OK..so he wasn't faking it!

Now, I can honestly say that Dane has guts. I know because I have seen them. And I wish I hadn't.

It started on Saturday with Dane telling me he had a stomach ache. Then he went to the County Fair, watched the parade, rode the rides, ate a few carney dogs and came home at 10:30pm. Sunday he woke up and told me that his stomach hurt a little bit more, fed the horses, dogs, chickens went to Church, came home and went back to the Church in the evening to clean it with his scout troup. Monday, he woke up fed the horses & etc. came inside and told me his stomach was too sick to go to school. I was skeptical and told him to dress for school and see how he felt. He said he was too tired to dress. Hmmm, I thought, I was still not convinced. You know, one of the jobs inherent in being to motherhood is being able to sniff out a faker. Many is the Sunday that one of my kids was too sick to go to Church only to have a miraculous recovery at the very minute we got back home. This "my-stomach-hurts-routine" was a very overused bluff in my house. I decided to wait until after school when he would amazingly "perk-up" to give him the-boy-who-cried-wolf lecture.

Because I was working at the grade school, I came home at lunch to check on Dane. He asked me if I had something to help his stomach feel better. "Good try", I thought, because when I walked in I caught him all cozy on the couch watching Blazing Saddles". When I tried to give him Tums he said it wasn't that kind of a hurt. He said it hurt from the middle of his ribcage to his upper right side, just under his ribs. I gave him credit for being creative, but I still had my doubts. I asked Joe to come home for lunch and see what he thought. Joe called me at school and told me to take Dane to the clinic as soon as I could. After 4 hours at the clinic, a CT scan, bloodtests and a lot of poking and prodding, no one there had any more answers than me. At least now I knew he was uncomfotable, muscle strain maybe? The surgeon was called and Dane was taken back to the hospital and examined by him. Dane seemed to take this all in stride, he would continue to say that he hurt between his ribs and high on his right side. He would wince during the exams, but never cried or showed too much discomfort at all. The surgeon concluded that because his white blood count was high, he must have swollen glands. Dane came home and was told to rest. I checked on him at 12:30 am and found he had thrown up and was too weak to get up out of his bed. I was beginning to believe. I helped him upstairs to sleep near me and between 1:00 am and 6:00 am he threw up 8 times. Joe was to tell me later that this is a classic sign of appendicitis (wish he would have told me that night!) Anyway, to make a long story short, we got Dane to the hospital where his appendix burst about 1 1/2 hours before surgery. He was extremely weak and in pain, but he stayed very still and very quiet, he would tell the nurses his pain was only at a 6 or an 8 on a scale of 1 -10! When the surgeon removed his appendix he found it was in the wrong place, right behind his gallbladder (which made it hard to diagnose appendicitis coupled with Dane's stoicism). He said Dane's appendix was bigger and more discoulored than any he had seen in a long time, and he wondered why Dane didn't exhibit more pain. They showed his appendix to me and I exhibited enough pain for both of us! It was gross.

Since the operation, he has been very weak, but in good spirits. He tells everyone his pain level is at a 1 and has only requested pain medication 3 times since his surgery on Tuesday afternoon! He is very compliant with everything the nurses ask of him even when it hurts. I asked him what he thought about his hospital experience and he told me that it was "great!" The funniest part of all of this was when we were waiting for the surgeon to arrive, Dane was very anxious to have the surgery and kept asking me when the Dr. was going to be ready. Trying to divert him, I turned on the TV and found the MountainWest station. Luckily they were replaying last year's game between BYU and Utah and we had tuned in at the 4th quarter. Well, the diversion worked and Dane began talking about the game with the surgery staff that were waiting in the room with us. As we got closer to the Harline catch all eyes were glued on the TV. Suddenly the surgeon walked in saw what everyone was watching and said "Well, we have to get Dane in the operating room before we see the last play, that's depressing - I'm a Ute fan!"

Dane will be in the hospital until Sunday or Monday. I stay here with him and amazed more and more every day by what a tough little guy he is. Next time, I will know he's not faker....unlike all of my other kids!