A is for Appendix. B is for Boise.

 

Ben, Eric, and I went to Boise over the weekend to listen to Ben's girlfriend speak at her mission farewell. We helped Eric's mom plant flowers and garden, visited some of the boys' old friends, and had a fun time just relaxing. 

Sunday morning, however, Eric woke up with what he thought was a simple belly ache. By mid-afternoon it had gotten worse and centralized over his lower right abdomen. He was given a blessing and some ibuprofen, and we started the long drive home with him thinking he was all better. The pain came back, unfortunately, worse than before. We made it to Tremonton (about 2 hrs away from Provo) before we decided we had better stop at the ER and get him taken care of. 

 

(This is just him faking it and putting on a show. He was fascinated with the barf bag and wanted to make sure we got it in the picture because it had lines on the side that measured how much you threw up. He thought it was the greatest thing ever. Sigh... boys....)

After enduring nausea and multiple tests they told us that Eric's appendix was big and angry. It definitely needed to come out, but the doctor wouldn't do it until morning. By then it was 2 a.m. and we didn't have anywhere to go, so they let us stay in the hospital with Eric. Ben slept in Eric's room and I slept in an empty room next door (I almost slept on the hospital bed just because it looked so comfy, but I decided that might be a little weird since I wasn't sick so I settled for the couch ha). 

 Everything with the surgery went great. He was writhing with pain and had some serious nausea afterwards though, poor guy, so they had to give him 2 or 3 doses of morphine. Thankfully that made him feel a lot better, and he basically slept the rest of the day.

We were SOOO blessed to get the nurses we did! They treated us super well-just like we were their own kids. They gave us extra blankets, drinks, snacks, movies, anything we wanted; you could tell they really cared. They'll never know what kind of difference they made! 

 23 hours after arriving at the hospital we were released to head back to Provo. We got home safe and happy, just appendix-less. Our joke now is that a 'piece' of Eric will always be in Tremonton   ;)