A couple of days ago on March 8th, it would appear my body was trying to tell me to slow down. Truth be told my body has been telling me this numerous time, over the past two years I just haven’t been listening. I started off my day pretty good, I made myself some coffee and started to declutter the apartment. I had already cleaned out three bins of clutter, and I was about to go and make myself another cup of coffee and put a movie on for Emilee when I noticed a sharp pain in my stomach.
The pain was in the right lower part of my abdomen, at this point it was uncomfortable but still tolerable. I actually thought they were period cramps, and dismissed them as such. The day went on and by late afternoon my sister came with her boyfriend and dog to visit. By this point the sharp pain had got worse, and it started to become unbearable. I was on the verge of tears, when I broke down and I asked my mom to drive me to the doctor’s office.
As soon as the doctor came to see me he could see that I was in pain, he got me to lay down and he felt around my stomach then explained I had two options. Option 1# was to go home and take some Advil and try to wait out the pain, or option 2# was he’d write me a note and I’d go to the Emergency room at the hospital. He explained that either choice was my decision, but that he’d advise me to go straight to Emergency.
I decided to go to the hospital since the pain was terrible, and I’ve had three kids birthed naturally to compare it to. Once I got to the hospital I had to put my name down and wait, half an hour later they had me admitted. I was shifted from the waiting room to several different waiting areas, then they got me in a bed and told me they would have to do some blood work, an ultrasound, and a pap test.
After numerous pap tests done by several different doctors, they brought me to get an ultrasound and then to do blood work. When I was with the ultrasound technician, she told me that she wasn’t able to get a clear reading since inflammation was blocking her view. She decided that to get a better view she’d do an internal ultrasound, let me tell y’all this is probably the most uncomfortable way of getting an ultrasound ever!
They surprised me with wanting a urine sample, just after they asked me to empty my bladder for the internal ultrasound. Ha ha as the night went on I was getting angry and annoyed, I kept getting told that they had no idea what was wrong. When I went to go do my blood-work the nurse said that she was going to put an IV in me, so that if I needed one later it would already be ready to go.
I got that done and then they pulled me into another room to get yet another pap test. Throughout the night I had a total of 8 different doctors, looking to make sure everything was okay down there. Lovely eh…my blood work came back normal, my urine sample came back normal. When they looked at my ultrasounds, they were unable to find anything due to inflammation. All of my pap tests came back normal as well, they were unable to find anything wrong with me besides a fever and abdominal pain.
At 12:28 am after the last doctor did another pap test on me, and took my temperature she told me she’d like to do a CT scan. If the CT scan came back normal, they’d have no choice but to send me home with some pathetic Tylenol to help with the pain. I’ve never had a CT scan before, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. It turns out that they expect you to drink some unflavored liquid and a ton of water within 45 minutes.
I had only drank half the bottles of liquid, before they sent a porter to come get me and bring me to CT. It turns out that the CT machine, is across the hall from the ultrasound room. The lady at the CT scan was super nice, and explained everything step by step.
She got me to lay down on a table, and she injected into my IV line this stuff that make your whole body feel like it’s been in the hot-tub too long. It was incredible I could feel it from the top of my head, all the way down to my toes. I was told to hold still while my table moved into a machine, the machine moved fast and she told me when to breathe and when to hold my breath. When I was done they brought me back downstairs, and this time they gave me a comfy chair to sit in.
Less than 20 minutes later, I had a doctor tell me they got my results back and that it was Appendicitis. She said that my appendix was about to rupture, and that I was scheduled for an immediate appendectomy. I quickly got changed into a hospital gown, and was brought up to the surgery area. It was 4:26 am when I was brought into the surgery room, next thing I know I was in recovery.
One of my nurses and I got to talking and she asked what I like to do, I told her blogging. She said she’d be happy to take some pictures of me, if I wanted to write a blog post about this #bloggerlife haha.
She wrote down on a sheet some interesting things that I might want to write in my post. Such as I had my surgery at 4:30 am and I was moved from the surgery room to the recovery room at 7:30am and then finally I was brought to my final destination at 8:30 am.
It’s extremely frustrating not being able to see without my glasses, so when she asked if there was anything I wanted I said a cup of water with ice and my glasses. She ended up bringing me my hospital bag, and I got to dig through and grab what I wanted.
I know it sounds silly, but my favorite thing about hospitals is the ice water they give you with a straw. When she came back with a cup of water and ice, I had just taken my cellphone out. We both noticed that my phone was at 5%, and she was extremely generous and offered for me to use her phone charger.
I was able to go home at 11:30am, and being able to move and lay without a hospital bed has proven to be very difficult. I’m not supposed to bend at the waist, not that I could if I wanted to it hurts too much. I have three cuts, since they decided to do a laparoscopic surgery.
The first cut is just above my bellybutton, they put the laparoscope (the instrument that takes the appendix out) through that hole. I’ve also got a cut on the left side of my stomach, and another at the bottom of my stomach. When they do the procedure they fill the abdomen with gas so that it can lift up the abdominal wall, that way there’s less of a chance of puncturing other organs during the surgery.
It’s been a few days now, and my stomach is still very bloated from the gas. This morning I was able to remove my bandages, so now I’ve just got the stitches and steri-strips covering them. Which means I’m finally allowed to shower, as long as I make sure to properly dry my stitches so that I can avoid an infection.
I need to go back to see my surgeon in 4 weeks, to make sure that everything’s healing properly. I’m finding it difficult taking my prescribed pain medication, because I need to take it every 4 hours to help with the pain. In my mind I’m worried about becoming dependent on the pain medication, since I’m used to not taking medication at all. Something I’ve been fighting to deal with, also I learned that if I have to cough or sneeze it’s best to hold a pillow firmly against my belly it hurts less. 🙂