Less organs means less human
In "Dark Harvest," one of the most disturbing episodes of the very disturbing "kids" show Invader Zim, the title character is an alien disguised as a human student. When he finds out that health screenings are coming up, he panics knowing he'll be busted and starts stealing the organs of his fellow students for himself with the motto "More organs means more human." So according to Zim I am a little less human as of yesterday morning when I had an appendectomy.
Fair warning: the tale below includes icky bodily function stuff so read at your own peril.
Monday I was feeling perfectly fine. I worked a full day, went to cover a village council meeting for Patch, came home, had a snack and watched and episode of Buffy with Kevin and then went to bed. That morning I woke up at 2:30 a.m. with severe stomach pain which led to diarrhea and then vomiting. When the vomiting just left me in more pain, rather than making me feel better, I decided it was time to go to the hospital.
I woke up Kevin and we went to the ER at St. Francis, the hospital three blocks from our apartment that takes our insurance. I was seen pretty quickly and got a chest X-ray, an EKG and tests of my blood and urine, various drugs for pain and nausea and an IV to replace my fluids. They didn't make me feel any better, but the doctor said after looking at my urine that I had a ton of white blood cells indicating a urinary tract infection, despite the fact that I wasn't having any discomfort urinating. She suspected I also had some sort of stomach bug, gave me a prescription for antibiotics and pain and nausea drugs and sent me home around 7:30 a.m.
I filled the prescriptions, took my meds and tried to get some sleep, but the pain was so bad I couldn't get more than about 30 minutes at a time before waking up. I couldn't hold down Gatorade and broth, and the pain only got worse as the day progressed. I wasn't optimistic they'd be able to do much, but we decided to go back to the hospital again at 5:30 p.m.
They have one of those pain charts with the increasingly upset faces in the ER rooms. When I'd initially came in, I'd rated at about 7. When I came back saying I was in worse prolonged pain than I'd ever experienced they called that a 10. They gave me some IV Benadryl to help me sleep, which did the trick but only after prompting a common side effect -- breathing spasms that made me think I was having a horrific asthma attack. They were ready for it, and I understand why they didn't warn me for fear of making me more anxious and thus likely to have a reaction, but holy crap was that scary.
This time around they did an X-ray of my stomach, which came up with nothing, and then decided to do a CT Scan which they mentioned they didn't do before because they didn't think it would turn up anything and they didn't want to expose me to unneeded radiation. After drinking two cups of radioactive isotopes, sitting in something that looks like what turned Bruce Banner into the Incredible Hulk and waiting around for an hour for results, the doctor told me I had appendicitis. They hadn't caught it before because I had abnormal appendicitis -- with diffuse pain rather than localized -- but they were really glad I'd come back to the hospital because if I hadn't then, I'd be back the next day in even worse shape. As it was my appendix was just inflamed and causing the issues they misdiagnosed. In fact even when they scheduled the surgery, the surgeon who came to examine me seemed super unconvinced I had appendicitis until he looked over my CT scans again and finally agreed to cut the offending organ out of me.
I got moved to a room and started sending around texts, e-mails and phone calls to relatives, friends and employers letting them know the situation. I think emergency appendectomy may be one of the best excuses for missing deadlines possible. Kevin also let his work know he wouldn't be coming in the next day because he'd been up for 20 of 24 hours and had a fiance about to go into surgery.
I got severely doped up, operated on around 6 a.m. and woke up feeling way better at 9 a.m. It was truly amazing the difference it made. Instead of horrible pain and nausea I just had a localized pain. I now feel I have a much better idea what it's like to be stabbed and will not use the term "stabbing pain" lightly in the future. That's dull pain. Stabbing pain is what you get when you've literally been cut with knives and had something pulled out of you.
The nurses were laughing at me since i was walking around hours after surgery, but I just felt so much relief. I'm betting they were also happy to have a patient that was chipper to talk to since that definitely didn't seem like the norm. I spent the day sucking down jello, broth and juice to make sure I could handle liquids, and then got moved to solid food in time to discover that the food at the hospital is horrifically bad.
