The Katy Incident...

So... A couple weeks ago Katy stayed home from church because she said she had a stomach flu... We all thought she might just have cramps or some such thing since nobody had been sick and Katy is not usually the first of us to get sick... But on Monday she felt worse and by the time Jed got home from work she had him take her to the ER to get checked out. We all knew it must be serious because Katy might exaggerate a stomach ache to get to sleep in but she would never go to the ER unless it was serious.

Here's the thing, when you live in an area that the population more then triples in the summer, places like the ER get overwhelmed and that is how it was that Monday evening. Thankfully we kept Gobbie so even though they were there hours she was safe and sound and able to take naps etc... Poor Katy wasn't so lucky... She got to sit on a folding chair in the hallway of the ER between tests! They told her she had some gall stones and she would probably pass them. They gave her a prescription for a few pain pills and told her to see a surgeon in the next week or so to see about the possibility of having it taken out. 

She went home, took a pain pill and slept some... Then the next day Jed dropped her and Goobie off here before he went to work so she could camp out on our sofa and we could help with Goobie. She was in quite a bit of pain but afraid to take too many of the pain killers so she mostly laid there in pain... Poor baby!

We tried to make an appointment for her but with only two surgeons in the area and one on vacation it was going to be awhile before they could see her. Later that night she called me in tears from the pain. I insisted she take the pain meds but she was afraid to because if she took two she would only have three left and didn't think she'd last the week and half until her appointment. I told her not to worry, take the pills and I would take her back to the ER tomorrow to get more effective pain killers at least and maybe even get her appointment moved up. I am quite a bit more assertive then mild mannered Katy so she knew we'd get results. That was good because she was able to sleep. 

The next afternoon that's what we did, and she was right... I do have a way of getting things taken care of. I snapped this attractive picture when she was hopped up on morphine and we thought she was just going to get more meds then head home... We were wrong...

It turns out she had pancreatitis... It was fairly severe and caused by a seriously abnormal gall bladder that was FULL of gall stones. She was admitted, put on antibiotics and a heart monitor... We were informed she would be transferred to Maine Medical Center in Portland for a procedure the next day to remove a blockage in her pancreas then the following day they would need to remove her gall bladder. 

Apparently her gall bladder did nothing then make stones and she has been passing them for at least ten years seriously damaging the duct between the gall bladder and the pancreas. Her gall bladder had well over 100 stones in it... To give you an idea, when I got mine removed they thought I had a lot and I had 12!! 

She has had what we called her upper belly and lower belly since she was about 11 or so... There has always been this line in her abdomen... After the first procedure her "upper belly" literally went away in about 12 hours... It turns out it was all toxin filled fluid that her system could not process fast enough because of constant blockages. Also she has also always been more olive skinned then Allison or I but it turns out she has been mildly jaundiced for over a decade! Also within 12 hours her skin color changed to ours! 

She had lived with what she called "rib cage pains" since she was a kid but the doctors said it was growing pains then later they told us it was a nerve cluster that is commonly agitated... You see she has had check ups, exams that have included her abdomen... She had a baby for goodness sake and nobody caught it! 

Anyhow she came home a week ago and although she is recovering from the procedure and surgery she feels like she has a new lease on life. We all had a crazy week, juggling baby duty, runs to Portland (2 hours away) and we still have our normal obligations. Thankfully they transported her down and back in an ambulance so she could be more comfortable but we were running around like chickens with our heads cut off. At one point I slept for three hours in a waiting room I was so exhausted... You reach a point when you don't care who sees you, you just have to sleep! 

It took the rest of us the better part of last week to recover too... The downside of that? We have to leave here in less then two weeks to take Allison to Montana, ready or not! Thankfully in home care for my mother came together without a hitch so she will be taken care of here! Yay! And Katy should be 100% healed by then... Double Yay!

 Thanks for listening,