"They took out a body part..."

Those were the words spoken by Mark to Rachael to help explain Mark's newest "boo-boos" on his tummy. I don't think she really gets it...

So let me back track. For those of you who haven't heard the story yet, on Wednesday, Mark came home from work a few hours early complaining of abdominal pain. The pain progressed rapidly, and by 5:30, we were having our family doctor paged (since it was after hours) to call us immediately. The family doctor called in a prescription for some sort of anti-cramping medicine, but he said if that didn't work, then Mark needed to go to the ER. By about 8:30 that night, Mark was in more pain than he'd ever been in before. He told me he was going to die in 30 minutes. I took that seriously, let me tell you. He wasn't responding to the medicine, so we called the doctor again and were told to head straight to the ER.

We got to the ER by about 9:00 on Wednesday night, and by about 9:45, Mark was back in a room with an IV started and some pain meds flowing through his system. That really helped him feel better as we waited for some test results to start coming in. Finally, at 11:30, they came to get him for a CT scan, and by midnight we had the diagnosis: appendicitis. The doctors felt comfortable that it was in the early enough stages that surgery to remove his appendix could wait until the following morning. So I went home to relieve our sweet friend Fietka, who had rushed over to stay with the kids while we were at the hospital. Mark stayed in the hospital overnight.

So Thursday morning, bright and early, Mark had an appendectomy, and I went up to the hospital as soon as I was able to make child care arrangements for the day. The surgery went well, and his recovery has been going smoothly also. He was released to come home on Thursday night. Yesterday he was up and about here at home and walking around (gingerly, I might add). He goes back in two weeks for a post-op appointment, but I think everything will be fine. He's not allowed to lift anything over 10 pounds for the next 2-4 weeks, and that includes little Ryan, who is about 20 lbs. It's kind of a bummer for Mark not to be able to pick up his kids for the next 4 weeks--especially with Ryan's first birthday being a week from today-- but he has to be really careful.

No one knows what causes appendicitis, even though Mark wanted to blame it on the yogurt he had eaten the night before :) Oh, and I asked if I could take a picture of him just hours after his surgery for the blog, and he "politely" declined. So, no pic. Maybe he'll let me take pictures of his "boo-boos." Somehow I doubt it.