t-rex hugs!!!!!!!!!
Thank you guys for your well wishes and support (and gifts! XD). I love you so much.
My appendix has been ruptured for months, possibly a year. But because I am made of awesome, it walled itself off. Which is unheard of and gave the pathologists wood or something (I must research.)(...Not their wood, the walling off). Anyway, the pathology report seemingly indicates I've been sick for quite some time with Crohn's Disease, but I think they are full of shit because I never had the symptoms. And since my burst appendix (supposedly it ruptured from the Crohn's, which I don't get) walled itself off, I didn't present with symptoms of that either.
Since 2003, three doctors have diagnosed me with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (one also thought I was anorexic), and then I got referred to a specialist, who also diagnosed me with IBS. Throughout this I had been to the ER and Urgent Care a few times for instances of SEVERE ABDOMINAL PAIN, but NO ONE ever gave me any kind of scan, not even an x-ray. Discouraged by what doctors told me and their lack of treatment or investigation, the ER wait and copay, I stopped going when I was having serious pain.
So this month I'm in so much pain that I can't eat solid food anymore and I drop from 122 to 115 to 107. We demand the specialist do more than blood work (which always comes back fine). He sends me for a colonoscopy and endoscopy, which require an IV and anesthesia (and five biopsies in my case). They come back normal, except they indicate I have Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) instead of IBS (the specialist goes so far as to say "it's nothing" and I imagine cracking him one in the face). Next I have a bunch more blood drawn, including an AIDS TEST. HELLO THIS DOCTOR IS CLUELESS. Unless you get AIDS from watching Ben fuck Michael on Queer As Folk I do not have AIDS. So then he orders three different scans: a CT scan, an upper GI series, and something about my gallbladder.
I go for the CT scan, and I have to drink two giant bottles of disgusting barium, get a barium enema (at mention of this, I want to stab the doctor to death because he didn't say anything about a fucking enema; afterward, I feel like I have officially lost all dignity), and get an IV of contrast. I FIND OUT DURING THE SCAN I AM ALLERGIC TO IV CONTRAST. I GET HOT, ITCHY HIVES ON MY NECK AND MY THROAT SWELLS. While warned of, reactions are apparently rare, so like four people rush in the room and scare me to death taking my vitals. I have to stay there for thirty minutes after the test for observation, but the hives go away and the swelling goes down and I'm fine. So the nurse invites us to stay and get the results of the scan since we've been there so long. We wait about an hour, and they call us back. A kind nurse (everyone there was mean but her) tells me I need to go to Capital Regional immediately and be admitted. She says she isn't supposed to tell us why, but she secretly tells us that I have a ruptured appendix with an abscess so that I won't worry ("It's not cancer!").
Haha, not worry. About something I need emergency surgery for. ... Anyway, I go to the hospital and get admitted. They think they need to rush me to surgery, because a ruptured appendix is serious business. I feel special because at Capital Regional you get this stupid light up buzzer that lets you know it's your turn, and there's all these people, but like after five minutes mine goes off and I get to go up and get taken right to the floor and not fill out any paperwork (See, I had to wait for three hours when I had my colonoscopy there, because it is not serious business.). The surgeon comes to see me though and is like WTF YOU'RE STOIC because I am just chillin' like how I do. So because I am not writhing in pain, he decides to do the surgery the next day, and start me on an IV with six different antibiotics to get an advantage. So the next day, I go and get surgeried and it is terrifying.
*GROSS SURGERY PARAGRAPH* So during the surgery I end up having the worst case scenario the surgeon told me about, where I have to get a bunch of surgery. Four hours of surgery. My ruptured appendix has grown into my cecum and it's gotten all twisted and hard where nothing can really pass or something, so he has to remove it all. And there's lots of old scar tissue from all the pain I've been in for years, so he has to remove that too. So he took half of my colon (and ate it over rice).
