I thought I would post this info in case others would be able to benefit from it. I may update this post later with more details that may be helpful…
The last two weeks have been really hard for us here. My 11 yr old son (Timothy) got sick, with what we thought was the stomach flu. He had the usual symptoms like a flu, seemed to start getting better a little bit, then got worse. I took him to the emergency room because as much as we were doing for him, trying to keep him hydrated and back to eating didn’t seem to be working. He had no appetite. I had even been talking with the doctors on the phone and we all treated it as a stomach virus. I had a strange feeling one night after trying to sleep for an hour near him… and decided to call the doctor again. This time he agreed that I should take him in. So, at 2:00 am, I drove him 20 minutes to the emergency room in Gettysburg, PA, which is closest to where we live. After many hours, the next afternoon we were told he had a ruptured appendix with a large abscess and very high white blood cell count. They called for transport to take the both of us to Penn State Children’s Hospital and we stayed there for a week until he was released yesterday.
They put a stomach tube in where the large abscess was and drained it. Through the whole order of IVs and blood tests, etc. he got poked 11 times, poor thing. 
Things look better, but he is still weak and recovering here at home. He is on two separate antibiotics that are taken at four different times a day for three weeks. He lost a lot of weight and is still trying to get a full appetite back. In 4-6 weeks he will have his appendix removed.
That night that I decided to take him to the emergency room, I was checking on him after I slept for an hour. He wasn’t easy to rouse to get him to drink some more fluids, and he was sleeping but was lying in a crooked position. So, I went to straighten him up and accidently touched his stomach which made him come out of a deep sleep with a big “ouch”. That is when I decided to call the doctor. By that time in his illness, his stomach muscles shouldn’t hurt anymore from throwing up. Something else seemed wrong.
When they checked him at the emergency room, his left side hurt. You would think with an appendix problem, it would be in his right side, where the appendix is. But, at that point, the pain was from swelling from an abscess located in his abdomen in a different area. One more odd thing that I noticed that day is that he had a strange smell on his breath. I mentioned it to the doctor. At first they thought he maybe had a kidney infection. After the CT Scan, they realized it was a ruptured appendix and that he had a large abscess of puss that was very infectious. That was mostly what was making him sick. He also had a very elevated white blood cell count. Usually that means his body had kicked into gear to try and fight infection. But, from what I saw come out, and how the surgeons mentioned the abscess was VERY infectious, it seemed we got him help just in time.
It has been an extremely stressful, upsetting, scary thing to go through with him. He was so sick and weak. There was so much to drain out. It was dangerous for him. We are exhausted. *sigh.
Anyways, I have lots to do here to help him heal and have laundry, bills, and chores to catch up on, not to mention sleep and mental relaxation. I can’t seem to turn this whole thing off enough to relax. I held a lot of stuff in to be strong for him and keep him calm as I could through the whole process. We were definitely scared.
I can say one thing for sure, the whole nursing staff and surgeons for the pediatric care at Penn State Children’s Hospital in Hershey were really excellent!
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