Jon's Health Scare

 On Saturday Feb 29th Jon went to work for a half day. When he came home he was complaining that he didn't feel very good. About 30 minutes later he was writhing on our bed in pain and hastily decided he better get to an ER quick. Funny thing about still using your GPS to go to the grocery store....trying to find an ER is tricky! I used Google maps to find an ER but it said it was 30 min away. So I started driving toward a busier area and searched again, and found a place. (Note that I asked Jon repeatedly if he needed me to just call an ambulance. He kept saying, "I don't think so, just get to somewhere quick!") He was sweating and moaning--clearly miserable. I have never seen him anywhere near that ill. Freaked me out! So we finally get to the ER-- and we have a car full or kids. We mutually decided that taking all the kids inside wouldn't help him relax, so I just dropped him off at the ambulance door. In my mind I thought "well, hopefully I'll see you later..." I couldn't make myself leave. Jon initially told me to just go to a birthday party for Kate and he would call when he needed picked up. But we still didn't know what was going on. Was he having a heart attack? I figured he had a stomach ulcer that burst or something. About an hour later he tells me that the pain has lessened considerably, and the doctor thought it was just a case of gastritis. But decided to run blood work just in case. Hours later, blood work came back showing signs of liver failure. The ER doc said--here are some pills for gastritis, but follow up with a doctor tomorrow for further testing. Next morning, the doctor took a quick look at his bloodwork and said it was absolutely not gastritis (I must admit I am still disappointed it wasn't just some bad gas that landed him in the hospital....that would have been prime joke material for years to come.) The doctor sent him to be admitted to the hospital for more tests, cat scan, MRI, bloodwork etc. His liver numbers were worse than the day before, and the doc decided it was leftover gallstones from when his gallbladder was removed. They put him out and did surgery to see what was going on. They found stones and cleaned out the liver duct. Also the surgeon made an incision so he wouldn't have problems in the future.

 So they observed him for a few days hours and decided he looked good.

 And they send him home. Jon felt great. His brother Kevin and wife Kelsi came to help us while Jon was in the hospital. Jon wanted to take them to our local park and have fun, so despite my warning he did. The girls had a blast playing with their cousin and their tiny dogs!

 So then Sunday night he passed out in the shower. He was weak, and just overall pathetic. He decided to wait and go back to the doctor Monday morning. The doctor sent him back to the hospital. The surgeon went back in and found that she nicked an artery when making the incision and it was bleeding. She cauterized it. But then after monitoring him for another day his hemoglobin levels were still dropping so she had to go back in AGAIN and she clamped off the artery. His numbers still weren't leveling out like she wanted to see so she gave him a transfusion. Finally at 6:30pm Thursday the 10th, they let him go again.

And what did we do? As per his instance (And his surgeon and doctor saying they THOUGHT he would be fine), we loaded up our van to take the kids to my parent's house and hop our flight to Italy.