Alex had a couple of traumatic days last week and had his appendix taken out on Thursday afternoon. Wednesday night he was complaining of pains in the tummy and I didn't take alot of notice of him. It's not unlike Alex to complain about something about bed, then he gets up in the morning still complaining and wants a day off school. Sometimes I think he's setting it up the night before to stay home. I was in bed by 11 on Wednesday night and he came in again doubled over saying it was the worst pain he'd ever felt. I said that he might need to go to the toilet, or drink some water, and after another half an hour he was still in pain. Thinking it might be something serious, I got dressed and took him to the Junee Hospital, where we waited for about 15 minutes for the doctor to arrive. He poked and prodded and said he'd like a second opinion, and sent us over to the Base Hospital in Wagga.
You can wait around at the Wagga Base Hospital for up to 4 hours before you're seen sometimes, and although we went straight in to Emergency, it was hours before the doctor finally came. No-one was 100 percent certain that it was Alex's appendix that was causing him the pain: he had only some of the symptoms. Around 3:30 he was actually admitted and he was taken up to the Children's Ward, and at 4 the nurse made me up a bed in the playroom. At 7 am another doctor was there to have a look at Alex and they decided he should have an ultrasound. His pain wasn't as bad as the night before, but still there, so at 11 were went over to the Calvary Hospital where they have the ultrasound equipment. At about 12 another doctor came and said that they didn't think it was his appendix, that they would give him something to eat and see how the pain was then. He might need further tests. She went off to confer with other doctors and around 3 pm, 3 doctors turned up, 2 of them surgeons, and said that they would take his appendix out. By this stage I was just shaking my head, not sure if any of them knew what they were doing.
The doctors went off to find Alex a spot in the surgery schedule, and the nurse said he probably wouldn't go up until late, between 6 and 7, so I decided to go home and get Alex some clean clothes and toiletries, and have a shower and get changed myself. The battery on my phone gave up the ghost after working on one bar all day, so there was no way anyone could contact me until I got home. As luck would have it, I got home and there was 3 missed calls, all from the hospital, saying they were taking Alex to surgery at 4 and I should come straight back. It's a half-hour drive to Wagga from Junee and I quickly packed a bag for Alex, had a two-minute shower and went straight back over. I got there in time to go with the nurse to bring Alex back to the ward from Recovery.
Everything had gone okay and they removed his appendix, which was slightly enlarged. He was pretty dopey when they got him back into bed, and I stayed with him till about 8 on Thursday night. After only 3 hours sleep the night before, I was looking forward to my own bed. Carly was staying with a friend down the road so I didn't have to worry about getting her up from school, and I was back at the hospital at 9 am this morning in time to see the surgeon who assisted in the operation. He said that the operation went well and Alex only had a 2 cm cut, and would be able to go to school after a week or less. We could go home after he had something to eat. It was 4.30 before we could go, and by this stage Alex was getting around easily. You wouldn't think he had just been in surgery 24 hours earlier.
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