Adventures with Steve

Last year Jacob had some stomach attacks that caused much pain and agony and ER/urgent care visits. But they never did figure out what caused them. It had been a while so we were beginning to think he was in the clear. Until Tuesday when he came home early from work in pain. In the past the advice was always to go on a clear liquid diet, and usually the pain and other symptoms would go away within about a day or so. When he was still in pain on Thursday morning he got an appointment at his doctor, who suggested it may be a blocked intestine, but said he'd need an x-ray to tell for sure, so either he could get an x-ray and hear back by 5:00 if he needed to go to the ER to get it taken care of if it was a blocked intestine, or figure out what the next step would be if that wasn't it, or we could go straight to the ER and get the x-ray done there. We went straight to the ER. Where we hung out in the waiting room from 12:30pm until about 5:30pm. By 9:30 Jake was finally getting a scan done and around 1 am we got to see these pictures (minus the labels, and reversed-for some reason our webcam does a mirror photo instead of regular):

Jacob named the extra blob that doesn't belong there Steve.

The doctor was still waiting to hear back from the radiologist and wasn't quite sure what Steve was, except that he was fluid-filled. Luckily the radiologist didn't give Jake too long to come up with scary theories and about ten minutes later the doctor came back and said the radiologist thought it was an inflamed appendix. With a 4 cm diameter (on the bottom picture), which would put it about 8 cm tall. The doc said this was one for the books, as big as it is.

With that news it was time to get officially admitted to the hospital. So after getting Jake settled in his new room, I headed over to my parents' house to sleep. Thankfully, they live about 2 minutes away from the hospital--very convenient. Also, very thankfully, they have been entertaining Rachel since the ER adventure began. She's happy as can be and we're worry free, able to focus on Jake getting better. THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU, Mom and Dad!

Rachel tried to come visit (which the hospital website says is allowed), but because of H1N1 precautions they're not letting kids under 13 in for now, so instead she went to the gift shop and picked out a present for daddy:

Notice how the words on the bear are reversed. Why does this webcam do that?!
Rachel and Daddy later had a little video chat, so Rachel could get in a little cyber-visit with Daddy, since she couldn't come in real life.

Jacob doesn't have regular appendicitis-he's special. He has mucocele of the appendix, which means he has an appendix filled with jelly (actually mucus, or something like unto it that is jelly-like). It also means he can't have it laproscopically removed because there's a possibility of puncturing the appendix and causing problems. So he'll have a nice scar as a battle wound since they have to cut him all the way open. I'm currently in the waiting room waiting for surgery to finish up. Then the recovery can begin. And he can eat real food again soon. The only food Jake has had since Tuesday at lunch is lots of Jell-o, Gatorade, and grape juice, and a handful of saltines and pretzels on Wednesday night. I'm sure he's looking forward to a nice hearty meal of chicken broth and saltines. :) Or even real food in the near future. The doc said either Monday or Tuesday he'll be able to come home again. I can't wait to have it all over and done with.