Our Ryan

I hardly know where to start with this post. 

I guess I'll just tell the story.

It was a Monday morning. As a family we had all gone down for scriptures study and prayer at 5:45 just like we do every morning. 

Terry asked me to say the prayer. I did. I prayed that we would all be protected and kept safe that day. That we would all return home as a family.

Terry left for work at 6:15 and the rest of us started the morning routine of getting ready for school. There was to be no school the next day, Tuesday November 4. I remember Ryan asking over and over if they could just stay home. This is normally something I would have let them do, however he had just been out for an entire week because of super nasty stomach virus that had us in the urgent care twice. I told him he had already missed too much school and he needed to go.

I dropped he and Janie off at around 7:00 and headed home to get ready for preschool.

We had a fun, normal day at preschool.

The preschool kids went home at 11:30. Jilli had asked to have one of her friends stay for the afternoon.  while they were off playing I was cleaning and playing with the baby.

around 11:45 I got a phone call from the school.

"Mrs. Davis, Ryan has been hurt. I think he is okay but you are probably going to want to take him to the doctor." I asked if he was bleeding they assured me he wasn't but that he probably needed to be seen.  I told them I would be there in a minute to pick him up.

I'll admit I wasn't rushing. I think I finished wiping the table down then started getting the diaper bag loaded and told Jilli and her friend to get shoes on, we were going to run to the school. About 10 minutes later (maybe less) I was headed out the door, when the phone rang again.

"Are you close? He is really not doing well and I think I am going to call 911."

Of course at hearing this I sort of freaked! "What is going on? Is he okay?"

"He's really not doing well."

"If you need to call 911 do it! I will be there in just a minute."

I was in turbo gear now. I got the kids loaded and called Terry. I told him I didn't know what was going on but that the school was calling 911 for Ryan and he needed to started heading home.

I got to the school and parked in front by the office just as the ambulance pulled in.

I found Ryan curled up on the nurses cot. He was white as a sheet and sweating like crazy. He was fairly unresponsive and wouldn't move. The paramedics came in and assessed him. His blood pressure was 90 over something like 40 I think. The nurse said when she had taken it earlier it was much lower. the paramedics told me they thought he was fine. He had no bruising or swelling. They said if I wanted to just take him I could. i could tell the school nurse was not happy with their assessment. 

I was so concerned. It was very obvious to me that he was in shock and that he was not fine. They kept asking me what I wanted them to do!  I had no idea! I am not a trained medical professional! He looked bad to me, but if the trained medical professional is telling me he is okay then I wasn't arguing. I asked if they were sure it was okay that I take him? They said, "If we felt it was necessary for him to come with us, we would insist."

Well I'm not gonna lie, I didn't want to pay for an ambulance ride! If he was fine enough for me to put him in my car and drive the 20 minutes to the nearest hospital, then I was going to do that. But then they had me sign a waiver that it was my idea that they not take him!!?

they said he was fine, they said I could take him,

So I did.

We had to load him into a wheelchair. I picked him up and I remember it was like lifting a statue. He was so stiff! every muscle was locked in place. He wasn't moving, or allowing anything to be moved.

I wheeled him to the car and loaded him in it then away we went.

By this time I had called Terry and told him to meet me at the hospital. I had also called Jilli's little friends mom. She was going to meet me at the hospital too.

It took me about 10 or 15 minutes to get there.

My friend met me in the parking lot and took all the kids (Jilli, Afton, Jilli's friend) she also assured me she would get the other three from school.

I went inside and got Ryan checked in. That process seemed to take forever! I just wanted someone to look at my boy. Luckily there was no one else in the ER and they took us right in.

Terry got there shortly after we were checked in.

Ryan was taken into a room and generally assessed. He was given an IV (the first of 17!!) after a few minutes of being plugged into the IV he started screaming. SCREAMING! He said the IV was causing his pain to get worse. He wasn't complaining about the IV site but saying his back was hurting worse.  A CT was ordered but the doctor decided she was going to try to do an ultrasound first. Ryan wouldn't tolerate it. Any pressure on his side had him screaming more.

He was in CT for about 15 minutes then he was wheeled back to his room. We had only been back in his room for a few minutes when the doctor came in and asked if she could talk to Terry and I in the hall.

I knew it wasn't going to be good.

"So he's pretty bad. He has significant internal bleeding, his kidney is completely obliterated and his blood pressure could tank out at any moment. He needs to be in surgery now. I've already called for the helicopter, they will be here in less then 5 minutes and take him to the childerens hospital in uptown."

I don't know if I said anything but I could see myself start shaking immediately.

We asked if Terry would be allowed to ride with Ryan. The doctor didn't know, we had to ask the flight team.

So we went into wait for the helicopter mode, realizing things could get much worse very quickly.

