Tummy Troubles

I'm thinking I should start keeping a couple of tally bars going. One for how many times I call 911 and one for emergency room visits. If there were contests for the highest calls for 911 in a year or number of ER visits in a lifetime, I would totally win - hands down. Okay, so maybe it's not really that bad, but I'd easily be in the top five of people I know. Today we would have added another notch to the ol' ER visit tally. First up, let me say that we are all fine now and there's no reason to panic. :-) Alex and Abby both woke up this morning to a mammoth crash of thunder and lightning followed by a power outage that left them screaming in terror from their bedrooms. (They aren't fans of the dark.) I also discovered that Josh isn't exactly great with the dark either. He jumped out of bed like Batman answering the bat signal and ended up stumbling around the house like a noisy, drunken monkey. I was actually giggling at his panic as I calmly herded up the kids before he could return with a light. Anyhow, within minutes of waking up, Alex was in the bathroom and throwing up. At first, I was convinced it was just a shock to his system and he was having some anxiety issues from being woken up so harshly. (Been there, done that.) This thought was promptly changed when I spent the rest of my morning (from 4:30 a.m. to be precise) on the couch with two kids - one of them sick and both of them scared of the horrific weather happening outside. Alex got better after sleep and was back to his normal, jumpy, happy self by noon. But as the day progressed, he went downhill fast. Despite his happy demeanor in the morning, he still complained about pain in his tummy. He didn't really throw up much, but spent a good amount of time telling me that he needed to. Unfortunately for the poor kid, he developed a fever and couldn't stand up straight without pain in his tummy area. After the last time of him asking me to listen to his tummy with a stethoscope, I called the doc and was told to take him to the ER. He was showing classic signs of appendicitis. In a moment of freak slow motion, my brain calculated the situation at hand. Josh is going to be gone all week in a far away land for work with his new hotel roomy, Steve, and there was now potential that I'd be bunking over night with two kids in the hospital. I don't know about you, but this is not my idea of 101 ways to start your week off right. We packed into my trusty minivan and headed for the hospital. Alex felt so bad that he didn't even cry or put up a fight for the ER doc. He just laid there. And if you know anything about my kids, this is incredibly abnormal. A good once over and a handy little anti-nausea pill later, he was bounding across the hospital bed like a little gazelle. I was thanking God that he didn't have appendicitis and that he just had some kind of yucky tummy bug going around. Of course, this probably means that Abby is next in line and will promptly be followed by me. Josh is bailing for work in a few hours so he will probably come away from this without any issues. I'm praying that everyone is well and happy this week. Feel free to throw a couple of extra prayers our way if you feel so inclined. And seeing as how I have a whopping three hours of sleep in me, I think I'm gonna go pass out on my bed now.