*END GROSS SURGERY PARAGRAPH*
Then when I got out of surgery I overdosed on the morphine pump that the nurse said it was impossible to overdose on BECAUSE I AM ALLERGIC AND SENSITIVE TO EVERYTHING, and stopped breathing. I wasn't on any monitors, so no one would have known if Jamie hadn't been watching me closely and told my mom, since nurses only make rounds like once an hour. My mom had to make them count my respirations and call a supervisor to get them to do anything. The supervisor agreed with my mom that the anesthesia and morphine had been too much of a combination, and accepted my mom's recommendation to administer Narcan, which counteracts morphine (and makes it stop working so you are in instant misery, but breathing). So I get sent to ICU and hooked to monitors, but they won't let my mom come in because they need like two hours to "get me settled" or something. So my mom leaves to go home and take a shower and pack some stuff (45 minute drive there, hour stay there, 45 minutes back). The three hours my mom is gone, the crazy nurse in ICU does not give me ANYTHING for my fresh surgery pain. I got transferred from the bed I rode on from the fifth floor to the ICU bed on a sheet WITHOUT PAIN MEDICINE, AND THEN LAID THERE FOR THREE HOURS WITHOUT PAIN MEDICINE, ONLY HOURS AFTER SURGERY. The crazy bitch had even plunked the heavy nurse call on my abdomen. Then she told me, "You are too tense, you need to learn to breathe deeply. That is how you manage your pain." I spent most of the time trying to cry gently, because the spasms hurt my staples and muscles.
When my mom got back, I told her they weren't giving me anything for pain, and she went to the desk and they said that was policy. My mom demanded they call the doctor or she would, so they checked my chart for the doctor's orders. It said I WAS SUPPOSED TO GET DEMEROL (PAIN MEDICINE) AS LONG AS MY RESPIRATIONS DIDN'T GO BELOW 12. AND SINCE I WAS WIDE AWAKE, IN AGONY, MY RESPIRATIONS WERE FINE. So they gave me my Demerol, and my pain relaxed so I fell asleep and my respirations dropped to zero again, but the alarms on the monitors woke me up so I started breathing again. This went on pretty much all night. The next day the anesthesia was out of my system, and I could take naps with the Demerol without stopping breathing. I got my oxygen turned off and got the NG tube taken out of my nose, and demanded that night to be returned to my private room on the fifth floor because YOU NEVER WANT TO GO TO ICU AT CAPITAL REGIONAL EVER. Alarms are always going off, people moan and yell all night, it's not private, the staff are just as bad as the staff on the regular surgery floor; it's terrifying.
Argh I never want to have anything done to me again. I've had tubes in everything. I've been jabbed with over twenty damn needles just this month, including six IVs. It's like my skin is made of camo in some places because of all the bruising. I still can't get all the medical tape residue and betadine splotches off. (Handy tip #21381283: Place a piece of medical tape over any dry betadine on your skin for a while, and it will come off with the medical tape!)
So supposedly I'll be fine, when my body learns that I have less tubing to work with. My "specialist", Dr. Leichus, who looks like Pruitt Taylor Vince as Malcolm Rivers in Identity (or a possum with rabies), said that in three years I will be back in the hospital. Having surgery again because I'll develop Crohn's Disease again at the place where my junk was hooked back together. He is a dumb cock. My surgeon, Dr. Gupta, who kind of looks like M. Night Shyamalan, said that I am healthy now and should go out and have fun and eat, and if we watch closely for Crohn's Disease, we can either prevent it or stay on top of it.
When I checked into the hospital (the 19th), I weighed 107 pounds. Two days after surgery I weighed 104. When I got home (the 27th), I weighed 100 pounds. Today, I am at 102 pounds. I'm 5'7", so I look like a rib cage stuck to hips, and all of my spine shows. At least my pathetic periods only last two days now. Dr. Gupta had wanted to put me on TPN (Total Parent Nutrition) which is where they feed you through an IV, because five of my eight days at the hospital, I was not allowed to eat, and I've been unable to eat properly for a long time. But I was like no thanks my body is a tank just let me know when I can eat. SO NOW THAT I CAN EAT WITHOUT PAIN FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 2003, I AM GOING TO EAT THE HELL OUT OF THIS TOWN AND GET SO FAT AND I'M GOING TO BREAK EVERYBODY'S COUCH SO GET READY.
I have 24 staples along a 6.5" incision from above my belly button down to my pubic bone. I also have a hole on either side of the incision where the surgeon tried to do my surgery laparoscopically, but realized the damage was too extensive. I don't know who in my medical history to sue or if we can sue, but whatever. I guess I'm healthy now, except for trying to get my weight back and recover from the surgery. Before it, my pulse ran around 77, now it runs from 90-165. I'm still going to try to go to school this fall, but I don't know if I'll be able to. Well, whatever. I'm happy to be at home, and I get my staples out (one for every year I've been alive!) on Wednesday, so I'm sure once I stop having to feel them itch I'll be even better. Sorry to yap and yap and yap but my life is not very exciting so I have nothing else to talk about. I am bored so I might have to play Animal Crossing on the Cube and fuck Jamie's town all up. I'M GOING TO FUCK YOUR TOWN UP, JAMIE.
