Sarah's appendix story, continued
Sarah had her post-op checkup yesterday and everything looks good. She's healing up very well (and quickly!).
Before I forget the details, for those interested, here is "the rest of the story..."
After Sarah got settled into her room, we spent a couple of hours waiting for Lisa, Alex and Helen to arrive at the hospital. Since Sarah hadn't eaten anything since noon the day before (almost 24 hours), she was starving. The nurses gave her some Jell-O, which she nibbled at, and when it seemed to agree with her, wolfed down.
Kids being kids, it didn't take long for Sarah to start feeling restless (even though she was still in a fair amount of pain). When she found out there was a playroom on the hospital's 5th floor, she really wanted to go up for a visit. Her nurse offered to take her so I could grab some coffee, so that's what we did.
Unfortunately, the Jell-O didn't end up agreeing with her quite as well as we thought. Between the pain of all the movement and her gut not being quite ready for solid food, she wasn't in the playroom long before she started feeling sick. By the time I got back from the cafeteria, she was in her room, having gotten sick once up in the playroom. Shortly thereafter, the rest of the Jell-O made it's appearance in the sink next to her bed.
We learned our lesson and started small: water, juice, soup, etc. Around this time, Lisa, Alex, and Helen arrived. We kept Sarah entertained until she got tired. We then headed to the cafeteria for some lunch while Sarah rested. Sarah was getting antsy again by the time we got back from lunch.
The nurses told us that Mickey Mouse, Pluto, and Goofy were scheduled to visit the hospital that day from Disneyland and would be up in the playroom soon. We headed up there (Sarah in a wheelchair, having decided to take it a little slower this time). The kids worked on painting panels for a big Disney mural that the hospital was planning to put up. The, after tiring of that, found other kids to play with.
Eventually, Goofy, and then later Mickey and Pluto showed up. Alex had a blast with Goofy (Sarah wasn't quite so sure about him). However, by the time Mickey and Pluto showed up, Alex had discovered that they had a Nintendo 64 game box, and started playing Mario Kart with another boy, pausing briefly to say hello to the Disney folks.
Sarah, on the other hand, loved Pluto, and spent a lot of time playing with him and chatting with Mickey. I told her that she was pretty lucky: in all the time I've been going to Disneyland, I'd never actually gotten to meet Mickey Mouse, since he's always surrounded by a huge mob.
By early evening, it was time for Lisa, Alex, and Helen to leave and go home for dinner. Alex was very upset about having to leave Sarah at the hospital. It was both heartwarming to see how much he worried about Sarah, and heartbreaking to see how sad he was to leave. Once we said goodbye, Sarah decided she might try a bit of solid food for dinner. We ordered her some easier to eat items (soup, ice cream, etc.) and she did just fine.
After dinner, the nurses told us that there would be a group of volunteers visiting the teen room with dogs and cats, and that younger kids could visit the room while the volunteers and animals were there. Sarah had a blast visiting with the dogs (a golden retriever and a yellow lab), but was most excited about the cat, a Maine Coon cat, by far the biggest domestic cat I think I've ever seen.
We grabbed a couple of suitable DVDs from the teen room (Mary Poppins and Barbie's Nutcracker movie) and headed back to Sarah's room. After watching her DVDs and talking to both sets of grandparents on the phone, Sarah was ready to call it a night. Fortunately, Children's provides an armchair next to each bed that folds out into a flat bed, so I was able to sleep next to Sarah. The night nurse brought me a pillow and a blanket, and we called it a night.
The next morning moved fairly quickly. The surgeon had told us the day before that Sarah would probably be released the next day, so we expected that a doctor would come to check her out and see if she could be discharged. Once that was successfully behind us, we headed to the hospitals school room to meet the teachers and do a bit of work while we waited for Lisa and the other kids to arrive. We met the teachers (good thing: they take a census of each patient and whether they're working on any studies), did some geography and writing work, and then headed back to the room once Sarah tired.
Sarah got a second wind, and we decided to find the playground that the nurses had told her about. Having done so, she gingerly went down the slide a few times (convincing me that she was, in fact, ready to go home). We played for a bit, and then headed back to the room again when she got tired. Lisa and the kids arrived shortly thereafter, and from that time on, it was mostly a matter of packing up and filling out the necessary paperwork to have Sarah discharged.
All, in all, it was about as positive experience as one could imagine given the circumstances. I can't say enough good things about the nurses and doctors at Children's. We've dealt with them a fair number of times now over the years, and our experiences have always been positive.
As I said, three weeks on, Sarah is really doing well. We're starting to discover many other acquaintances with stories about their kid's appendicitis. I can see now why we didn't realize how often it happens: anyone who might have gone only a few weeks without seeing Sarah would never know she'd been through this unless we mentioned it. Kids really do bounce back quickly, thank goodness.
