All Your Appendix Are Belong To Us...Continued

I wanted to give everyone an update on how things are going with me, and share some of what actually happened since I have been getting a lot of phone calls. Well anyways the entire Appendix Saga started on Thursday night around 8:30pm, I was just getting back from spending some time with some girlfriends. I was feeling a little tired but otherwise fine when I was hanging out with the girls, but by the time I got home I started to have sharp pain in my stomach.

I assumed it was either gas or indigestion so I decided to try some Rolaids as this has helped settle my stomach in the past. As I don't get sick to my stomach or even indigestion very often I figured it was just a bad case of it. I told Chris to go to bed without me that night as I wanted to stay up until my tummy felt better. Well it was around 11:30 that I started getting so nauseated that I wanted to vomit, although however I couldn't do it. I then started to get the chills and started getting all shaky...I was feeling so sick but still thought it was some weird stomach thing, like gas or constipation or something like that. I tried going to the bathroom and walking around and all the fun things you try to do when you feel like that and nothing seemed to work.

Finally at 3:00 am I went into the bedroom and finally woke Chris up cause I was hurting so bad. He rubbed my back for awhile and also he gave me some Maalox to help settle my stomach. Finally I just passed out mostly from exhaustion and fighting the pain all night. I woke up with him at 5:00 and he said that I should go see the Dr. when the clinic opened at 8:00am. I agreed that I should go see the Dr. but I told him I would see how I felt at that time, and if I felt better that maybe I should wait it out. I was also worried about missing work.

So at 8:00 I decided that I would go into work and make an appointment with my Dr. during my lunch hour as to avoid waiting for a long period of time in the urgent care lobby, and also to hopefully pay less in expensive medical bills. I went into work and explained to a few co-workers how my stomach was very upset and how I went on to WebMD to try to figure out what it might be and hoped that it wasn't something serious because every time I went to the symptom checker and I listed my symptoms I would get a window saying "Please seek emergency medical attention right away." I was like "blah" it can't be that bad, and my co-workers also tried to reassure me that it probably was constipation or indigestion or something like that.

So anyways at my lunch time I went into the Dr. office and was like "so my tummy is really bothering me it hurts a lot with sharp pains in my sides and I was thinking it might be really bad gas or constipation or something, can you give me something to settle my stomach?" My Dr. was like you are probably right its probably just constipation but I want to do an exam. So she had me lay down on the exam bed and she pushed and poked around my stomach and listened with her stethoscope. She was like, "humm its kinda quiet in there," and "humm it hurts when I push on your lower right side? I think we should take a few X-rays." So after taking a few X-rays, my Dr. was like yeah I am going to need to do a more invasive exam. After doing the "fun" exam she was like "yeppers its your appendix." To which I was like "yipee! I get to go in surgery!" Just kidding. I was more like "really? hu?" She did all the fun pre-opp questions, and then said that she was going to call the surgeon to see what he thought. The surgeon was like "I would like to see her as I am fairly confident it is her appendix." So my Dr. told me to call my husband and let my work know that I would be going into surgery that day. She discharged me with all the fun paperwork that I needed to take to the hospital and wished me good luck.

I called Chris immediately and told him that he should come home from work and pack things just in case they needed to keep me overnight at the hospital. When I got home I immediately took a shower thinking to myself that if I did go in surgery the last thing I would want to do is take a shower when I was done. I also changed into my comfy clothes and by that time Chris was home. We packed up the laptop and a movie, and some books and off to the hospital we went.

When we got to the hospital we registered and then went up to my room. They wanted to bring me down into surgery right away but I was like "Whoa, I need to talk to the Dr. first." So finally the Dr. examined me and let me know he was 99.9% confident it was my appendix and that I should go into surgery. So off to surgery we went!

They prepped me for surgery with lots of poking and prodding. I actually got an IV for the first time in my life. So exciting! Not really, I was so dehydrated from not being able to eat or drink anything due to the pain that they had a lot of problems trying to find my veins. They finally stuck it in my arm. Note to anyone who has not had an IV, tell them to go for the forearm verses the hand...I don't think it is such a sensitive area. They tired forever in my hand and I think I was about ready to punch the nurse.

So then they gave me the anesthesia which was a lot of fun. I always try to fight it as long as possible to stay awake. One, because I am very inquisitive of my surroundings. The second reason is because I don't want them to think I am sleeping before I really am. So anyways the nurse was like just tell me about how you and your husband met, and think about an island and....

Next thing I knew I was waking up and the nurses were like "you did such a good job sweetie" and I was like "You guys are awesome!, you did a good job" and when they kinda just smiled and didn't say anything I said it again like 10 more times because I really wanted them to know they did a good job. Mind you I think the fact that I was coming out of anesthesia hand nothing to do with it. lol So as I laid there in the recovery room after surgery before going up to my room my mind was racing with thoughts of how cold it was, as well as how I really wished I could roll on my side to go to sleep but I couldn't seem to make my body do that. They also had this really cute stuffed animal of a puppy sitting on the reception desk and I kept thinking to myself, "Puppy! he is so cute!" Anesthesia makes you think the craziest things. The surgeon finally came in and let me know that I did a tremendous job and that it was defiantly my appendix. I was like "Thank you you are awesome!" He just laughed at me.

Finally they moved me upstairs into my room when I finally got to see Chris. I stayed in the hospital overnight and was able to watch HGTV which was pretty exciting for me as I don't have TV reception at home. I had to take some fun pain medications as otherwise I felt like someone riped out my insides. I also had to get up and go to the bathroom a few times...boy was that so not fun. Finally on Saturday morning however they let me go home. More to come on the home recovery.

All in all my hospital experience was great. I had the nicest nurses and greatest Dr. I had a nice big room to myself and I didn't even mind the liquid diet. I defiantly wouldn't wish appendicitis on anyone but I was truly blessed to have such great people working on me. Although this not been fun, God still blessed Chris and I in this experience.

More to come soon...