March 20, 2009

9:00 a. m. Zach starts to feel intense pain in his abdomen. Like a trooper he finishes school and figures that he has been a victim of food poisoning via McDonald's. Friday night and into Saturday morning the pain intensifies and we take a trip to the new hospital by our house.

After being admitted to the hospital by two employees by the name of Josh, Z and I take it as a sign. He is hooked to an IV and tests begin. Since he isn't manifesting classic acute appendicitis pain, the doctor takes his time in ordering a CAT scan. His white blood cell count comes back at 15 1/2, with the norm being 13- so now we have s suspicion something isn't OK.

At age 14, Z is 6 feet tall and weighs 170 pounds. He is taller than a lot of the nurses and he is constantly being mistaken for a seventeen year old. His maturity and gratitude have his nurses flummoxed about how well behaved he is.

At 4:00 pm on March 21st we are notified that Zach's appendix is 1.5 centimeters in size and the doctor hasn't seen one that size in a long time. We are scheduled for an operation to get the offending organ removed. We wait an additional four hours for the operation because trauma patients are bumped ahead of Z. At 6:50 pm Z is given IV sedation through his IV and he gets a green shower cap placed on his head. They roll him into surgery and as he counts back from 100- he falls asleep and is wheeled into the OR room.

After exactly 70 minutes, during which time, I talk to his Uncle Yost and we waited for Z to come out of surgery. As luck would have it, Z gets the best surgeon in the hospital. At 8:00 p.m., Dr. Ott comes out of surgery and says that Z is doing well. Yeah! He did great during the procedure and came out of the anesthesia without throwing punches- like his dad used to! He responded well to the medication.

I got to see Zach at 9:30 pm in his room. We spent the night in a beautiful room with very good nurses and staff. Zach got morphine for the first time and was quite the character. He can hold his own in a conversation, while having no idea what he is talking about.

Today (Monday), Zach is sore and sacked out on the couch. He has three incisions and they were able to extract his appendix through one of these incisions. He will miss school for the week. His teachers are getting his homework together and he will have something to do. All is well and we are happy to be home. Z just got his first flower and balloon delivery from his grandparents in Italy. I made him pose with the arrangement. It is so thoughtful and Z says thank you to everyone who has called and wished him a speedy recovery.

There, you are updated. I note that this blog is named operation yost and with this blog we fulfilled that title.