The night before last after falling deep asleep, Zak came into our room to ask me to rub his back. Seems he had been awake for a while with terrible back pain - since it had only been about an hour or two since I fell asleep, I was pretty out of it. I proceeded to try & rub his back with my sleepy hands when Jamey woke & asked what was wrong. Zak explained that he had a back ache & couldn't sleep. Jamey told him to take some Advil & then try again to go to sleep. An hour or so later Zak was back in our room - it wasn't until then that we started to realize the seriousness of his pain. Jamey got up immediately to assess what was really the matter. I on the other hand took a little longer to register what was going on... When I got up to check on them, Zak (hesitently) explained that he had been throwing up because it hurt so bad. Of course I immediately wanted to take him to the ER but Jamey being the calmer of the two of us wanted to wait a bit before heading to the Emergency Room. Many years ago Jamey too woke in the middle of the night to pain he had never experienced before & by the time he got to the ER the pain had subsided.
Anyway, Jamey kept telling me that it was probably a kidney stone - which I was pretty sure it was too since my dad has had them all my life & as luck would have it, my sister & brother have both experienced the incredible pain of passing a few stones too... But we aren't doctors - I was worried it was his appendex & knew that if it was & he didn't go to the doctors to have it removed he could die! I kept searching the net for answers on what causes back pain, where are the appendex located in your body, etc... Luckily for me, I completely trust Jamey's judgement when it comes to my kids & going to the emergency room (we've had a lot of practice). So I figured that one of us would need some sleep in case by morning it wasn't better & I had to take him to the doctors - so I went back to bed (not that I got any sleep worrying). A couple of hours later Jamey came back to bed & said that Zak said the pain was starting to go away & he wanted to go to bed too. I again worried the rest of the night. In fact when I went in to wake Nate for Seminary I stood next to his bed to make sure I could hear him breathing. It was like he was an infant all over again!! He was breathing so that meant that it wasn't appendicitis & that he made it through the night.
Zak called me later that morning to thank me for staying up with him. He said the pain just went away. We all agree that we hope that never happens again! I've decided that NOTHING in this life is worse than seeing your kid in pain & not being able to do anythign about it! We'll be visiting his doctor as soon as he gets back into town... He's living the life of a rock star this week - sorry Kim, I know that is your dream :o)