Minus One Appendix

We spent our weekend and the first part of this week in the Children's hospital. My oldest had to have her appendix removed....of course, unplanned!! Does anyone have a planned apendectomy?

Today was her first day back at school, and she only went in at 11:00 a.m. I've already gotten a call from her that she needs pain medication and it is currently 1:15!! I have strong reservations that the doctor should've given her more time to recover. He suggested that she attend school on Wednesday this week, but I didn't send her - we are all exhausted from trying to live in a hospital room and keep up with our younger child, so we needed a day off. Plus, it was her BIRTHDAY!! I figured the kid deserved a day off after having been sliced open right before her birthday!!

In retrospect, we were pretty lucky that we were only in the hospital from Saturday evening until Tuesday. There were so many people around us that were in there for much longer periods of time and for much more serious ailments. The thing that made me so sad was a little boy who was on our floor, he was all alone most of the time. His parents had to be at work and so he spent his days alone, playing Nintendo or hanging out at the nurse's station. We were lucky enough to be able to have one parent with our child at all times. I can't even imagine how crushing it would be to have to leave your 6 year old all alone at a hospital. Knowing that if you don't go to work, you could lose your job and insurance, knowing that healthcare can cause you to be in financial ruin. Knowing that you had to make a choice to be with your child, or to secure your group insurance. Ugh. It is just not right.

But we are home now, and my child is doing better. I'm still trying to catch up on the sleep that was lost, a hospital is no place to get any rest!!