Happy Birthday to Mom!

Today was Mom's birthday.  J wanted to be part of the excitement.  He joined us for an omelet breakfast, although he could only eat a small part of it.  He gave a surprise gift with his labs showing that his white blood cells were back to normal range and that his platelets were improving.  Hemoglobin (a measure of red blood cells) on the other hand is still going down, almost low enough to receive a blood transfusion.  He joined the family for a trip to a cave in the region.  I don't know what happened from that point, but he seemed intent on no longer joining the family in birthday activities.

In the mid to late afternoon (still in the car) he started to complain of back pain.  I didn't think much of it, as he had been sitting in an uncomfortable mini van for the last several hours and he has a lot of back pain throughout this.  When we returned home he was complaining of pain, but I had a dinner and cake to make for Mom, and he didn't get much attention from me.  He was moaning and groaning, he finally receive some attention when he had a message on an iPad indicating he wanted to go to the hospital right away.  That's exactly almost what we did.  In spite all the times that his body has said "Listen to me tell you I'm sick", I wanted to not be bothered and get the dinner made, and I wanted to eat.

Fortunately, this child asking to go to the hospital is strange enough that it eventually caught my attention.  I found out his back pain was better described as flank pain, and it was the same pain that he had at the very first day of this whole ordeal and it was on the side where we discovered he has some kidney stones.  The cake was almost finished, but Mom and I had to decide who kept all the children home, and who would brave the Emergency Room (neither a very good birthday treat).

J and I went to the emergency room.  Poor kid had to wait about 45 minutes just to get to the triage nurse. He was screaming out in pain pretty much constantly. We finally were brought straight past the triage nurses to a room and J finally received his morphine, which he was asking for.  Ultrasound was next, which showed either one large stone or quite a few small stones at the end of the ureter (the tube connecting the kidneys to the bladder.  The urine space in the kidney was a little dilated.  All that pain  I was trying to ignore was J passing a  kidney stone.

Plan for tonight, hydrate while NPO.  Tomorrow morning, surgery again.  OK, this surgery is much different.  They want to look at the ureter and see if they see anything is in the ureter.  He may end up with a  stent, which would need to come back out eventually, and they would wait to intervene on the stone.  Pain seems to be better controlled.  His hemoglobin is down even further, so they decided to give him a blood transfusion.  

Maybe he's not the best with birthday parties.  Better luck next year.