I use to really like the word 'appendix'. Now I know the painful truth...
Yeah.
So, after an amazing day out with tomariq I posted a short entry on the amazingness, and then I was all set to watch an episode of Doctor Who, but I wasn't feeling entirely up to it, kinda full from the Frosty and a half I had on the way home, so I simply went to sleep.
I fall asleep okay, but I'd say around 2am I wake up because I keep trying to find a comfortable position, but my stomach is kind of upset and hurting. I kind of tough it out for a couple hours until it's finally REALLY bugging me, like, I tried laying in the most outlandish positions available.
Ass in the air, face-planted in the pillow, I decided throwing up was my next step.
I run upstairs and try that out, but there's nothing left in my stomach, so I'm pretty much just dry heaving, like a bulimic training video. Also, it doesn't help much. It's probably about 4am.
Tossing and turning I decide to stick it out until my parents got up around 6am. I attempt the whole dry heaving thing again and am even less successful. Around 6am I waddle upstairs and lament on my poor situation and ask for assistance.
"Peptobismol? This sounds promising, papa dearest!"
So I glulg some of that down and fight for my right to keep it down. It actually helps me a bit at first, my stomach seems to be quieting *a bit* but I also feel a tiny block of irritation build up lower down my abdomen. At this point I figure I ate way too much the night before, also it was mall Chinese food, which doesn't have a great track record to begin with.
Well, cut to 7:30am and me puking my Peptobismol guts out. Dry heaves follow. I try another dose of PB, and manage to keep it down, but something seems wrong.
I follow my OTHER gut reaction and call the clinic. Of course, the receptionist tells me someone will call me back about an appointment and my symptoms ASAP, which usually means 45 minutes later, but luckily I get the return call about 20 minutes after my initial inquiry.
Basically I tell her I was woken up by stomach pains, and now I have a dull ache, sort of pain, in my lower right abdomen. To which she promptly tells me to get to the hospital. The nurse is reluctant to get off the phone with me before I convince her that someone will be able to drive me, or I'll drive myself, but I promise, and that's that.
I call my mom, but it goes to voicemail. Then I call my friend Ayme who lives in Concord, but she was asleep (I find out later, but that's forgivable, I mean honestly I'd be asleep if I wasn't in so much pain at that point). Next I tried another friend who shall remain anonymous, and she said she'd do it, but then called back a few minutes later and told me her asshole father told her not to do it because she would be liable if anything happened on the way. I was pretty much dumbfounded. I don't really blame her, but she still made a choice not to help me because of what her father told her to do, and that is definitely annoying and a little hurtful.
So I'm in the middle of a call to dad when she tells me all this, so he convinces me to just tough it out and drive, which I do. Oh man, it was close, I was mostly fine as long as I was going straight, but the lower abdominal pain was unfortunately getting worse as my nausea and stomach pains seemed to subside. Every time I turned the wheel to go around a bend or a turn, I soon realized just how much of your body is involved in this simple maneuver.
As I pulled into the emergency room parking lot at the Concord Hospital, I was already worse than when I started out. I hobble up to the desk and low and behold, the receptionist actually use to be my old orthodontist's receptionist when I was a kid! We have awkward chat time while I fervently hope she's actually processing me as fast as possible, and she asks about my mother and how life is. I think that was pretty obvious with how I was doubled over the desk.
Either way, I'm seen immediately, probably a couple red flags ushered me through those doors a bit faster than the three people already waiting. I am insanely grateful. I go through a bunch of questions, first with an ER nurse (insert urine sample here) and then with the cutest bearded ER doctor I've ever seen. He touched my body in painful unsexy ways and an hour and a half of blood work and escalating pain later became my personal Jesus.
He gave me morphine.
It was still painful, but I can't imagine coping without that extra help. It became a constant pain. When someone tells you something is wrong with your body and you can't feel it happening, it's somewhat hard to visualize that you're actually in trouble. When your body starts telling you something's wrong with it, you start to believe what the doctors are telling you a bit more resolutely!
