OPERATIVE REPORT
OPERATIVE DATE: 3/5/2003
PREOPERATIVE DIAGNOSIS: Acute appendicitis
POSTOPERATIVE DIAGNOSIS: Perforated appendicitis and abscess
OPERATION: Appendectomy and drainage of abscess
SURGEON: Timothy O’Holleran, M.D.
DESCRIPTION OF THE OPERATION: The patient was placed in a
supine position on the Operating Table. Under general anesthesia the
abdomen was prepped and draped in a sterile fashion. A transverse
incision was made in the right lower quadrant and carried down
through all layers in the peritoneal cavity.... The patient had a
perforated appendix with an abscess. The appendix was delivered up
in the operative field.A thought hit me like a brick: Colton didn’t die.
How could he have gone to heaven if he didn’t die?
A couple of days passed as I chewed on that. It had only been a week or
so since Colton first told us about the angels, so I didn’t want to keep
pushing the heaven issue. But finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore and hunted
the house for Colton until I found him, down on his knees in the bedroom
we’d converted to a playroom, building a tower of LEGOs. I leaned in the
door frame and got his attention.
“Hey, Colton, I don’t understand,” I began.
He looked up at me, and I noticed for the first time that all the roundness
had returned to his face, his cheeks filled out and rosy again after his
illness had drained them thin and sallow. “What?”
“You said you went to heaven. People have to die to go to heaven.”
Colton’s gaze didn’t waver. “Well, okay then, I died. But just for a little
bit.”
My heart skipped a beat. If you haven’t heard your preschooler tell you
he was dead, I don’t recommend it. But Colton hadn’t died. I knew what the
medical record said. Colton had never ceased breathing. His heart had
never stopped.
I stood in the doorway and mulled over this new tidbit as Colton returned