William's first IV

Friday evening William started complaining that his stomach hurt. Then, he started crying every few minutes because it hurt him so badly. He went on this way for over an hour. He has such a high tolerance for pain, that I thought something could be really wrong. (He's had several ear infections, including bursting an ear drum and never even cried) I called our home teacher, Bro. Coleman, to come and give him a blessing because Tom was out of town.

After the blessing I decided to take him to the ER. I started calling people in our ward to find someone who could come and stay at our house while I took William to the hospital. The other kids were already in their beds, and it was easier that way. We did find a young woman who was willing to come and stay. Thankyou ,Anna.

By the time we got to the hospital, his bouts of pain were so severe that every few minutes he would tense up and start shaking and crying. Everyone in the waiting room felt sorry for him. People were asking me if his appendix burst. I didn't know.

Finally after an hour of waiting in the waiting room we were given a room. Then we waited a while longer while he suffered, and I was almost in tears myself because of what he was going through.

The Doctor finally came in, did a quick check of him and then ordered some blood tests, an IV, some stomach x-rays, and if all those showed nothing, then he would get a CT scan. I was worried about him getting his blood drawn and the IV. He was so tired from the pain he was already going through that I wasn't sure how he would handle it. Well, his high tolerance for pain showed through, because he didn't even budge when they took his blood. It was almost like he didn't even notice the IV. The nurse who gave the IV was amazed. I guess compared to his stomach pains, the IV was nothing.

After the blood tests came back all fine, the x-rays showed that he was severely constipated. I had no idea that constipation could be so painful! Poor little guy. They gave him some thing to get his system working right again and finally let us go home. We had gotten to the hospital a little after 9:00pm, and were released at 2:00am. This is a picture of him after he fell asleep with the IV in him. Apparantly he was a little dehydrated (a little dehydrated? is there such a thing?), because just the IV fluids eased his pains enough to help him sleep.


What a relief to us all that it wasn't something serious. We're so proud of him for being so brave. William the Conquerer.