk. We decided that if the pain continued, we'd take her in on Monday.

After a very restless night with Ava fidgeting and moaning all night, we decided to make an appointment with her peditrician. Our guess at this point was a bladder infection because of her crying while trying to potty.

At the peditrician, she showed obvious discomfort when Dr. Earles pressed down on her tummy. Her strep test was negative, her white blood cell count was high (indicating that she was fighting something), but her urine analysis came back crystal clear. Dr. Earles decided to refer us to Children's ER since it was not something she could diagnose in her office and she didn't want to wait a night and see how Ava felt on Tuesday.

We headed up to Children's and after a 2 hour wait, finally got back to a room to be seen. The resident doctor was guessing it was her appendix but needed to confer with the supervising doctor. The head doctor wanted to do a chest x-ray to rule out silent pneumonia (Did you just scratch your head? So did we. Tummy pain = chest x-ray?). Ironically, the chest x-ray was clear. At this point, the doctors decided to admit us for the night to see what the blood cultures would reveal the next day.

Tuesday, the decision was finally made to do an ultrasound of her tummy. The ultrasound didn't reveal much but there were thoughts that it showed an abcess. Next up was a CT scan to see what the abcess could be. Turned out the abcess was really just a full bladder but the CT scan did not get a clear image of the appendix. This fit with our entire experience to this point as there were no clear answers, we spent hours waiting for 5 minutes of not-problem-solving news, and still didn't know what the issue was. The doctor was in favor of exploratory surgery to look at her appendix and if that wasn't the issue, to find out what was. We were on-board with this idea so we could finally figure out what the problem was. After waiting several hours for the surgeons to come and talk with us, we were finally on our way to the OR.

Sure enough, the surgeon came out to tell us that it was in fact Ava's appendix. It had preforated in several spots and was oozing out some pus. This wasn't the nastiest appendix the surgeon had seen but he put it up there with some of the gross ones.

So here we are. Her surgery wasn't until after 8 pm on Tuesday so most of Wednesday was spent laying around with regular morphine doses. The nurses and I did give Ava a sponge bath Wednesday night, which I think made her feel better since she hadn't been cleaned since Sunday night. Today, her coloring is much better and we did get her up out of bed and made her go potty on the toilet (we'd been letting her go in a pull-up to this point to minimize the moving around). The nurse also made her walk back to her bed with a little help. She's resting now and we hope to get her moving around again this evening.

I'll keep you updated as our stay goes on. We are praying for a quick recovery and hoping to be home either Sunday or Monday if all goes well. Keep our sweet little girl in your prayers too please!

Seasons of Change

Forgive the blog interruption. This past week was nuts with me starting work, finishing up all the stuff for the multiples group's fall sale, Ava getting the flu, and dealing with all the other day-to-day aspects of life. Here's what is new:

I'm official! I was formally approved by Lakeville Schools School Board to be an ECFE Assistant. I feel so official and important wearing a badge. Most of the teachers I work with do not wear their badges and just masking tape their name to their shirt. Not me! I'm all about strategically placing the badge so that I can feel important! I'm sure that will change eventually but not any time soon. I also will get my key tomorrow so I can stop banging on the back doors for someone to let me in! Needed to be formally approved before they could give me that as well.

On another note, the Little One (as we have now dubbed her. We have El-belle or Peachey, Gee or Baby Girl, Buddy, and now Little One) is a super happy and smiley baby. This was her reaction to the camera! What a ham!

No crawling yet, but she gets up on the knees and rocks like crazy. Once she figures out all the mechanics of moving arms and legs, she will be off!

She's also started pulling herself up. Little scamp! She wasn't figuring out the crawling fast enough so she's decided to work on both and can now get herself up to her knees. She can also go from crawl position to sitting and vice versa. Like I said, once she figures out how to move the arms and legs together, she will be off!

Of course, during my first week of work while I'm trying to figure out how to juggle working, 4 children, household chores, and other odds and ends, Ava decides to get the flu. Poor girl threw up a few times and had a fever.

A weekend of resting and she's almost back to normal. She still says her tummy hurts so we'll see if that continues a few more days but she is finally eating again and has a few moments when her spunky self shines through.

To add to the chaos of my first week of working a bonavide job since the twins were born, the multiples group had its fall sale on Saturday. This is most of what I took, minus a pile still in the loft being tagged.

I brought home one big bin of clothes and about half of a smaller bin. Not bad considering that is all the boy clothes that have been outgrown (including a pair of pants that I removed from the dryer Friday night and took with Saturday morning!), all girl clothes 0-9 months old and some girl clothes in bigger sizes that I thinned out. I also sold some books and toys but cleaned that area out pretty good in the spring so it was mostly clothing. Hurray for cleaning out the closets and garage shelves!


On a final note, I think we have a group of monkeys living in our house. Banana overload!

I told Jake when he went to get groceries on Saturday to NOT get bananas. I think all he heard was "bananas" so picked up some more. We generally eat all the bananas in a day or two after buying them as everyone here loves them. However, I think I will finally have a few to make banana bread. I made banana bread a week ago and it was devoured in a single day. This time, I might even intentionally let a handful go brown so I can make several loaves. Even Hannah loved banana bread!