I did a story a while back on how lots of hospitals have been updating to be more like hotels, offering all private rooms with space for loved ones to stay over and menus of restaurant quality food and amenities like flat screen TVs and DVD players. This was not one of those hospitals. All of the staff I dealt with were super friendly, competent and attentive, but it felt like a dated institution. I had a roommate who was suffering way worse than me from complications from gastric bypass surgery, and had to deal with her snoring and getting woken up at odd hours for her care. The bed and pillows were tiny and hard, the sheets, blankets and toilet paper thin.
I woke up this morning in much less pain and was discharged around noon. I'm super happy to be home where I can shower and sleep in my big comfy bed with real blankets and not have to hear strangers moaning around me. I've been taking it easy and the biggest problem I have now is pooping. I swear you do not realize that it is an effort to poop until the muscles you use to do it are sore and week from surgery. So I have to go on belching walks where I move around to provoke my bowls into activity, passing the gas bloating my abdomen and getting myself able to pass solid waste. Kind of gross, but kind of funny.
The whole experience made me feel really loved. Kevin was a true hero, staying by my side throughout the process and keeping my panicked family informed. My brother brought me food and hung out with me. Mike sent me beautiful flowers.
rollick and
cassielsander came over with fresh baked cookies, soup and entertainment and spent enough time animatedly talking that we got hushed for being boisterous after visiting hours. Today Chris and Sarah got us Chipotle for dinner and a ride to the pharmacy to get some drugs. Both my mom and Kevin's mom offered to come out to take care of me but we declined as those visits would likely be more stressful than recuperative. Instead my mom's sending a basket of fruit. Much better.
Overall I'm just amazed at the body's capacity to have everything go wrong because of one thing and modern medicine's ability to deal with that thing in such an efficient way. I've got dissolving stitches in and need to go in next Thursday to have the incision and my status checked out and I've been told to avoid heavy exercise and drinking for the next month but otherwise my life can go largely back to normal. I may be short an organ, but I'm feeling pretty good.
Fair warning: the tale below includes icky bodily function stuff so read at your own peril.
Monday I was feeling perfectly fine. I worked a full day, went to cover a village council meeting for Patch, came home, had a snack and watched and episode of Buffy with Kevin and then went to bed. That morning I woke up at 2:30 a.m. with severe stomach pain which led to diarrhea and then vomiting. When the vomiting just left me in more pain, rather than making me feel better, I decided it was time to go to the hospital.
I woke up Kevin and we went to the ER at St. Francis, the hospital three blocks from our apartment that takes our insurance. I was seen pretty quickly and got a chest X-ray, an EKG and tests of my blood and urine, various drugs for pain and nausea and an IV to replace my fluids. They didn't make me feel any better, but the doctor said after looking at my urine that I had a ton of white blood cells indicating a urinary tract infection, despite the fact that I wasn't having any discomfort urinating. She suspected I also had some sort of stomach bug, gave me a prescription for antibiotics and pain and nausea drugs and sent me home around 7:30 a.m.
I filled the prescriptions, took my meds and tried to get some sleep, but the pain was so bad I couldn't get more than about 30 minutes at a time before waking up. I couldn't hold down Gatorade and broth, and the pain only got worse as the day progressed. I wasn't optimistic they'd be able to do much, but we decided to go back to the hospital again at 5:30 p.m.
They have one of those pain charts with the increasingly upset faces in the ER rooms. When I'd initially came in, I'd rated at about 7. When I came back saying I was in worse prolonged pain than I'd ever experienced they called that a 10. They gave me some IV Benadryl to help me sleep, which did the trick but only after prompting a common side effect -- breathing spasms that made me think I was having a horrific asthma attack. They were ready for it, and I understand why they didn't warn me for fear of making me more anxious and thus likely to have a reaction, but holy crap was that scary.