When the flight team arrived and we learned Terry would not be allowed to fly with them, he left immediately in the car in an attempt to get to the hospital shortly after Ryan. We were 35 minutes from where they would be taking him.

They had Ryan's pain managed at this time but were being extremely precautions. They wouldn't really even move him until they had a certain amount of blood with them "just in case". Every movement with him was very calculated. I just wanted them to HURRY and they were doing everything so slowly. Ryan was awake and talking. Not chatty, but at least responding when asked questions. When he was finally loaded onto the helicopter bed and I had signed about 100 papers, they wheeled him outside to get him loaded.

I had to have such a brave face. "Okay buddy they're going to take you in the helicopter and dad will see you on the other side. It'll be fine, I'll see you soon." I told him I loved him about a million times.

He did very well with it all. Thankfully the nurse reminded me to take pictures and video of the helicopter taking off.

As soon as he was off I raced to the hospital myself. 

Terry had arrived 5 minutes after the helicopter. there was a HUGE team of trauma doctors waiting for Ryan when he landed, probably 30+ people. When Terry got there the team was evaluating him and going over his CT. Terry was able to talk with them before surgery.  The doctors showed Terry the actual video of the CT. Terry said even he could see the kidney was completely gone.

Ryan was whisked into surgery. I arrived about 15 minutes after that.

It's amazing the things you learn about the inner workings of places like hospitals. Ryan was given a fake name upon being admitted. Terry and I were the only ones told what it was. Anytime we wanted to ask questions about him or someone was referencing him we used his fake name. Ryan's was "Hair  Trauma"  I guess this is to protect privacy and prevent reporters and such finding out details we may not want to share.

His surgery went well. It lasted about and hour and a half.  It was such a relief to see him!!

 He had an NG tube in place and a slit all the way up his gut. Because his internal bleeding had been so bad they had to remove the kidney pieces from the front in order to have access to all the arteries that needed repair.

He was on A LOT of drugs! He was totally stoned 90% of the time. I hated seeing him like this.

At this point we thought it was all over but the healing. 

In fact I remember even thinking of a few captions I was going to put with pictures of him and his amazing and fast recovery we were sure was coming. "Here's Ryan, walking around like losing a kidney is something he does every week."

Boy were we wrong!!

Did you know anytime you mess with your guts they turn off? Yep completely shut down! your body is constantly producing bile that is getting dumped into you stomach. Normally your stomach process this and every thing is pumped through. After your guts shut off there is still huge amounts of bile being produced but nothing is moving to deal with it. That is what the NG tube was for. It sucks the yuck out of the gut. Otherwise nausea and vomiting is inevitable. This is a phenomenon we became VERY familiar with. this is the reason we were readmitted to the hospital 6 times!

When your guts shut off there are no stomach sounds, zero. There is no gas moving, there is no poo, nothing! We had to wait for Ryan's to kick in again. The problem with his though, was that his guts were dealt with in such a traumatic way we were kind of doomed to failure before we even got started.

One doctor described Ryan's naphrectomy to me by saying Ryan looked like a dissection board on the operating table. Everything was laying out next to him.

Guts don't like to be messed with.

In a sense the doctors  took the hot bubbling pasta out of the pasta water, set it in a pile on the counter for an hour or so, then picked up the dry blob and stuffed it back in the now empty pot.

Can you see why we had a problem?

No body poured any oil over the noodles.

We waited for DAYS for his guts to "unstick" themselves. 

they would start to work!

The volume of bile being pumped out would go way down!

The stomach pains and nausea would stop!

We would have gas sounds!

We would even have poop!

They would say, "you are cured!" and send us home.

The longest we were ever home was two days.

the pains would come back

the vomiting would come back

and we were back in the ER

6 times!

It was our best guess that what was happening was this:

Ryan's guts were still pretty stuck. After days in the hospital with an IV pumping TONS of fluid into his body, he had been eating nothing, so his body didn't have to process anything. They would allow him to eat liquids and he would handle it fine. they would allow him to start solids and release him that very afternoon.

At home there is no IV. the amount of liquid in his system drops significantly AND his body now had to deal with solids. It didn't work. Ryan would get backed up again and we'd be back in the ER with an NG tube and he wasn't allowed to eat again.

Ryan went a total of 3 weeks with probably only 3 solid meals the entire time.

He got to the point he would day dream about food.

He would ask me, "when we get home will you cook such and such."

He wanted to take walks in the cafeteria just so he could see the food.

He would cry because he just wanted to eat.

He would say "I'm just so hungry!"

It was heartbreaking!!

Especially as his mom! I couldn't even give him a basic necessity of life, food.

Ryan is a super skinny kid already. He looked like skin stretched over a skeleton of a little boy. I could see every vertebrae in his back! 

It was horrible!

When your guts shut down they have to have compete rest in order for them to "wake up" again. They can not be required to process anything. Ryan couldn't even drink water. We were allowed to sponge his mouth with a swab. but that's it.  For days and days and DAYS! while we waited for his guts to start working AGAIN.

