And the Diagnosis Is ...

MA is a little bit of a hypochondriac. She has a tendency to make the smallest ailment sound life threatening. In the past I have made the mistake of dismissing an "upset stomach" as just being MA only to be cleaning up vomit an hour later. Now if she complains, I take precautions "just in case" but don't get too concerned too quickly.

Two weeks ago MA started complaining of abdomen and lower back pain. My first thought was constipation. It is a common problem with her. She inherited it from her mother. Then I started wondering if she was having menstrual cramps. Oh no, I am not ready for her to go there yet. We gave her some Advil for the pain and she perked up, played the rest of the day and went to a friend's for a sleepover. She came home early the next morning crying and not feeling well and with a fever. So the illness began in our home. Since she continued to complain of right lower abdominal pain I took her to the doctor. They did some blood work and tested for strep. All looked well so they thought it probably wasn't appendicitis and sent us home. By Thursday the fever was gone and she was doing well. Monday the fever came back but I assumed she just got the flu from me. It lasted two days and she was better. Saturday the fever and abdominal pain were back. By this point I was really starting to get worried and called the doctor. They again decided to wait and see.

We had planned to go to my in-laws for Easter and since Advil usually helped reduce MA's fever and diminish the pain we decided to make the trip. The Advil didn't work as well for MA yesterday. I planned to take her to the doctor today, but decided to go to Children's Mercy Urgent Care last night. I figured the doctor may not be able to do tests in the office and we'd end up at the hospital anyway, so I loaded her up and off we went. I was getting pretty scared at this point. I didn't know what was going on and she had been sick off and on for 2 weeks.

We started off with a flu and strep test. Both came back negative. We took an x-ray of her abdomen to see if it was just constipation. She had a little more stool than normal, but not enough to definitively say, "Yep, that's the problem." Next we did some non-specific blood tests. One came back fine but the other came back slightly elevated. The doctor was concerned the location of the pain was where the appendix is so wanted to rule out appendicitis. The best way to do this is with a CAT scan. In order to get a good reading on the CAT scan, you need to drink this stuff, wait 30 minutes and drink more. It's was not pleasant tasting. They also had to give her an I.V. to administer some other fluid during the CAT scan. It was about midnight by now and MA was tired of being poked and prodded and scared or possible surgery. She got all the drinks down, but before we headed to the CAT scan she vomited. Thankfully it didn't effect the test and it made her feel better. More waiting and then around 2:00 a.m. the doctor said they saw the appendix and it looked fine. Yeah! No surgery! However, they did notice some infection in the kidney.

After all the tests, a simple urine test determined an infection. Normally with a kidney or bladder infection you have pain urinating. She did not have any pain with urination so they didn't consider this test early on. It was a long night and we didn't get home till 3:30 a.m. but I am glad we went. I have so much faith in Children's Mercy and the staff is wonderful. Unfortunately, this is my second visit in just 4 months but I am grateful to know my children will be well taken care of and a diagnosis will be found.