Scary morning!

This morning I got up at 5:45 a.m. to say good-bye to Jake and Brendan as they left to go on our ward's pioneer trek. I will let Brendan post on that later, which I'm sure will be an experience of a lifetime!

I thought of going back to bed, but I had to take Jordan to football at 6:30 so rather than trying to get out of bed a second time, I decided to start some laundry to pass the time. (I will do another post later to explain why I am driving him to early morning football). I dropped him off, came home and about 30 minutes later I got a call from Jordan's cell phone. I dread hearing the phone ring when either boy is at football practice.

Jordan said, "Don't worry Mom, but coach needs to talk to you." One of the coaches got on the phone and said that Jordan had an unnatural squishy bump on his spine just below his waist. This coach happens to be an ER nurse too so he evaluated it and even called his colleagues at UVRMC to see what they thought it could be. Jordan doesn't remember getting hit or hurting his back in any way. They haven't even started hitting yet in practice. It didn't hurt, it wasn't bruised, but it was about 1 1/2 inches in diameter and definitely fluid of some kind. The coach was nervous that it could be spinal fluid leaking out of his spinal column which needed immediate medical attention! HELLO .... heart attack time for mom!!!!! He said that if he was his son, he would be on the road to the ER immediately. In fact, he had already called down there to let them know all the details and to expect us within 1/2 an hour. Oh my gosh....my stomach got that sick feeling...you know the one you get when something very serious happens!

Well, I got ready in about 1 minute and called Brendan as I drove to the high school. Not much he could do since he was almost 2 hours away by then. By the time we got to the hospital the bump was about 3 inches in diameter. The doctor examined him and said that his guess was that it wasn't spinal fluid, but there was no way to rule it out 100% without an MRI. So I'm thinking, "Do the MRI already!!!!!" Jordan got an IV put in (his first one ever), but it was the "hospital gown only" situation that made him the most uncomfortable. That was funny!

Notice the Cruise-like swan towels. What the...?

The MRI took about 20 minutes and the results came back negative. No spinal fluid! Huge sigh of relief!!!!! The doctor said it was a healing hemorrhage (but we can't pin point the cause of an injury) and that there was nothing really they could do other than drain it, but the chance of infection near his spine from a needle was not worth it. He said that it would resolve on its own in a few days and that he could resume all activity, even football. I was able to get a hold of Brendan who was ready to transfer his carload and head back home by then, but thank goodness he didn't have to.

So here I sit tonight with a very thankful heart that everything is ok. In fact, we took advantage of the day off football and work to get Jordan a haircut and do some shopping. I took Allison and Jordan to South Towne to get some school clothes and shoes and then we had lunch at the food court. It ended up being such a fun day for us to all be together! The one unfortunate thing out of all of this is that the ER copay was $100 plus we have a $750 deductible plus 20% for the MRI so this morning put us in the hole about $1000! But I am so grateful that I didn't spend the day at the hospital waiting through a surgery and all the scary things that could have been.