Felicia is HOME

THANKS to EVERYONE for all their encouragement & kind thoughts & prayers! It really means a lot to us to know that so many people care (even people we've never met)!


WOW!! This has been quite the whirlwind weekend!!


I think combined Ben, Felicia and I got the normal amount of sleep, but as individuals...not so much! Only bits 'n' pieces! We are all drained but SO GRATEFUL that Felicia is OK. We were very nervous when we first decided to take her to the Emergency Room (<--that's such a scary word for me - cuz it justs says SERIOUS ILLNESS or something like that)! Anyway, Ben and my Dad gave her a blessing then we left and arrived at the ER around 8pm Saturday evening. Surprisingly, we got in right away to see the nurse and then the dr. They hooked her up to an IV immediately to get fluids in her & took some blood. She was dehydrated and running a fever. We only had to wait for a few minutes after she provided a urine sample.

The DR said from the results it "looked" like all the symptoms & test results pointed to Appendicitis! They wanted to be 100% sure, so they scheduled the CT scan. She had already vomitted a few times and they wanted her to drink the "contrast" liquid for the scan. She drank half of it and then...yep, most of it came up again. Poor girl. They were giving her anti-nausea meds in her IV too. They gave her a different anti-nausea med and let her rest a few minutes. Then she finally downed the rest of it. Took her in for the scan around midnight. I went with her and took a few pictures, so she could see what it looked like since she was a little out of it.

Around 1:30am, the DR confirmed Appendicitis and possible rupture! He called surgeon and they schedule the surgery. Although, no one told us when it would be. I thought it would be more like "Oh WOW she may have ruptured!! Let's get her to SURGERY immediately!" Nope, just kept getting "in the morning sometime, don't know for sure yet." But they started her on 3 different kinds of antibiotics to start clearing up the infection before surgery.

About 4am, they finally admitted Felicia and took us to a private room. {FYI - the rooms in ER were kinda private, not just the "curtain" rooms. So it wasn't too bad.}

We tried to sleep for a couple hours in our "new" chairs! haha Around 8:30am, the nurses came in telling us they were taking her to prep for surgery. We followed and stayed with her until they took her around 9:30am. She was nervous and so were we, but we didn't tell her that. We'd never had any of our kids need surgery before. Sure a couple stitches on 3 of 'em but nothing really serious like this. We went to the cafeteria to grab a little breakfast and just after we got back to the waiting room, the surgeon came out with our GREAT NEWS!

The CT scan was right and wrong! Yes, appendicitis. NO rupture!! We were prepared for the worse and she would've had to stay in the hospital for at least a week! We were ecstatic!

Once she returned to her room, I went home for a few hours to spend some time with the kids and my parents, then showered & returned to the hospital (during our massive rain storm, of course). Then Ben and I had dinner in the cafeteria together and then he left for the night. He wanted to relieve my parents and bring the kids home to bed (so my parents could get some rest and Ben could sleep in a bed instead of the chairs we'd become accustom to in the hospital).

We were so HAPPY that she was well, the surgery went great, and she didn't have to be there very long. She was on antibiotics all Sunday. They finished about 1am today. That's when Felicia and I finally went to sleep for a few hours.

Felicia got up and did her walking exercises and started to eat some solid food, not much but something other than "liquid" foods. She was feeling a little better (still in pain sometimes but that's to be expected, I mean she had SURGERY). They decided to let her go home today.

I was so surprised that they called the Nurse Practictioner and she came to our room immediately and spoke to us about what to expect in the next couple weeks with her recovery. Then they got the paperwork, signed it and TADAAAAA we were able to leave. It happened really fast! {nothing like when you have a baby and they let you leave like 5 hours later!}

I also want to say that we had the BEST nurses and DRs while we were there! Felicia's experience was FANTASTIC even though she was really scared when we arrived. The Children's Unit was AMAZING! They even gave her a stuffed animal before surgery, then gave her more toys & gifts when she got back to her room! There was even a really neat Children's Activity room. However, she wasn't there long enough to really take advantage of that fun place.

We feel so BLESSED that we got her to the right place at the right time and now she can recover and get back to her normal active self! This has been a real learning experience and an emotional rollercoaster! I can't count how many times I just busted into tears or got teary eyed because of her situation. Not all because of worry or nerves, also because of joy!

Oh no! I'm getting glossy eyes as I think about how much we love Felicia and so happy she's doing well. She is such a trooper & so much stronger than she realizes! WE LOVE YOU, FELICIA!!! All the nurses and DRs just LOVED her too!!

***EDIT*** We were at Desert Banner Hospital in Mesa, AZ. So, if you ever need to take your chid there, just know that they will be in GOOD HANDS!!! {And the construction mess will be a whole children's hospital attached to the hospital soon}

{ok this is way longer than I originally planned. well, it's journaling, right?! I took lots of pictures, so I'll post them later.}