This time around they did an X-ray of my stomach, which came up with nothing, and then decided to do a CT Scan which they mentioned they didn't do before because they didn't think it would turn up anything and they didn't want to expose me to unneeded radiation. After drinking two cups of radioactive isotopes, sitting in something that looks like what turned Bruce Banner into the Incredible Hulk and waiting around for an hour for results, the doctor told me I had appendicitis. They hadn't caught it before because I had abnormal appendicitis -- with diffuse pain rather than localized -- but they were really glad I'd come back to the hospital because if I hadn't then, I'd be back the next day in even worse shape. As it was my appendix was just inflamed and causing the issues they misdiagnosed. In fact even when they scheduled the surgery, the surgeon who came to examine me seemed super unconvinced I had appendicitis until he looked over my CT scans again and finally agreed to cut the offending organ out of me.
I got moved to a room and started sending around texts, e-mails and phone calls to relatives, friends and employers letting them know the situation. I think emergency appendectomy may be one of the best excuses for missing deadlines possible. Kevin also let his work know he wouldn't be coming in the next day because he'd been up for 20 of 24 hours and had a fiance about to go into surgery.
I got severely doped up, operated on around 6 a.m. and woke up feeling way better at 9 a.m. It was truly amazing the difference it made. Instead of horrible pain and nausea I just had a localized pain. I now feel I have a much better idea what it's like to be stabbed and will not use the term "stabbing pain" lightly in the future. That's dull pain. Stabbing pain is what you get when you've literally been cut with knives and had something pulled out of you.
The nurses were laughing at me since i was walking around hours after surgery, but I just felt so much relief. I'm betting they were also happy to have a patient that was chipper to talk to since that definitely didn't seem like the norm. I spent the day sucking down jello, broth and juice to make sure I could handle liquids, and then got moved to solid food in time to discover that the food at the hospital is horrifically bad.
I did a story a while back on how lots of hospitals have been updating to be more like hotels, offering all private rooms with space for loved ones to stay over and menus of restaurant quality food and amenities like flat screen TVs and DVD players. This was not one of those hospitals. All of the staff I dealt with were super friendly, competent and attentive, but it felt like a dated institution. I had a roommate who was suffering way worse than me from complications from gastric bypass surgery, and had to deal with her snoring and getting woken up at odd hours for her care. The bed and pillows were tiny and hard, the sheets, blankets and toilet paper thin.
I woke up this morning in much less pain and was discharged around noon. I'm super happy to be home where I can shower and sleep in my big comfy bed with real blankets and not have to hear strangers moaning around me. I've been taking it easy and the biggest problem I have now is pooping. I swear you do not realize that it is an effort to poop until the muscles you use to do it are sore and week from surgery. So I have to go on belching walks where I move around to provoke my bowls into activity, passing the gas bloating my abdomen and getting myself able to pass solid waste. Kind of gross, but kind of funny.
The whole experience made me feel really loved. Kevin was a true hero, staying by my side throughout the process and keeping my panicked family informed. My brother brought me food and hung out with me. Mike sent me beautiful flowers.
rollick and
cassielsander came over with fresh baked cookies, soup and entertainment and spent enough time animatedly talking that we got hushed for being boisterous after visiting hours. Today Chris and Sarah got us Chipotle for dinner and a ride to the pharmacy to get some drugs. Both my mom and Kevin's mom offered to come out to take care of me but we declined as those visits would likely be more stressful than recuperative. Instead my mom's sending a basket of fruit. Much better.
Overall I'm just amazed at the body's capacity to have everything go wrong because of one thing and modern medicine's ability to deal with that thing in such an efficient way. I've got dissolving stitches in and need to go in next Thursday to have the incision and my status checked out and I've been told to avoid heavy exercise and drinking for the next month but otherwise my life can go largely back to normal. I may be short an organ, but I'm feeling pretty good.