Poor Brother...

Mom always jokes that I bring the chaos, I just think Gos waits til I'm there so extra hands are available to help!  Maybe one day there won't be such huge drama when I come to visit.

The drama this trip fell on my youngest brother.  The day after we got to Mom and Dad's his stomach began to hurt.  He sometimes has stomach issues so we didn't think too much about it, but it continued and intensified through the night until Mom decided he needed to go to the emergency room the next day.  We were supposed to go to one of the family's parties, so Mom headed to the hospital and we loaded up everyone else.  It was nice to visit but we were all distracted with concern for little brother.  Alex however was fun to watch since he has never been to an American Christmas.  He was so excited when he got his present and did a great job thanking everyone for it, once it was open I don't think he put down his new game until we got home again!

Apparently at the hospital they began running tests on Bubba to figure out what was going on.  He wasn't running a fever and the blood/urine tests came back fine.  They eventually did a CT scan to be sure he didn't have intestinal blockage.  This made us all nervous since we have had family members with severe reactions to the dye used in the procedure.  Fortunately he did not experience a reaction, but the CT scan didn't reveal much either.  They ultimately decided to remove his appendix since nothing else was showing up.

Once the decision was made the operation happened fast, he was in OR within 40 minutes and finished about 45 minutes after that.  When he woke up later he felt much better and he was able to come home the next day.  Unfortunately the pain killers he was on upset his stomach, which hurt his incision due to him clench his ab muscles.  The poor guy really wanted Mom or Dad there as much as possible so Chris and I did as much as we could to help in their absence.  Once we got him off the pain killer, and it got out of his system, he started improving quickly and was up and around in a couple days.

While he still can't lift stuff, he was well enough to travel by Christmas and to help wrap presents Christmas eve.  Near New Year Day he got a gun he'd been saving for and was doing well enough to go hunting with it! Praise God for doctors and His healing hand on little brother this Christmas season!