Emergency

Had to go to the emergency room Saturday night with the Bean. T noticed some swelling in his right testicle as he was getting him ready for bed. He was sick one day last week - frequent coughing and 8 hours of vomiting, then a low-grade fever. I paged the doctor then hopped on my friend the internet to do some research. From what I could tell on WebMD, he either had a twisted testicle (requires emergency surgery), an inguinal hernia (requires surgery), or a hydrocele (might require surgery). None of it looked good. We called our neighbors to stay with J, who thankfully was already asleep, and we went off to the emergency room. Apparently, 9:00pm at the emergency room in Tarzana is a very good time to have an emergency. Good information to file away later. Anyway, we got to see a doctor fairly quickly and he was concerned that it may be either the twist or the hernia. So, they called in the ultrasound technician. I curled up with the Bean to try to get him to go to sleep and about a half hour later, the ultrasound technician came in. D slept right through it. Doc came back in and said that it wasn't a twisted testicle (whew!) - it probably is a hydrocele which is when a little tissue seeps into the testicular sac and then fluid accumulates around it. At worst, it may require surgery but most likely, it was go away on it's own. We have to call the pediatric urologist on Monday and do a follow up with him. Today I checked him and the swelling has definitely gone down.
We won't know if he'll need surgery until we meet with the urologist but judging by the difference in swelling, I'm hopeful that he won't need it. There were funny moments throughout that evening as T and I questioned D about his testicle. We've determined that a 3 year old makes a very poor witness.