After our 6th re-admit. and the fact that it had been a solid month since Ryan had any food at all, IV nutrition was ordered (TPN).

He had to have a picc line put in.

 TPN can only be given through a picc because it is so thick and because they could no longer gain IV access in Ryan. At this point Ryan has had 15 IV access. The last attempt at an IV left a bloody mess and they were unable to get any vein because his veins were so weak. He did have an infiltrated IV as well and that was very painful and traumatic for him.

It was also finally determined that Ryan would need more surgery. To "pour some oil on the noodles" something I had thought needed to happen weeks before, but they wanted to be "conservative"

The original plan was that the surgery would be laproscopic.

Just a couple of slits on the sides so they could go in, look around with their fancy cameras and gear and cut up any scar tissue (sticky parts) they found in order for things to start working normally again.

His surgery was December 8th I think

When they finally got in and started looking around they realized it was WAY worse then they thought! He was in surgery for 3 hours!!  They opened the scar all the way up a second time. He had an NG tube for a fourth time!  If you've ever had to experience one of those (even second hand) you know it has got to be the worst medical procedure that must be endured for such an extended period of time and the patient is awake and aware of the torture for days!

Recover for this procedure took 8 days! It was such a great day when he was finally able to eat again.

 All the tubes came out and we really thought we were home free. 

Again we were SO WRONG!

Just two days after we got home. We woke up in the morning and were in the process of getting ready for church when Ryan started complaining of kidney pain. It went from a little pain to excruciating in just a few minutes. He was writhing on the floor and we decided to take him BACK to the ER.  Upon our readmit this time, they tried to take a urine sample from Ryan. He was unable to produce any urine . . .not good. He had yet another IV and they gave him a bolus IV (TONS of fluid all at once in attempt to flush out whatever was causing the blockage. 

This was a bad plan!!!! 

They had been testing creatinine levels from the time we got to the ER. They went from bad to full renal failure in 12 hours. 

It was terrifying! The kids only has one, IT. CAN. NOT. FAIL.

The doctor said when they scoped his kidney it was swollen four times larger then it should have been! Like, about to burst big!!

Terrifying!!

During the scan they saw a 9mm blockage!!! They called it a stone. It was mysterious because he had nothing in his kidney just a few days before (they checked before he was released the last time) and now just a few days later he had a 9mm stone!! It was completeling blocking the ureter (tube going from kidney to bladder) All of the IV fluid they had flushed him with was dumped into his kidney and couldn't get out.

He was rushed into emergency surgery, this would be his fourth.

They placed a stint and his kidney was able to drain. They looked around while they were in there to locate the stone, there was no stone. It was a 9mm something but not an actual stone. 

After surgery he had to have multiple blood draws until his creatinine levels started to normalize. It surprised me how slowly they came down. It took about a day and a half after surgery. Even when they let us go home his levels were not completely back to normal.

We were able to take him home again, knowing he would be back for the stint removal in a week.

Of course it can never be that easy.

When we went back for the removal (this surgery was to be our very last) they also wanted to scope around in there to see what had caused such a huge stone to develop so quickly.  They didn't find a thing, which was good and made me nervous all at the same time. I really wanted answers so we could avoid this happening again. The only conclusion they had was that there was something blocking things up, they didn't know what and didn't how how it got there. But it was gone now and all looked like it was returning to normal. However, all the looking around in there and it caused more irritation so it was determined he would need another stint for another week.

That was a bit of a bummer.

So yet again we were scheduled for more surgery in a week.

On December 29 he had his last surgery to remove the stint. We got to go home and really be done with this whole ordeal.

Through out the whole two months the people from church and the community rallied around us like I have never experienced before! 

Moments after Ryan's accident. When he was in the helicopter on the way to surgery, I reached out to social media to plead for prayers. The response was so great! And I can truly say our family felt those prayers!

We had dinners brought to us every night for pretty much a month straight. People stopped by with bags of groceries or diapers or freezer meals. We were given gas cards and shopping gift cards. My kids were watched. Picked up from the bus stop and at friends houses for days and weeks.

Having Ryan in the hospital was so hard on our kids. They were shaken. They wouldn't sleep in their own rooms if Ryan wasn't there.

they would set up bed on the master bedroom floor.

And when he was home they all slept on his floor.

The two months we spent dealing with this was so difficult.

We saw miracles and witnessed first hand God's hand in our lives by the selfless service of others.

Here are a few of the hundreds of pictures we took over the two months.

view from the room,

Family movie night at the hospital,

Ryan did LOTS of origami and balloon art. He even got to the point he would put on little origami classes in the playroom for other kids on his floor. One little cancer patient came quite a few times and they got to be friends.

He would make origami for the doctors and nurses.

One of the times we got to go home,