On Tuesday (the 17th), Marty was feeling sick. I assumed he'd gotten sick with a stomach bug that had slowly made it's way through our family over the past two weeks. It was just a little 24 hour bug and not that big of a deal. As sick as he was feeling, he spent the entire two hours between work and his young men's activity trying to work out who could actually go. That close to Christmas, seemingly no one was going to be around and they were desperate for drivers, so he went anyway. To Jump Street. He has later acknowledged that it wasn't a great idea.
Wednesday, he still wasn't feeling good but thought he'd be ok to go in to work. He called me on his way home from work sounding not at all like himself. Rather, the version of himself that was just hit by a bus. He went strait upstairs to bed and like a nice, nurturing wife I kept my distance, not wanting to be infected. The kids and I got a cheesy Christmas movie from Redbox and watched that while listening to Marty (on the other side of the house, my friends) throw up vital body organs. I thought he must have gotten a much worse version of the stomach bug. That night he was in so much pain that he called our brother-in-law who is a pediatrician and warned him of some things to watch for. I took my phone with me and went downstairs to sleep in the guest bed. I tossed and turned, got up and down, and generally spent the night feeling very "unsettled."
At 4:00 in the morning he texted me to let me know he needed me. I went upstairs and he was curled up in a ball on his right side, researching appendicitis. He said he thought it was about time to go to the emergency room. Being the nice, nurturing wife and not knowing what to do with four kids at 4:00 in the morning, I told him we should just wait it out a little longer. He suggested I pack a hospital bag, just in case. I suggested we still wait it out. I couldn't go back to sleep and spent the morning tidying the downstairs (or rather, cleaning like a meth addict). The kids were up at six and I got them breakfast and before taking Brynn to school, I asked Marty if he still thought we should go in, which he did.
At 7:10ish I was back home with the younger three and we called our VERY nice friends across the street to give Marty a blessing and take the kids while we went to the emergency room. The first tender mercy here is that both of them had the day off of work (although I still feel bad that D was supposed to be recovering from a chest cold and he spent it chasing after our kids). The second tender mercy is that we have a beautiful new Banner hospital just down the road. It was not only convenient to go back and forth from there to our house, but by that point Marty could barely move and was cringing at every minor bump in the road.
So that Thursday morning, Marty checked into Banner Ironwood hospital and didn't come home until Saturday. It was appendicitis, just as he had expected. Probably because of the blessing, I felt calm about Marty and had a very strong feeling that he was in good hands and was going to be ok. Although I couldn't stand watching the pain he was going through. The morphine was a very welcome relief once he got it. Comic relief as well. However, I will have to ask Marty for permission to tell the very embarrassing story about him repeatedly telling me we were are a date and asking me if I wanted to kiss. Oh, whoops. ;) It took a while to get the tests done, and then there was a lot of waiting around for test results, but as soon as they confirmed what it was, he was being prepped for surgery within minutes. The surgeon was the nicest guy, as was the team of anesthesiologists. But as soon as he was wheeled away and I was shown to the waiting room, I became a bit of a basket-case. The surgeon had told me he'd be in the hospital until Saturday or Sunday. At that point, it was about 11:00. Brynn needed to be picked up in an hour. I have a seven-month-old who screams bloody-murder when Mommy leaves, and is still nursing. Basically, I had a gaggle of four that I had no idea what to do with for the next three days. My mom had been texting me and looking at airfare, but there were literally no seats left that day or the next (apparently SLC airport was having major blizzard issues). Plus I didn't want to ask her to jump on a flight that day anyway. I knew soon the babies would be getting tired and fussy and needing to be home with me, but of course I couldn't leave Marty alone in the middle of an emergency surgery. Those thoughts exploded in about a minute of sitting in a waiting room chair. I sheepishly called my Relief Society President to let her know the situation. She was out of town but suggested I ask her counselor (who just happened to be my bestie already watching the kids) to send out an e-mail to the ward. Long story short, within the hour we had more offers for help from people then we could possibly ever take them up on, and the offers continued to pour in for days. It was inspiring, and awkward, and humbling all rolled up into one. My friend spent that day scheduling day care, meals, and carpools from that Thursday clear up until Sunday.
