I Can Finally Breathe...

We had quite the weekend! I couldn't really write about it though because Amber and Andy were out of the country and I couldn't call them and this wasn't the type of thing I wanted them to read in an e-mail or on this blog. But before I even start, let me say that everything is fine now, emergency and worry over. This had always been my biggest worry with Tyler being 6,000 miles away from home.

It all started at 2:30 a.m. Saturday morning when the phone rang. As we all know, calls in the middle of the night are rarely good news. It was Tyler and the first words out of my mouth were "what's wrong?" He stated that he had passed a lot of blood in his stool and wondered if he should go to the emergency room! Howard and I answered with a strong "Yes, definitely get to the emergency room" and he answered that he better get going as he was getting light headed!

To say it was difficult to get back to sleep is an extreme understatement. I think it was about 4:30 by the time I got back to sleep. Then we had to get up early to take the Mustang into a paint shop for a gloss coat, apparently some kind of required maintenance. With the time difference and all it wasn't until Saturday afternoon (which was Saturday morning in Hawaii) before we found out that the first test they performed, some kind of scope down the nose and into the stomach was inconclusive. All they really saw was possibly some kind of an ulcer so they decided a colonoscopy would be necessary. Because some prep was necessary he had to wait until Sunday morning (Sunday afternoon here) to have that test. The initial results of that weren't good. They said there was some kind of vascular mass in or on his cecum which is apparently at the top of the intestines. At this point they didn't know what kind of mass it was but said a CAT scan would be necessary and a surgeon would need to be called. The surgeon didn't come in until Monday morning around 11:00ish (which was 5:00 p.m. our time) to tell him the results of the CAT scan but thank goodness the news was good, really good. I was just at the point of making my airline reservations so I could hop on a plane to help take care of him post-op. The "mass" was apparently an infection of the cecum and the blood must have come from something scraping the infected and inflamed cecum when it was passing through the intestines. They just wanted him to eat lunch and make sure there were no problems after that and then they could release him. He really wanted to be released as he had class that night and really couldn't miss it. He ended up being released around 2:30 (Hawaii time) and called us from school during a break. He seems to be feeling ok, has to take an antibiotic and then return for another CAT scan in a week to make sure the inflammation and swelling of the cecum has gone down.

So, while everything is fine now it was quite scary all weekend and Monday as well, just not knowing what exactly was wrong and what would happen next. He really didn't get any kind of explanation about what could have caused it. We are just hoping and praying that this emergency is over and he has no further problems. He's taking the antibiotics now so they should do the job.

Now everything seems fine in the world. Amber and Andy landed safely today, back from a wonderful vacation. Tyler is on the mend and taking good care of himself.

So now we can breathe, just breathe.