After what seemed like hours, but was actually...no wait, it was probably about two hours, I'm in the ER room. Breathing deeply is basically impossible at this point and laying down flat is strangely less comfortable than sitting up. For anyone who's ever been in an operating room, you know it's teeth-chatteringly cold in there, but the nurse was really nice and covered me with blankets. I get a little scared whenever I go under, and it must've shown because she told me they were taking good care of me and help my hand as I drifted away.
Skip forward about an hour. The surgery went well, and now I have three tiny holes in my stomach. They did it laprascopically (I think I'm spelling that incorrectly, but Spell Check isn't helping) which means they used one of those cameras on a tube and some other tubes with cutting/sewing things on them to grab that sucker and get it out of there.
Recovery is going well. I won't bore you with the details, but the toughest parts are definitely the lack of mobility and this terrible thing that happens in situations like this. Basically, they inflate your peritoneum (abdominal cavity) with gas during the operation, and let it out after, but some gets trapped inside, which eventually travels up into your chest cavity, which is...uncomfortable. It aches and almost feels like I slept wrong or something.
Besides that, just taking things slow. I'm home already, which is nice, but I can't go back to work for at least a week, possibly two. Follow up visit is next Thursday I believe. All the nurses were really friendly and easy going at the hospital, and I had a private room, which was nice because my parents stayed a little late to visit. OH and my brother Jeffrey came by as well this morning!
Overall it was painful but I'm glad it's over, and I'm glad I lived in the Concord area, because that hospital seems to treat me right every time I go in.
The moral of this story is that the only place for an appendix in my life is at the back of a book, preferably fantasy, optimally Terry Pratchett. For the next seven days I shall once again immerse myself in his Discworld, with his second installment in the series called The Light Fantastic
pretty much the only tasteful picture relative to this post I could find.
I shall now go and watch some Mad Men and possibly anime. Have a good night everyone, and listen to your bodies well!
So, after an amazing day out with tomariq I posted a short entry on the amazingness, and then I was all set to watch an episode of Doctor Who, but I wasn't feeling entirely up to it, kinda full from the Frosty and a half I had on the way home, so I simply went to sleep.
I fall asleep okay, but I'd say around 2am I wake up because I keep trying to find a comfortable position, but my stomach is kind of upset and hurting. I kind of tough it out for a couple hours until it's finally REALLY bugging me, like, I tried laying in the most outlandish positions available.
Ass in the air, face-planted in the pillow, I decided throwing up was my next step.
I run upstairs and try that out, but there's nothing left in my stomach, so I'm pretty much just dry heaving, like a bulimic training video. Also, it doesn't help much. It's probably about 4am.
Tossing and turning I decide to stick it out until my parents got up around 6am. I attempt the whole dry heaving thing again and am even less successful. Around 6am I waddle upstairs and lament on my poor situation and ask for assistance.
"Peptobismol? This sounds promising, papa dearest!"
So I glulg some of that down and fight for my right to keep it down. It actually helps me a bit at first, my stomach seems to be quieting *a bit* but I also feel a tiny block of irritation build up lower down my abdomen. At this point I figure I ate way too much the night before, also it was mall Chinese food, which doesn't have a great track record to begin with.
Well, cut to 7:30am and me puking my Peptobismol guts out. Dry heaves follow. I try another dose of PB, and manage to keep it down, but something seems wrong.
I follow my OTHER gut reaction and call the clinic. Of course, the receptionist tells me someone will call me back about an appointment and my symptoms ASAP, which usually means 45 minutes later, but luckily I get the return call about 20 minutes after my initial inquiry.
Basically I tell her I was woken up by stomach pains, and now I have a dull ache, sort of pain, in my lower right abdomen. To which she promptly tells me to get to the hospital. The nurse is reluctant to get off the phone with me before I convince her that someone will be able to drive me, or I'll drive myself, but I promise, and that's that.
