So, I quit my job and we are a month into our new lives. Everything is going fine, we are making ends meet. And then something happens. On a Monday night, Avery wakes up screaming and says his neck hurts. I also noticed that he was snoring so loud he could have woken up the neighbors. The next day he seems alright, except for nap time he again complains his neck hurts. The next night, more screaming and crying and I am alternating Ibuprofen with Tylenol every four hours which doesn't even put a dent in Avery's pain. The next day (Wednesday) he has a low grade fever, along with the snoring and neck pain. I take him to the pediatrician. She diagnoses him with
torticollis. I Google it, and know it sounds wrong. That night, more screaming and neck pain and I take Avery to Urgent Care the following day. They take x-rays and see nothing wrong and agree with the diagnosis. I also called the pediatrician back and she agreed to write a stronger prescription for Naproxen. It doesn't even put a dent in his pain.
At this point, Avery has no idea where he is, he seems to just be wandering around the house, laying down for a moment wherever he is, writhing with pain. Then, his eyelid starts to droop, which is the photo you see above. I am at my wits end and am feeling so terrible for Avery that I can't make him better and nobody seems to want to look into this further. I call the pediatrician again and tell the nurse his eyelid is drooping. The doctor herself calls me back and says to take him to the Emergency Room right away.
We take him, they finally give him something strong (morphine) which helps with pain. He gets an MRI. His pediatrician walks in during the MRI and seems to try and prepare me for the worst. They think he has a brain tumor. She also mentions it could be an abscess, but that I should prepare myself emotionally for whatever they find.
The MRI reveals a 3 cm abscess right behind his sinus cavity and is putting pressure there and also on his optic nerve, causing the eyelid droop. They tell us to take him to Children's Hospital, either in Milwaukee or Madison. We choose Milwaukee because we know right where it is, and how to get there. So they call ahead and arrange for emergency surgery that night and we leave for the hour long drive. I sit in the back and support Avery's head and he sleeps.
We arrive at Children's and there is a break in communication and the ER doesn't notify the doctor right away that we are there, and so we sit in a room in the ER for nearly 2 hours. We finally convince them to contact the ENT that is waiting for us, and he arrives and they perform surgery around midnight.
They are unable to drain the abscess. It isn't liquid yet, and they had hoped to go through his mouth and drain it, rather than through his neck and having to leave an open wound there to heal. They take the tonsils and adenoids out because the ENT said his tonsils were in awful shape and he believes that is where the infection started. They decide to try killing the infection with antibiotics. Within 3 days his white blood cell count is back to normal, and they tell me he can go home the next day if he is feeling well and we can cancel the CT scan that was scheduled to check for shrinkage. But that day, I notice his gait is back to how it was when the abscess was hurting. His low-grade fever is back. He refuses to move. The nurses tell me reasons for why this might be, but I know something is wrong and I push for the CT scan and they agree to do it. The CT shows that the abscess is not getting smaller. The normal WBC count is due to the rest of his body responding to antibiotics, but the infected area itself remains the same. However, the ENT can tell that the abscess has now liquified and so they take him back to surgery immediately and successfully drain it. The next day, he wakes up happy, ready to move and eat and is smiling again. The day after that, we go home!
See the mark on his neck? This is the side they would go in if they couldn't successfully drain the abscess through his mouth.
The day after the 2nd surgery. Back to his usual self (almost).
Home after six days in the hospital. Him and Isabel make our belated 4th of July cake, and Avery wants it to also say "Happy Home, Avery!" so of course I oblige.
I am so happy everything turned out ok. But before this we had no debt - only the mortgage on the house. No credit card debt, no car loans, nothing. Now we are faced with two office copays, an Urgent Care copay, an ER copay, a $2,500 deductible and 20% of the bill up to $5,000 out of pocket....total $7,500. And, we found out that Children's Hospital is not contracted with DeanHealth and so anything above what they feel is "usual and customary" for these services will be in our hands to pay. This could be THOUSANDS of dollars. I used to work for a health insurance company, and I have seen the drastic write-offs. If they were contracted with them, this amount would be written off. Of course Children's Hospital in Madison IS contracted with them. We didn't know this. We had no time to call, because of how urgent the situation was. And we had no idea where that hospital was located in Madison. So we chose Milwaukee, because we knew exactly how to get there due to all my visits to Froedtert for cancer stuff, and Children's is right next to Froedtert.
I know I am supposed to trust God with this, but we are living on a really tight budget. We have a savings but it isn't huge. And any extra money that Jeremy makes we planned to put away for the winter months when he doesn't work as much. I still have a bill for my cancer tests in May. And I will have more in August. We just don't have the funds to even make a dent in this every month. It is suffocating.
I am relieved and thankful that Avery is ok. But I am panicking about these bills. We will have them coming from at least 4 different places. Even if we pay $50.00/month on each, that is $200 a month that we already don't have. *sigh*
Well, I don't mean to sulk. I am just thinking out loud, which is what blogging is all about, right?
So that is our story, and where I have been, and why life has been so crazy and frustrating and sad. And some days I really just want to curl up in a ball over this, but like a friend just told me recently "It's just money, Maryjane". True. It is. Money we don't have. But really, JUST MONEY. We have Avery, he is healthy and alive and for that I feel blessed beyond measure.
