August, 2011 and February, 2012 — Our Journey — Surgery, Surgery, and more Surgery

By Kim Georgeson

This last year has been quite a roller coaster and stressful year for us.  Between my daughter, Kirstin, and myself, we have had four surgeries.

With Kirstin’s diabetes, she missed the first day of school on numerous occasions.  This year, she was fortunate enough to attend the first day in many years.  Her absences on the first day almost becoming comical between us.  She usually would get the flu and would not be able to go to school. 

Well this year would be different.  She did make it to the first day of school and then to cheer practice afterwards.  We went and ate after cheer then relaxed and she went to bed.   

About 10:30 p.m. that night while I was finishing watching the nightly news, she got up from her sleep with a very bad stomachache.  So I am thinking – here we go again, she has the flu.  She was on the couch and kept complaining how bad her tummy hurt.  I of course asked all the logical questions, like – what did you eat today, when did you start hurting, etc.  We had eaten at Subway that evening, so I suggested to her that if may be food poisoning. It hurt so bad that she wanted to go to the hospital. I warned her that if she did they would probably put her in for the night.

With no sleep for me, we headed the short four blocks to the small local hospital. The hospital admitted her and after a few hours of talking to the nurse and the doctor, they called in the Phlebotomist to draw blood.  This would be around 12:30 a.m.  They had given her a shot of Toradol in this time-frame and with some relief from the pain she decided this was her new “best friend”.  After getting results from the blood work, they called in the X-ray Technician.  The nurse put an IV in before the scan, which she thankfully was able to use for the next few days.  With the x-rays reviewed it was confirmed that her appendix was erupting. Kirstin cried a few tears.  She said I thought it was just going to be food poison.   That pretty much broke my heart. 

They gave us the choice to go to Kearney that is 1 ½ hour drive, go to Hays that is a 1 ¾ hour drive or stay and have the local doctor perform the surgery.  We chose to go to Hays and after another shot of Toradol we made it in 1 ¼ hour and arrived around 5:00 a.m.  They prepped her for surgery and she was in surgery before 7:00 a.m.  Kirstin did fine in surgery although her blood sugars were elevated.  They watched her very close.  According to Dr. (Doogie Houser) Cunningham, a very nice doctor, he said that her appendix was “very angry”.   Kirstin stayed in the hospital that night.  As soon as she was in her hospital room and blood sugars checked, we both crashed around 1:00 p.m.  Luckily there was an extra bed for me right beside her.  After 36 hours of no sleep – I was exhausted.  Later that evening, her Grandma was able to visit and a friend of my sister Gwen visited.  It was nice to see them both.  The next morning the doctor came in and released Kirstin.  It took a little while for the dismissal and we both agreed that we were not ready to go.  Kirstin was the first to mention how nice it was to be in the hospital to be waited on and I really could have stayed another day because my work was yet to come.  All in all the surgery and recovery went well.  Her blood sugars were elevated during surgery but no major problems when we were at home.  Although for the next surgery we did opt to have it in the hospital instead of in the local office. Just to be on the safe side.