I promise to not let such a long length of time lapse before I do another post. I'm getting this whole working-family balance figured out and should be able to find more free time. I will say that I feel the old Alissa creeping back! I do love being busy and having a little organized chaos in my life! I am working to keep it under control though. I walk that line of normal and OCD quite closely and have been noticing that I'm stepping over a little here and there.

(Yes Dad, my hands are as rough as sand paper again. I can't help it. I have to compulsively wash my hands every time I do something that seems dirty. I finally convinced myself that touching clean clothes is not dirty and no longer have to wash after folding, something I view as progress! This would not be such a concern if you had watched me a little closer when I was little and I hadn't fallen out of the back of the truck bed. That fall had to be what scrambled my brains a little!)

Long Weekend & Back to School

There really is something climatic about Labor Day weekend. Whether it is due to school starting the day after Labor Day, the end of the Minnesota State Fair (which is the highlight on all the news stations daily), or the shift in the weather that seems to happen the last week of August and first week of September, there is just something about that shift from summer fun to the back-at-it fall that occurs over Labor Day weekend.

Regardless, we decided to get as much enjoyment out of the long weekend as possible. Friday night was a lay-low night with munchkins in bed early. Carter was so tired from outside time and lack of naps on Thursday and Friday that he fell asleep Friday night at 6:30! I was in the process of heating up some soup for him to eat and we were going to give him a quick scrub in the tub but he conked out in Jake's arms and slept until 7:30 the next morning!

Saturday was a beautiful day. The weather was cooler but still enjoyable. We went to the gym in the morning (gotta have my hour of Zumba - best workout ever!) and took naps in the afternoon. Papa came over that evening to watch college football with Daddy. We grilled hot dogs and played baseball in the back yard.

Hannah decided that baseball was a little advanced for her and spent her time licking her ball. Love the look of bliss on her face as she licks away!

The twins had fun trying to hit the ball though!

HIT!

Papa got tired of tossing balls so he told the twinks to toss to each other. This quickly turned....

into this! It was a playful wrestling match but hilarious nonetheless!

Sunday night we went to Joy and Tony's to hang out. We grilled brats and played baseball and Wii.

Monday was a rest up day because....

Today was the first day of school!

Ava, Hannah, and I walked Ellie down to the bus stop. Carter was too busy watching Mickey Mouse to join us. She was excited and nervous and for some reason, I had the same emotions! I was excited because I remember the excitement of the first day of school but I understood her nerves. Due to a $15 million budget deficit in Lakeville schools, the decision was made to close an elementary school. Of course, it was decided to close Crystal Lake, the school that is just a hop, skip and jump away from our house. The students were split between 3 area schools based on where they live. Ellie is now attending Christina Huddleston. I imagine a large part of her nerves was due to the new school and not being sure where she was going!

After Ellie left, the remaining crew and I made a quick trip to Target. When we got home, the beautiful fall weather beckoned and we decided to have a picnic lunch in the driveway. Chicken nuggets and baked beans are so much better al fresco!

Carrots and Apple Strawberry Banana are delicious eaten outside as well. Someone has figured out the camera! What a ham!

The little lady turned 7 months old on Monday! Can you believe it?! She's such a happy little girl.

At her 6 month check-up, Hannah clocked in at 18 lbs 4 oz (85%ile) and 27.5 inches long (93%ile). This baby is doing well. We made the switch to the convertible car seat as she was just too heavy to lug around in her infant seat!

Hannah is good at backwards scooting and is working on getting her knees underneath her. I've also caught her doing a little bit of a butt scoot to get to toys. It won't be long and she will be everywhere!

Carter is fasinated with dinosaurs and was so excited to find a dinosaur book in the dollar section. We all have a dinosaur counterpart. Carter is the velociraptor because he is fast.

The beautiful and pretty Ava. Those are the adjectives in our house that can only describe her. The rest of us can be cute, gorgeous, fabulous, or handsome. But only Ava is be-yootiful and pwetty.

I'm busy enjoying my last full week home with the kiddos. I start my part-time job next week. Yes, you read that right. After 4 years as the guardian of all things home, I am heading back out into the real world. The job is nothing fancy but it's something new on the resume, something that actually pays me versus this do-the-work-of-5-different-occupations-for-no-pay-at-all role I've had, and gets me out of the house. I'll be working with Lakeville school as an ECFE assistant. It's a pretty easy role of playing with kids during ECFE classes and supervising while their parents are in the parent discussion part of class.

Alex so thoughtfully asked if I don't get enough playing with kids at home but as my current role doesn't pay at all and I'll be getting a break from my own troops, I am very excited to have something different on the horizon. Of course, if you know me at all, you know I am spending the week hurriedly doing everything I've been wanting to get done for several months. We have a laid out plan for the week and should get most everything accomplished!

We are excited fall is here and for all the changes happening in our household! We obviously like a little chaos since we do have four children!