The Day in the Hospital

Today was supposed to be a quiet day when I caught up on things, and worked on a craft project.  It did not turn out that way at all.  As many of you know, my youngest daughter was diagnosed with mono about 10 days ago. She was doing much better, and went back to school full time this week.   Well on Wednesday, things started to change.  She called home around 1:30 saying her stomach really hurt again.   .  I emailed her teacher who told me she noticed yesterday that my daughter was not doing well, and was trying to push through. She was the one who suggested that my daughter call home.  When my daughter  was in too much pain to get up today,   I decided to call her Dr. to see if they thought she needed to be checked out.    They felt she did, and we went in for an 11 a.m. appointment.   Our regular Dr. is off on Thursdays, so we saw another Dr. in the practice. She was really nice, and did a very detailed exam.   She immediately had concerns.   Last week with the mono diagnosis the pain was on the upper left side.  Today the worst pain was on the lower right side, exactly where her appendix should be.  She told us that we needed to go the hospital where they had a pediatric E.R. for an ultrasound.   We arrived at the hospital 30 miles away  around 1, and was temporarily sent to the main triage where a lot of the people were waiting.  There were a lot of sick grownups,  and even a man sitting in a wheelchair with a security escort. (It might have been a prisoner, but I don't think they would have allowed him to be sitting  with everyone else if he was.)   Luckily she was the 2nd one called, and we were quickly moved to the pediatric unit.   She was asked for a sample, which was no problem, because she really needed to go at that point.   She was given a gown, and then we waited.  A little while later we saw a nice medical student.  She did another exam, and told us someone would be with us shortly.  We waited over an hour before we would hear anything else.   Our nurse came in to tell us that an IV bag with  pain meds and fluids was on its way.  We were also told that the ultrasound had just been ordered.   The main Dr. came in around that same time, and apologized for the delay. They were really busy with patients today. She did another exam on my daughter.  When she did the exact same things the medical student did, my daughter looked at the med student in a confused manner.  She is probably wondering why she was being examined for the third time in 4 hours.  Finally around 5 pm we were taken to the ultrasound unit.  It is weird seeing an ultrasound without a baby in it.  That is the only kind I have ever seen.  Basically my daughters insides were a mass of blobs.  I couldn't really make out anything.  My daughter asked  the tech if  could see anything wrong.  She very sweetly said that she was not allowed to tell what she sees, only the Dr could explain it to us. The tech didn't seem to worried by what she saw, but we would have to wait another hour before finding out.   Finally a little after 6 p.m. we finally heard the news.  It was not  appendicitis, but inflammed lymph nodes, which were a complication from the mono.  Because of the location of the lymph nodes, mesenteric adenitis  (the actual name of the diagnosis) often mimics appendicitis.  We were finally released a little before 7.  We waited all day to find there wasn't anything we could do for this other than rest, pain meds and fluids, but we were very happy not to be admitted for an appendix operation!  Hopefully tomorrow, things will get back to normal.