More Hospital visits

Friday night, while visiting the Daniels family, Matt started to get really bad abdominal pain. He had flu like symptoms all week, but things really escalated around 7 o'clock at night. So, around 9, when the pain started to get even worse, we headed down the street to the Urgent Care center in Issaquah. The doctor told us that it sounded like appendicitis, so they sent us over to Overlake Hospital. We waited through triage (even though we were told it was enough of an emergency that we wouldn't have to) and got a room. They put Matty on fluids, took some blood (which wasn't easy with his phobia of needles-and I was no help!!) and antibiotics and prodded his bloated stomach some more. (These pics are from my cell phone, what a night to forget my camera :)Around 2 o'clock in the morning the doctor came in and told Matt that he thought he was going to need an emergency appendectomy first thing in the morning. The most heartbreaking thing about this news was that that meant Matt was going to miss the funeral of his good friend Selden (last post). However, the doctor wanted him to have a CT Scan just in case so they gave him this huge jug of flavored dye to drink before the scan. (Here he is faking a smile)The hospital was freezing, and having to drink this huge cold mix of "kool-aid" Matt started to shiver violently which wasn't easy on his abdomen. It was really hard for me to watch him be in so much pain.
Around 2 o'clock, they took him to get his CT scan, so I went home to try and get some sleep before his surgery at 7am. At 3:30am Matt called me and said "There's nothing wrong with my appendix, but you need to get back here now."
So I hurried back into Overlake for Matt to explain to me that he has been diagnosed with diverticulitis. Yeah, I didn't know what that was either, and I guess its really rare for some one as young as Matt to have it.
The way it was explained to me was that there are little pouches in his colon that have gotten infected and ruptured, thus the distended stomach and the pain/nausea. We don't know how long this has been going on, and we are not sure right now what is going to happen. The ER doctor couldn't help us, so he gave us the name of a specialist to call tomorrow morning. They sent Matt home with some pain medication (woo hoo!) and antibiotics, so right now we are just focusing on keeping him comfortable.
Hopefully we will find out more tomorrow, and I will keep everyone updated as best I can. For now I am trying to catch up on the lost ZZZ's and relaxing my brain, which is close to impossible after this weekend!
Please keep us and the Daniels family in your prayers.
Thank you.