My appendix has been ruptured for months, possibly a year. But because I am made of awesome, it walled itself off. Which is unheard of and gave the pathologists wood or something (I must research.)(...Not their wood, the walling off). Anyway, the pathology report seemingly indicates I've been sick for quite some time with Crohn's Disease, but I think they are full of shit because I never had the symptoms. And since my burst appendix (supposedly it ruptured from the Crohn's, which I don't get) walled itself off, I didn't present with symptoms of that either.
Since 2003, three doctors have diagnosed me with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (one also thought I was anorexic), and then I got referred to a specialist, who also diagnosed me with IBS. Throughout this I had been to the ER and Urgent Care a few times for instances of SEVERE ABDOMINAL PAIN, but NO ONE ever gave me any kind of scan, not even an x-ray. Discouraged by what doctors told me and their lack of treatment or investigation, the ER wait and copay, I stopped going when I was having serious pain.
So this month I'm in so much pain that I can't eat solid food anymore and I drop from 122 to 115 to 107. We demand the specialist do more than blood work (which always comes back fine). He sends me for a colonoscopy and endoscopy, which require an IV and anesthesia (and five biopsies in my case). They come back normal, except they indicate I have Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) instead of IBS (the specialist goes so far as to say "it's nothing" and I imagine cracking him one in the face). Next I have a bunch more blood drawn, including an AIDS TEST. HELLO THIS DOCTOR IS CLUELESS. Unless you get AIDS from watching Ben fuck Michael on Queer As Folk I do not have AIDS. So then he orders three different scans: a CT scan, an upper GI series, and something about my gallbladder.
I go for the CT scan, and I have to drink two giant bottles of disgusting barium, get a barium enema (at mention of this, I want to stab the doctor to death because he didn't say anything about a fucking enema; afterward, I feel like I have officially lost all dignity), and get an IV of contrast. I FIND OUT DURING THE SCAN I AM ALLERGIC TO IV CONTRAST. I GET HOT, ITCHY HIVES ON MY NECK AND MY THROAT SWELLS. While warned of, reactions are apparently rare, so like four people rush in the room and scare me to death taking my vitals. I have to stay there for thirty minutes after the test for observation, but the hives go away and the swelling goes down and I'm fine. So the nurse invites us to stay and get the results of the scan since we've been there so long. We wait about an hour, and they call us back. A kind nurse (everyone there was mean but her) tells me I need to go to Capital Regional immediately and be admitted. She says she isn't supposed to tell us why, but she secretly tells us that I have a ruptured appendix with an abscess so that I won't worry ("It's not cancer!").
Haha, not worry. About something I need emergency surgery for. ... Anyway, I go to the hospital and get admitted. They think they need to rush me to surgery, because a ruptured appendix is serious business. I feel special because at Capital Regional you get this stupid light up buzzer that lets you know it's your turn, and there's all these people, but like after five minutes mine goes off and I get to go up and get taken right to the floor and not fill out any paperwork (See, I had to wait for three hours when I had my colonoscopy there, because it is not serious business.). The surgeon comes to see me though and is like WTF YOU'RE STOIC because I am just chillin' like how I do. So because I am not writhing in pain, he decides to do the surgery the next day, and start me on an IV with six different antibiotics to get an advantage. So the next day, I go and get surgeried and it is terrifying.
*GROSS SURGERY PARAGRAPH* So during the surgery I end up having the worst case scenario the surgeon told me about, where I have to get a bunch of surgery. Four hours of surgery. My ruptured appendix has grown into my cecum and it's gotten all twisted and hard where nothing can really pass or something, so he has to remove it all. And there's lots of old scar tissue from all the pain I've been in for years, so he has to remove that too. So he took half of my colon (and ate it over rice).
