When it rains, it pours

It has been over a month since I wrote last. Chris was about to head to Tx with his overnight job last post. Well, the saturday before he left for tx, he got a call from Lifeway Christian bookstores and they were looking to hire him as eventual management. One of their managers is pregnant and wants to be a stay-at-home mom. He was looking to start filling her shoes after we returned from our 10th anniversary trip the end of June. Anyways, he started at lifeway end of April.

He was enjoying greatly his job there stocking books and doing his thing. I have been working for Rose Beattie and was getting ready to down my hours as the kids were going to be out of school and stuff. This past Friday, the 22nd, his grandma leach passed away. She hsa been battling Alzheimers for years and it was kind of a relief to let her go. So, the kids and I headed to ks, as my brother and his wife and baby were going to be there and my mom was also having surgery and I was going to help her prepare for her recovery. As we did this, he flew out to Nashville, Tn for the funeral. He called me sunday and said he didn't feel well and that his parents had taken him to the er and the decided he was dehydrated. They filled him with electrolytes and sent him home to OK. He went to work monday still not feeling well. I told him that if he was dehydrated, he wouldn't feel good and to keep up the liquids. Tuesday morning he decided he needed to see a dr., so he went Wednesday morning and they decided he was really constipated and needed to take exlax regularly. Thursday morning was my moms surgery and so after they had left and I was working on preparing meals and the house, he called and said the pain was worse. by this point, he was annoying me because I didn't know what was wrong and I thought he was just trying to get attention. Needless to say, i wasn't very compassionate. I plugged my phone into the car charger and continued with my day. meanwhile, he had gone into work and they said he looked like death warmed over and sent him away to go to the hospital. He decided he was just going to go home and lay down and on the last exit before reachiing tri-city, he saw a sign for community hospital and decided he had better give it one more shot and see if someone could figure out why he was huritng so much.
They ran a CT scan and an x ray and found out that he had a perforated colon and diverticulitis. They rushed him into emergency surgery. The kids were playing outside and heard my phone ring. I went to check the messages and it was Chris saying that he thought it was his appendix, that he had an xray and didn't know the results yet, but would call me when he did. So, I had already kind of had bags ready and started thinking about heading home. Around 7, I got a call from Susie Pendly, a family friend who was here with him, and she said they were rushing him into emergency surgery and she would keep me posted.
My dad was at the farm grinding feed, my mom was in the hospital hopped up on morphine from her surgery, so i loaded the car and ran down to grandmas to let her know what was going on. We left around 8. As i drove this way, susie as well as Chris' aunt brenda and our good friends Mark and Tammy self were callinig giving updates. As they were updating me, I was calling Mary, who was interpretting medical information to me.
Chris was in surgery for over 2 hours. They took out his appendix, and 7-9 inches of his large intestine. They disconnected his small intestine from his large intestine and poked the small intestine out the side of his stomach to drain into a bag. In doing this, the large intestine is allowed to rest and heal and his body can still eliminate waste. We got here and saw him, even though he doesn't remember it. Thats ok:-)
His doctor has been in every morning and his is recovering really well. Yesterday they took out his catheter and clamped off the tube going down into his stomach to see if he could handle the water in his stomach without being nauseaous. This morning they completely took the tubes out of his nose and he is on clear liquids for the day. If he is passing enough urine with the clear liquids he is consuming today, then he will lose the IV tomorrow and with that, the morphine. So this afternoon, they are planning on getting him onto some oral meds for pain. Tomorrow, a specialist in regards to stomas (the small intestine dripping into a bag) and will teach me how to keep clean his stoma and how to properly drain it and watch for infection. They are hoping today and tomorrow to have him up and down the halls.
His friends at Lifeway are saying he still has a job, but they are going to postpone the management training until he heals. They want him better before they want him a manager. that brings a lot of peace of mind.
The kids are doing well. They spent the first night with Hannah's first grade teacher, which they loved. last night and tonight they are staying with some friends from church and Noel is headed this way today and is going to take care of them this next week.
Anyways, so if you could continue to pray for us as we keep on trusting God, that He will continue to show himself faithful? We appreciate the prayers we have recieved so far and I will attempt to keep everyone updated.
Oh, final note, the bag is temporary. They are shooting for Labor day as a time frame to do the reversal surgery and put all his organs back where they belong. I forgot that part. :-) His spirits are good and we thank all who have come by to visit!