Hanging In There

This week has been a crazy one at our house. Last Thursday Korver started to get really fussy. He was in his high chair eating dinner and started screaming. Mr. K is normally a pretty mellow kid, so I knew something was wrong. I got him out of his high chair and he nearly crawled right out of my arms. He was in pain. I put him on the floor and he started crawling around crying. He couldn't even hold himself up. Now, back in December he had the same kind of episode. We were at my mom and dad's house at a Christmas party and it was almost the exact same scenario. When it happened then, I knew we needed to get him straight to the hospital. He just wasn't acting right. So we rushed him to the ER. On the way over he became lethargic and really dopey. Jeff called 911 and they said to pinch him, slap his little face, do whatever we needed to do to keep him awake and coherent. When we arrived at the ER, the doctor rushed out and grabbed Korv from me. They rushed him into a room and started working on him. They got him stabilized and ran a bunch of tests on him. The doctor wasn't for certain, but he thought what he had was an intussesseption, which is where the intestine folds over itself causing blood supply to cut off and everything basically coming to a hault. Not having the equipment necessary to fix the problem at the hospital, we were transported by ambulance to Primary Children's Hospital late that night. When we arrived they hooked Korver up to a machine that blows air into his bowels and blows the kink out. We were able to go home early the next day. They told us that there was a ten percent chance of it happening again. We thought we were in the clear.

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When he started having this episode last Thursday night, I thought, please don't let this happen to my baby again. Please, just let it be a little gas. I was hoping it would pass. Then he started going lethargic again and I knew at that moment that it wasn't just gas. Jeff was gone and I immediately called him on his cell phone. He was on the other line. I hung up and called again. He still didn't answer. I tried to call my mom, no answer. I called my mom and dad's house, no answer. Finally Jeff called me back. I was in a panic by this point. I didn't know what to do. The girls were up in the tub and I was home having to deal with this by myself. I wasn't thinking clearly. Korver is crying hysterically all the while. Jeff helped calm me down and told me to try my dad's cell phone and have him come sit with the girls while I took Korv to the ER once again. I hung up with him and called my dad's cell. He answered and said he would be up in no time. They only live 5 minutes from our house. He was taking forever, or so it seemed. I was back on the phone with Jeff, he told me to call a neighbor to come sit with the kids. Just then I thought, duh, call Cindy. Who is my neighbor as well as my really good friend. I called her crying and she asked no questions and ran right over to my house. Just as she came around the corner, my dad pulled up in the truck. He asked Cindy to go with me. We rushed over the the hospital. Cindy was in the back seat keeping Korver awake. When we arrived they took Korver and again got him stabilized. They only did one scan on him and said it was more than likely the intussesseption again. So we were back in the ambulance once again headed to Primary Children's. My mom had since arrived at the hospital to be with me and said not to worry, that she would take care of Abbi and Hallie for us. Cindy drove my truck home for me and offered to help in any other way that she could and I was on my way with my sweet boy (who was feeling great having been given a shot of Morphine.)

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Jeff was on his way to Primary's to meet me there. When we arrived at the ER, he was already there. He gave me a big hug when he saw me and told me that it was going to be OK. I have never been more happy to see him. At Primary's they tried to do blow the air into his bowels to get the kink to release and they couldn't get it to. The radiologist then told us that the procedure wouldn't be successful and that our next option was surgery. I was scared to death. Jeff gave Korver a blessing and off our little boy went into surgery. It was about 1:45 am at this time. We waited and waited. 3:30 am came around and the surgeon came into the waiting room and told us our boy was all done and fixed up and that we could see him. When we walked into the recovery room he was lying face down in a huge hospital bed all hooked up to monitors and IVs peacefully sleeping. I was relieved that my baby was OK.

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They wheeled him to our room where we would be spending the next few days. I crawled right into bed with my little Korver and cuddled with him all night long. The next morning the doctor came in and told us that his stay was probably going to be about a week. That day was long. Jeff and I watched movies and had a few visitors. Korver was pretty still since he was on pain killers through his IV for the pain.

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Saturday morning when the doctor came in, we were told that his feeding tube would need to stay in for 3 more days. Meaning it wouldn't be out until Tuesday and that it would be a couple days after that until he could go home. About 30 minutes after the doctor left, Korver pulled his feeding tube right out. When I called the nurse, she told me that they would have to put it back in. But when the doctor heard, he came in and started laughing and said that they would keep it out and monitor him closely. He said, "Buddy, you have no idea how much time you just saved yourself." The little man did such a great job in the hospital and recovered quickly. By Saturday afternoon he was eating solids and Sunday he was walking around the hospital like he owned the place. We were able to come home on Monday afternoon. When we left we were told that this should never happen again. That the surgery should fix it making it so that the little guy won't suffer from that kind of pain ever again.