*END GROSS SURGERY PARAGRAPH*
Then when I got out of surgery I overdosed on the morphine pump that the nurse said it was impossible to overdose on BECAUSE I AM ALLERGIC AND SENSITIVE TO EVERYTHING, and stopped breathing. I wasn't on any monitors, so no one would have known if Jamie hadn't been watching me closely and told my mom, since nurses only make rounds like once an hour. My mom had to make them count my respirations and call a supervisor to get them to do anything. The supervisor agreed with my mom that the anesthesia and morphine had been too much of a combination, and accepted my mom's recommendation to administer Narcan, which counteracts morphine (and makes it stop working so you are in instant misery, but breathing). So I get sent to ICU and hooked to monitors, but they won't let my mom come in because they need like two hours to "get me settled" or something. So my mom leaves to go home and take a shower and pack some stuff (45 minute drive there, hour stay there, 45 minutes back). The three hours my mom is gone, the crazy nurse in ICU does not give me ANYTHING for my fresh surgery pain. I got transferred from the bed I rode on from the fifth floor to the ICU bed on a sheet WITHOUT PAIN MEDICINE, AND THEN LAID THERE FOR THREE HOURS WITHOUT PAIN MEDICINE, ONLY HOURS AFTER SURGERY. The crazy bitch had even plunked the heavy nurse call on my abdomen. Then she told me, "You are too tense, you need to learn to breathe deeply. That is how you manage your pain." I spent most of the time trying to cry gently, because the spasms hurt my staples and muscles.
When my mom got back, I told her they weren't giving me anything for pain, and she went to the desk and they said that was policy. My mom demanded they call the doctor or she would, so they checked my chart for the doctor's orders. It said I WAS SUPPOSED TO GET DEMEROL (PAIN MEDICINE) AS LONG AS MY RESPIRATIONS DIDN'T GO BELOW 12. AND SINCE I WAS WIDE AWAKE, IN AGONY, MY RESPIRATIONS WERE FINE. So they gave me my Demerol, and my pain relaxed so I fell asleep and my respirations dropped to zero again, but the alarms on the monitors woke me up so I started breathing again. This went on pretty much all night. The next day the anesthesia was out of my system, and I could take naps with the Demerol without stopping breathing. I got my oxygen turned off and got the NG tube taken out of my nose, and demanded that night to be returned to my private room on the fifth floor because YOU NEVER WANT TO GO TO ICU AT CAPITAL REGIONAL EVER. Alarms are always going off, people moan and yell all night, it's not private, the staff are just as bad as the staff on the regular surgery floor; it's terrifying.
Argh I never want to have anything done to me again. I've had tubes in everything. I've been jabbed with over twenty damn needles just this month, including six IVs. It's like my skin is made of camo in some places because of all the bruising. I still can't get all the medical tape residue and betadine splotches off. (Handy tip #21381283: Place a piece of medical tape over any dry betadine on your skin for a while, and it will come off with the medical tape!)
So supposedly I'll be fine, when my body learns that I have less tubing to work with. My "specialist", Dr. Leichus, who looks like Pruitt Taylor Vince as Malcolm Rivers in Identity (or a possum with rabies), said that in three years I will be back in the hospital. Having surgery again because I'll develop Crohn's Disease again at the place where my junk was hooked back together. He is a dumb cock. My surgeon, Dr. Gupta, who kind of looks like M. Night Shyamalan, said that I am healthy now and should go out and have fun and eat, and if we watch closely for Crohn's Disease, we can either prevent it or stay on top of it.
When I checked into the hospital (the 19th), I weighed 107 pounds. Two days after surgery I weighed 104. When I got home (the 27th), I weighed 100 pounds. Today, I am at 102 pounds. I'm 5'7", so I look like a rib cage stuck to hips, and all of my spine shows. At least my pathetic periods only last two days now. Dr. Gupta had wanted to put me on TPN (Total Parent Nutrition) which is where they feed you through an IV, because five of my eight days at the hospital, I was not allowed to eat, and I've been unable to eat properly for a long time. But I was like no thanks my body is a tank just let me know when I can eat. SO NOW THAT I CAN EAT WITHOUT PAIN FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 2003, I AM GOING TO EAT THE HELL OUT OF THIS TOWN AND GET SO FAT AND I'M GOING TO BREAK EVERYBODY'S COUCH SO GET READY.
I have 24 staples along a 6.5" incision from above my belly button down to my pubic bone. I also have a hole on either side of the incision where the surgeon tried to do my surgery laparoscopically, but realized the damage was too extensive. I don't know who in my medical history to sue or if we can sue, but whatever. I guess I'm healthy now, except for trying to get my weight back and recover from the surgery. Before it, my pulse ran around 77, now it runs from 90-165. I'm still going to try to go to school this fall, but I don't know if I'll be able to. Well, whatever. I'm happy to be at home, and I get my staples out (one for every year I've been alive!) on Wednesday, so I'm sure once I stop having to feel them itch I'll be even better. Sorry to yap and yap and yap but my life is not very exciting so I have nothing else to talk about. I am bored so I might have to play Animal Crossing on the Cube and fuck Jamie's town all up. I'M GOING TO FUCK YOUR TOWN UP, JAMIE.