Hello, my name is Tonya (aka Auntie TT) . Two and a half weeks ago, our sweet little Knox was urgently admitted to Children’s Hospital.

Their story:

What started as a trip to the ER for vomiting, high fever, and stomach pain turned out to be something a bit more serious. We found out Knox had a ruptured appendix that had likely been that way for some time, causing infection, fluid buildup, inflammation of other organs, and abscesses in his abdomen. We also learned Knox clearly has a wild pain tolerance. He was transferred to Children’s Hospital (he needed a picture to prove to his brothers and friends that he was in an ambulance), where he’s now admitted and receiving amazing care. The hope is that he will undergo surgery today to help clean and drain the infection, if possible, and will be on antibiotics for a couple of weeks. Once things are more stable, he’ll need an appendectomy. We are possibly looking at a long hospital stay, and he is already eager to get home to Brekky and Asher, but he is staying strong and despite being a very sick boy, he is definitely loving all the attention—please keep him in your thoughts!

1 week in - Update

Not much of a change to share—Knox still isn’t responding to the antibiotics like we’d hoped. It’s been 7 days and 3 different antibiotics later, and we were really hoping to see more progress by now. He had an ultrasound this morning, and unfortunately, it showed no change. So for now, we just wait and hope things start to improve so they can move forward with draining the infection.

We’ll be staying in the hospital a little longer than we expected or hoped, but he’s in great hands here, and that brings us a lot of comfort.

Once/if they’re able to drain the infection, the plan is to continue antibiotics and monitoring for a few more weeks—and then remove the appendix once it’s safe to do so.

Hanging in there and taking it one day at a time

7/2:

Today, the doctors made the call to go in and take care of things with surgery due to the lack of response to antibiotics.

We are soooo happy they were able to remove his appendix and clean out three pockets of infection that had built up in his belly from the rupture (scans didn’t catch all of them). The appendix was very inflamed and definitely needed to come out, and thankfully the surgery went smoothly with no complications!

Knox is now back in our room and recovering—and in true Knox fashion, the first thing he told us was that the medical staff “keep annoying” him ❤️. Safe to say he’s still got his spark.

We’ll be in the hospital for at least a few more days so they can keep an eye on him and help him heal, but things are finally moving in the right direction!

After 9 days in the hospital, Knox was released to go home. They made it one night at home before heading back to Children’s!

Once we got home, Knox started running a fever and just wasn’t himself, so we called his care team. After some bloodwork in the ER, they decided he needed to be readmitted.

We’re monitoring his labs and will be doing more scans to check for any infection that might’ve been missed and could need draining. For now, he’s back on antibiotics and getting some rest. We are hopeful we will get answers soon.

That said—he’s eating a little this morning, which is a big win!!

7/10 - Two full weeks in the hospital:

Yesterday, Knox had labs, an x-ray, and an ultrasound, which ultimately led to the discovery that he has two spots of fluid in his abdomen and one spot that still has some infection hanging on, likely from an area that was either missed during surgery or showed up afterward.

Right now, the team is figuring out how long he should stay on antibiotics and whether he may need to switch to a new one. The good news is that placing a drain tube in his belly isn’t necessary at this point, and if things go as planned, the antibiotics should take care of it.

The hope was for Knox to be able to go home and continue antibiotics there, but he won’t be able to go home until he starts eating and drinking again. The team is hovering on the side of caution (and I fully agree) because he’s already gone home and come back once, so they’re not exactly sure how his body will react moving forward.

He’s had good days and off days, but his spirits are high—and that’s a plus. All the staff here absolutely love him, and Knox loves being a jokester.

We are finding ways to entertain ourselves, but we are hoping we’re getting closer to home for good soon.

With mom living at the hospital to be there for Knox and dad taking time off to be there here and there and take care of little brother—they have lost hours of work and pay. Then the building medical bills of ambulance ride, 2 weeks in the hospital, all the scans and surgery I am hoping we can pull together to help them out with finances.

Anything you want and can give to help will be greatly appreciated.❤️