Growing Up Potvin: June 2007

Ok, so some of you may know already what happened but I'll recap. Thursday evening around 6pm Alex came flying into the house staggering with blue lips screaming that he was dying. I didn't know what the hell was going on so I yelled, "What the Hell is going on here???" He didn't respond so I made him lie down on the couch. He was clutching his stomach and saying he was dying and that he didn't want to go to the doctor. I couldn't see anything wrong with him except that maybe he had knocked the wind out of himself. I had unbuckled his helmet and looked at his stomach which wasn't red or bruised or scraped at all. He said he was trying to avoid running over one of our neighbor's plants and he braked hard, turned his handle bars, and fell into the metal part of his bars. Where that is, I do not know.
The blue lips scared me so I decided to drive him to the walk-in clinic where we took Alicia for her cut head the other day. He kept saying he was going to die too so that kind of freaked me out. They got him right in at the clinic and he seemed like he was getting better and I was feeling dumb for bringing him in, except that it hurt when they touched his liver area. Then they gave him some tylenol which he promptly threw up. He kept puking for a while and then said he felt better. The doctor wasn't sure if he was really that bad off but since his liver was still tender he said to bring him to the ER and have them to a CT Scan.
So this I did. Dr. Weimerscheimer (I know!! haha!!) who is a really nice guy who I swear i know from somewhere looked at him and ordered the scan. CT scans involve drinking a copious amount of radioactive contrast, or dye. This tastes like vomit no matter what you mix it with. After 2 hours of trying to get him to drink it and him puking it back up they eventually injected him with it and got the scan. The first doctor said, "Just a small cut on his liver" so I wasn't too upset. The next one, however, said, "He pretty much cut his liver in half. He needs to go to the intensive care unit. He has internal bleeding and if it gets worse he may need surgery"
What the F*#@???
I still can't believe it. He was in intensive care for almost 3 days, and I will say he was the wellest one there. He didn't need any pain medication or anything. Basically the liver is a self healing organ that just needs to be kept quiet for a few days and then drastically reduced activity for 10-12 weeks. So Alex is done school and pretty much done summer. I feel bad for him because he is going to miss a lot of stuff and its going to be hard keeping him under control. He has strict bedrest for 2 weeks once he is released on Tuesday and then he has to remain inactive for the most part until August. Damn.
He is doing great though, he charms all the nurses and entertains all the doctors, volunteers, and other patients that are well enough to meet him. He even had a surgeon come visit him every night to watch and then play "Lego Star Wars II"!
Alicia also says that she "fell of my bike and hurt my liver" too. She has had the nurses giving her tests just like big brother and likes to lay in bed with him and watch him play games or tv. Both kids are doing great actually. Alex had stage 3 (out of 4 stages of severity) damage which means his liver busted into a few pieces on impact with some bleeding. He could have been worse off for sure, since his bleeding stopped rather quickly. Thank God for Mother's Intuition!!!!! I almost didn't bring him!!