The surgery went perfectly, although they certainly took their sweet time afterwards with whatever it was before I was actually able to see him. I exchanged funny texts between Marty's family wherein I was able to send them four graphic pictures of Marty's nasty, dark, infected organs. Greg promptly invited everyone for a sausage feast (ew, ew, ew) and they teased me about Marty's drugged flirting. When I finally met him up in his room he was still too tired to interact much. The blow of seeing him attached to that many machines was softened by the on-going humor of drugged Marty. For instance, he once woke up just long enough to grumble, "Where's. My. Jell-o," before he passed out again on his pillow. And the nurses confirmed with him that he knew how to use his breathing contraption ten times every hour, but then as soon as they all left he asked me what he was supposed to do with it.
By then it was 3:30 and I was only able to spend about an hour with Marty before I felt like I really did need to leave him and check-in with the kids, not to mention relieve my poor friends. They are really such good kids, but they are a huge job. So I tried to make sure Marty had everything he needed, but still felt really guilty leaving him. Looking back I'm not sure why, since he couldn't keep his eyes open anyway. When I left, I had the worst feeling of being torn and wishing I could be in four different places at once. Namely, at the grocery store to pick up everything I had signed up to send Brynn with for her school party, running through a drive through as I'd now been up for 13 hours and still hadn't eaten, picking up my very limp babies, and wishing I was still at the hospital helping Marty wake up. The feeling of being torn in a million directions continued for days because even when I felt like I was in the most important place at the time, I was always feeling anxiety about where I wasn't. Every minute was a mad dash of going from one place to the next, and sleep was a joke. That's why I say I will try to refrain from complaining about "me time!"
Back to Marty. :) He has always had a super-human power of speedy healing, and that held true. But Friday morning we had to make the disappointing decision to call off the Christmas trip to Utah. He wasn't even supposed to be headed back to work until Monday (ten days later), and then just for paperwork (luckily he only had to have a substitute for two days before the holiday break). We were supposed to be leaving in six days and it just didn't seem wise, not to mention going against doc's orders. On top of which Marty knew he would have a mountain of stuff waiting for him if he got back to work the same day his students came back. I was sad, but my parents ended up being able to fly out on Christmas Eve. Marty was just so disappointed, poor guy.
The whirlwind continued and he was home by Saturday! He has since forgiven me for making him "wait it out" so long. I think all the sports channels and fairly good room service (after he was off the liquid diet, of course) helped soften him up a little. I'm not sure how the big kids felt about the whole thing. They seemed nervous about what was going on at first, but mostly I think they had a lot of fun at all of their friends' houses and thought the hospital was akin to a fun hotel room. The babies, however, were a complete and total WRECK by Saturday night and it took them a day or two to recover from the lack of Mommy and routine.
I love this big guy and I'm grateful he's ok and back at home being the sweet, gooey, center that holds our family together. Because when Mommy is at it alone, she is more like razor-sharp shards of peanut brittle that no one really cares for. :)
Here are some pictures from the craziness:
That first day at the hospital Marty said he wanted the kids to come over for a visit. I told him he was crazy and he should just rest and we'd all come the next day. But because of a million crazy things that had come up for him with work, young men's, and I don't even remember what else, he hadn't seen them in days and was sincerely missing them. So I ran home, got them all in a quick bath and we headed over in our jammies with the Little Caeser's pizza a friend was so nice to give us during all the chaos of that first day.
I tried to talk Daddy out of it, but he insisted! It's so easy to get lonesome for a little baby.
Javier, Marty's very fantastic nurse was nice enough to come to the rescue with some pudding and crackers.
Friday, I left the older three with a sitter for a while and took Camille to check on Marty. Then that afternoon I left the babies with another sitter and just took the older two to go watch a movie with Daddy.
Wreck-it-Ralph!
And they left him with a nicely decorated door to cheer him up.
Saturday, we came to take him home!! Here is some more helicopter-watching.
Now it's January and Marty has recovered exactly as I expected him to - like a super-hero. Except I'm not really kidding about his super-hero recovering powers. His pain was minor (so he says), and he tired out really quickly for a while, but I think he's having a good recovery. I'm just grateful he's mine, and that I've still got him around. I really never expected the worst out of the whole thing, but, you know. It all just makes me grateful for him, for our health, and I know that we are so lucky that this is our first such experience for our family (excluding labor and deliveries, which are super easy and no big deal).
Love you, Marty.
1 comment:
what a crazy experience, so glad everything worked out for you guys!!!
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