we're still here...

these pics have nothing to do with the story. i took them in craig and i just thought they were cute. plus they help break up a LONG story! :)

andrew and i got back home from a trip to craig to visit my folks a few days before the 4th of july. it was a great trip. we jumped right in to the holiday weekend and had a great time with friends and family. unfortunately, no pics were taken of our fun or our adventures. and then... mason got sick. really sick.
we all laid down on sunday afternoon to take a nap following the long weekend and i noticed that mason was running a fever. but i didn't think too much of it since mason tends to run a fever whenever he gets sick of any kind. and it had been such a busy weekend that we both thought it was just fatigue. he had planned on taking a "free" day from work the next day so we all just stayed home and rested and i got caught up on some things, namely laundry. he took a nap again that day but when he woke up, he was feeling much worse than before, which completely defeats the purpose of the nap! he suffered through it for a couple hours and then decided to go lay down again since he was just so miserable.

well, not too long after that, i heard him moaning from the bedroom so i went up to check on him. he was having pain in his abdomen so badly that he was tossing and turning and moaning. i felt his forehead and he was on fire! but he had the chills too so his jaw was quivering, the whole nine yards! and he said we needed to go to the emergency room! i took his temperature at it was still climbing at 103.9 but he couldn't keep it in his mouth any longer. i got him in the shower to both try and warm him up and to see if it would help the pain while i ran downstairs to check webmd. because his temp was so high and because of the chills it said to take him to the doctors immediately. i was nervous because mason never wants to go to the doctor for anything and here he was saying that we needed to go to the ER! we had already put andrew to bed a little early so i got him up again and loaded up the car. i called my friend (thanks erica!) and she met us at the hosptial and took andrew to her house and put him to bed.
mason and i waited for what seemed like forever in the ER. the ER was surprisingly busy for a monday night. the took a flu test which came back negative so then they decided to do a bunch of blood work. they were also getting ready to give mason some morphine because he was in so much pain. right about the same time, i had been noticing that mason's blood pressure was dropping but since i don't know anything about that, i decided that i was just being a worry wart. but it kept dropping and he kept losing more and more color in his face. finally alarms started going off and so we got some attention! it was almost surreal like we were in a movie or something. they put oxygen on mason and elevated his feet so the blood would go back to his head and then finally things started returning to normal. scared me half to death though! but thankfully nothing was too exciting after that. they released mason at about 1:00 a.m. but still didn't fully know what was wrong with him. they supposed that it might just be a viral infection and told him to take it easy and stay on a liquid diet until his diarrhea stopped.

so we hung around the next day and just rested and it seemed like mason was starting to get a little better. but the day following, mason woke me up that morning saying that he had blood in his stool and in his urine. so back to the ER we went, dropping andrew off at yet another friends house (thanks cher!). this time we came prepared with books and jackets so the visit was much better in some regards. the ran the same blood tests and didn't find much different and then decided to do a CATscan of his abdomen. the CATscan showed that his entire colon was inflammed. so we were released again with orders to visit the gastroenterologist.

we were able to get an appointment with the gastroenterologist the next day which was a huge blessing! at the appointment, the GI guy thought that mason had ulcerative colitis so he decided to do a colonoscopy for more information. poor mason! the colonoscopy itself wasn't bad at all because they knocked him out (and he said it was the best nap he's ever taken!) but the prep for the procedure was terrible! we have that to fear as we get older, that's for sure! anyway... the colonoscopy went really well and they didn't find anything at all, other than just confirming the inflammation, which was good news. they happened to get the stool sample back about that same time (which they weren't expecting until monday) which showed some bacterial food poisoning in the stool. all the doctors had talked about that but wanted to make sure that it wasn't anything more serious before putting mason on antibiotics. but thankfully, that was all it was. he took a broad spectrum antibiotic for three days and now he's feeling much better. he lost a lot of weight and still feels tired and weak, but he's definitely feeling better. it was quite the week and quite the experience i'll tell you what!

i have much to be thankful for after such an experience. i'm thankful for health insurance... it's not perfect but it's something! and i'm thankful for kind, thoughtful and helpful friends and family who helped us with andrew. he would hardly go to nursery on sunday because i think he was afraid of getting left again but he did well. i think he's happy that things have gone back to "normal". i'm also very thankful for the comforting and guiding influence of the Holy Ghost. if i let myself, sometimes i would become overcome and overwhelmed my fear and worry about mason. so much so at times that it was debilitating. it was then that i would pour my heart out to my Father in Heaven asking for His help and it would come. and i am SO thankful! :) i think we've seen enough of emergency rooms, doctors and hospitals to last us at least until the next year or so.