I call my mom, but it goes to voicemail. Then I call my friend Ayme who lives in Concord, but she was asleep (I find out later, but that's forgivable, I mean honestly I'd be asleep if I wasn't in so much pain at that point). Next I tried another friend who shall remain anonymous, and she said she'd do it, but then called back a few minutes later and told me her asshole father told her not to do it because she would be liable if anything happened on the way. I was pretty much dumbfounded. I don't really blame her, but she still made a choice not to help me because of what her father told her to do, and that is definitely annoying and a little hurtful.
So I'm in the middle of a call to dad when she tells me all this, so he convinces me to just tough it out and drive, which I do. Oh man, it was close, I was mostly fine as long as I was going straight, but the lower abdominal pain was unfortunately getting worse as my nausea and stomach pains seemed to subside. Every time I turned the wheel to go around a bend or a turn, I soon realized just how much of your body is involved in this simple maneuver.
As I pulled into the emergency room parking lot at the Concord Hospital, I was already worse than when I started out. I hobble up to the desk and low and behold, the receptionist actually use to be my old orthodontist's receptionist when I was a kid! We have awkward chat time while I fervently hope she's actually processing me as fast as possible, and she asks about my mother and how life is. I think that was pretty obvious with how I was doubled over the desk.
Either way, I'm seen immediately, probably a couple red flags ushered me through those doors a bit faster than the three people already waiting. I am insanely grateful. I go through a bunch of questions, first with an ER nurse (insert urine sample here) and then with the cutest bearded ER doctor I've ever seen. He touched my body in painful unsexy ways and an hour and a half of blood work and escalating pain later became my personal Jesus.
He gave me morphine.
It was still painful, but I can't imagine coping without that extra help. It became a constant pain. When someone tells you something is wrong with your body and you can't feel it happening, it's somewhat hard to visualize that you're actually in trouble. When your body starts telling you something's wrong with it, you start to believe what the doctors are telling you a bit more resolutely!
After what seemed like hours, but was actually...no wait, it was probably about two hours, I'm in the ER room. Breathing deeply is basically impossible at this point and laying down flat is strangely less comfortable than sitting up. For anyone who's ever been in an operating room, you know it's teeth-chatteringly cold in there, but the nurse was really nice and covered me with blankets. I get a little scared whenever I go under, and it must've shown because she told me they were taking good care of me and help my hand as I drifted away.
Skip forward about an hour. The surgery went well, and now I have three tiny holes in my stomach. They did it laprascopically (I think I'm spelling that incorrectly, but Spell Check isn't helping) which means they used one of those cameras on a tube and some other tubes with cutting/sewing things on them to grab that sucker and get it out of there.
Recovery is going well. I won't bore you with the details, but the toughest parts are definitely the lack of mobility and this terrible thing that happens in situations like this. Basically, they inflate your peritoneum (abdominal cavity) with gas during the operation, and let it out after, but some gets trapped inside, which eventually travels up into your chest cavity, which is...uncomfortable. It aches and almost feels like I slept wrong or something.
Besides that, just taking things slow. I'm home already, which is nice, but I can't go back to work for at least a week, possibly two. Follow up visit is next Thursday I believe. All the nurses were really friendly and easy going at the hospital, and I had a private room, which was nice because my parents stayed a little late to visit. OH and my brother Jeffrey came by as well this morning!
Overall it was painful but I'm glad it's over, and I'm glad I lived in the Concord area, because that hospital seems to treat me right every time I go in.
The moral of this story is that the only place for an appendix in my life is at the back of a book, preferably fantasy, optimally Terry Pratchett. For the next seven days I shall once again immerse myself in his Discworld, with his second installment in the series called The Light Fantastic
pretty much the only tasteful picture relative to this post I could find.
I shall now go and watch some Mad Men and possibly anime. Have a good night everyone, and listen to your bodies well!