My Little Trooper

Recently, my 3 year old son was in the hospital. I took him to Wyandotte assuming he had appendicitis. I was right. My poor little buddy. Got his first ride in an ambulance and doesn't even remember it. They took us to Children's Hospital of Michigan by ambulance from Wyandotte Hospital to perform surgery. We waited. And waited. And waited some more. Three hours after arriving, a doctor came in and agreed with the other hospital's diagnosis, however wanted to do an ultrasound to be sure. We waited. Two more hours and they took him down for the test. He was so brave through all this. I V's being inserted...unable to even take a sip of water with prospective surgery "soon" to be performed...an ultrasound probe poking and prodding him right where it hurt already, being in pain for more than 12 hours and still no solution or end to it. And then we were informed that he needed surgery. DUH!!! I thought that appendicitis was an emergency. I was told that as soon as we arrived at Children's, he would be taken right in to surgery. It was 14 hours later that finally he went in. By then his appendix had ruptured. This was, no doubt, the scariest day of my life so far. I love my little boy so much. I was strong for him and he was strong for me. He made me so proud. I couldn't cry in front of him. And I held strong throughout. Until the doctor came out two hours later and said that the surgery went well, he was okay, but his appendix had ruptured and he would need to stay in the hospital and have I V antibiotics around the clock to prevent sepsis. At that moment, I felt a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. I went outside into the bitter cold, smoked probably 3 cigarettes...and that's when I broke down. Alone in the middle of Detroit, so thankful to God that my son was okay. Kevin was at the hospital with me. I did end up calling him when we were on our way to Children's. I would kill him if anything ever happened to Jakey when he was with him and he didn't call me. Single parenthood...it's strange sometimes. Even though Kevin was there, I still felt alone...alone in my thoughts, alone in my fears, alone in knowing that the piece of my heart that walks around in a 3 year old boy was laying on an operating table without his mommy next to him...like my world was caving in fearing that something terrible would happen to my little boy. We spent 8 days there, Jake and I. It took him a while to eat again and he looked so frail when we got home...still does actually. He was running a high fever a few days after and I was still afraid that he was getting an infection from the poison released into his body from the rupture...but he pulled out of it. And we were sent home...and life went back to normal. God is good. Thank you for taking care of my baby.