What I thought was the stomach flu for Megan on Sunday, worsened until she could barely walk from one room to the next without curling into a ball in pain.  I took her to the hospital Monday afternoon where they diagnosed acute appendicitis and scheduled surgery for Tuesday morning.  They took her in around eight and were done by nine and the surgeon said everything went well.  The appendix had been leaking, though, and her stomach cavity had been full of infected fluid.  She was started on antibiotics that day and is still at the hospital and still on antibiotics--six days.  Her intestines weren’t working for at least four of those days and she is only now able to eat just a very little bit.  We are all discouraged and tired and just want to bring her home.  We haven’t even broached the topic of whether all her senior year sports activities will now never happen.  Right now we don’t even know if she’ll have the strength to start school--which starts on Tuesday.  She wants to show Mariah around as it will be her first year at the high school and Sarah showed Megan around when she started.  Will she miss out on that, too?  Probably.  She will return to full health, we know, and we are grateful.  It’s just so hard to see her suffer and struggle and cry.

Enough!  If only I could turn things back to normal by strength of will alone.

So, I spent most of my week at the hospital.  The other kids have borne it well.  They have pitched in around the house and I’ve come home to a clean house everyday!  Sarah also fulfilled my promise to the younger kids to take them to the pool this week by taking them herself.  She even stopped for shaved ice afterwards.  They had a great time!  Kevin came to be with Megan for a large part of Friday and Saturday and I was able to finish laundry and move Beth and Ben’s clothes into their new dresser and take the kids shopping for new school shoes (another promise I had made for this week).

The ward has been wonderful.  Megan’s had multiple visits and we’ve had dinner brought to us three times.  At church today, everyone has asked about her and how she’s doing and how the rest of us are doing. . .

. . . and they are going to change my ward.  I found out this morning and it was like a kick to the gut.  No!!  These people are holding me up!

But we went to the meeting tonight and it will be very good.  We will lose some people, but almost double our size.  So, there will be more people to hold me up.  :)

I can’t think of the work involved, yet.  I need Megan home.  I need to somehow figure out how to support Megan and still make it to the orientations for my elementary students tomorrow.  Will I be home for the first day of school?  Do I go to the hospital or do I stay home?  I need to make it through the next few days and then we will look again at the responsibilities of a Relief Society president.

I did read three books this week!  Megan and I also watched all six hours of Pride and Prejudice. Darcy is always a balm.

So!  This week was not what we thought it would be and it has not ended how we wanted it to end but the sun will come up on a new week tomorrow and we will continue on and somehow make it through another one.