(no subject)
At around 3:00 AM on Monday morning, I awoke with the weirdest pain in my stomach. The strangest part was that it only hurt in one little spot on my right side. Luckily, after only about an hour, I was able to get back to sleep.
6:30 AM: I woke up again, this time to start getting ready for school. The pain was worse, but it hadn't moved at all. I tried to tell my step-dad, Ryan, about it, but he just cracked jokes. Mind you, I whine about aches and pains all the time, but I really tried to emphasize that it was different than normal. I guess I didn't get through to him.
On the way to school, a daring and slightly worrisome idea occurred to me: when Shaustin, a girl in class, had appendicitis, her pain was about the same as mine in intensity as well as type. I decided I would ask her about it when I got there.
When I first got to school, my pain had gotten worse still, and it didn't make matters better that Shaustin wasn't there. Luckily again, she arrived right before Bible class. I pulled her aside to talk. I asked her, "Look, I don't mean to worry you, but where exactly did it hurt the worst when you had to get your appendix taken out? Can you point it out on my stomach?" She lifted her shirt to look at her huge scar which, at the time, made me suddenly feel very squeamish. She thought before she answered, then touched the spot where my pain was indeed the most intense. I grimaced and told her the situation. She was really worried, and went with me after Bible to talk to Pastor (as she suggested).
Pastor did a lot of prodding my belly, hurting me an awful bit. It hurt when he pushed in, but he said it would actually hurt when he released. He was a bit skeptical, but gave me the go-ahead to leave if I could get a doctor's appointment. He wasn't sure it was appendicitis, but he was pretty certain that something was wrong. I went to the office to make a couple phonecalls at about 9:30.
It wasn't too long before I had a 10:30 doctor's appointment for the same day. I still had a while before I was supposed to be picked up, so I went upstairs and wrote a note to Luke to let him know what was going on. I admitted I was a little scared, but I didn't want to worry him, so I tried to be optimistic. I don't think I succeeded.
I was crying before I left. The pain was much more exquisite by then, and I was very nervous - I'm not sure which was making me cry more. Pastor came in and held me (somehow he knew how scared I was), and he and Sarah prayed for me. That made me feel a little better, honestly.
I cried and cried in the waiting room. The pain had reached a new high. Besides, I was only a little way away from knowing whether or not they would cut me open. I got there at 10:00 AM. They were late, so I had to wait until almost 11:00 to see my doctor. And...ha...I was still crying. XD For the record, I was crying until about 1:00 PM, just so I don't have to mention again that I was crying. Everyone felt really bad for me because I was in so much pain.
My doctor, a lovely young woman whose name I don't know, was very kind and understanding. She pushed my stomach, rocked me, hit my feet, and asked me some question about a pizza that Ryan has distorted and retold many times at my expense. At any rate, she told me she was sure it was appendicitis. (Or rather, she was sure as she could be that it was appendicitis. The only way to be 100% sure is to operate; she put herself at 98%.) She ordered my bloodwork.
In case you weren't aware, this requires that they stick my arm with thin pieces of metal to force blood out of me. Another "in-case-you-weren't-aware": I'm afraid of needles. This was very traumatic for me. Still, I managed to suck it up and get it done (after all, they weren't about to say, "Well, she is throwing a fit...maybe we could do something different?"). That left me free to worry about the surgery.
They sent me up to the surgeon, Dr. O'Dell, where he asked me the exact same questions I had been asked throughout the day. Then, as he examined me, he decided it was very likely I actually had an ovarian cyst that had ruptured. Mum has these CONSTANTLY, so it seemed even more likely. I wasn't buying it. My labs hadn't come back yet, so O'Dell ordered an ultrasound to check out what was going on inside of me.
Okay, let's look at this: my pain kept getting worse, and it magnified it 300x whenever I was touched or pushed. So a huge man in a pink shirt named Ed calling me "darling" as he jammed this thing into everywhere I ached did NOT make me happy. The gel was warm and terrible. Nothing about that was enjoyable. I especially loathed having Ed pull my panties down when I didn't do it far enough. (I hate you, Ed. And your pink shirt.)
The results of my bloodwork were inconclusive, as were the results of the ultrasound. Next came the CAT scan.
The CAT scan was so terrible that I cannot for the life of me recall one thing in my life that was less enjoyable. And that's all the detail I care to go into about it on my journal.
The results, however, were very conclusive, and immediately I was wheeled in my cool wheelchair to the Intensive Care Unit to prepare for my emergency appendectomy.
That's all for tonight. Next post: The Surgery, the Recovery, and the Boy Who Really Pulled Through for Me.
6:30 AM: I woke up again, this time to start getting ready for school. The pain was worse, but it hadn't moved at all. I tried to tell my step-dad, Ryan, about it, but he just cracked jokes. Mind you, I whine about aches and pains all the time, but I really tried to emphasize that it was different than normal. I guess I didn't get through to him.
On the way to school, a daring and slightly worrisome idea occurred to me: when Shaustin, a girl in class, had appendicitis, her pain was about the same as mine in intensity as well as type. I decided I would ask her about it when I got there.
When I first got to school, my pain had gotten worse still, and it didn't make matters better that Shaustin wasn't there. Luckily again, she arrived right before Bible class. I pulled her aside to talk. I asked her, "Look, I don't mean to worry you, but where exactly did it hurt the worst when you had to get your appendix taken out? Can you point it out on my stomach?" She lifted her shirt to look at her huge scar which, at the time, made me suddenly feel very squeamish. She thought before she answered, then touched the spot where my pain was indeed the most intense. I grimaced and told her the situation. She was really worried, and went with me after Bible to talk to Pastor (as she suggested).
Pastor did a lot of prodding my belly, hurting me an awful bit. It hurt when he pushed in, but he said it would actually hurt when he released. He was a bit skeptical, but gave me the go-ahead to leave if I could get a doctor's appointment. He wasn't sure it was appendicitis, but he was pretty certain that something was wrong. I went to the office to make a couple phonecalls at about 9:30.
It wasn't too long before I had a 10:30 doctor's appointment for the same day. I still had a while before I was supposed to be picked up, so I went upstairs and wrote a note to Luke to let him know what was going on. I admitted I was a little scared, but I didn't want to worry him, so I tried to be optimistic. I don't think I succeeded.
I was crying before I left. The pain was much more exquisite by then, and I was very nervous - I'm not sure which was making me cry more. Pastor came in and held me (somehow he knew how scared I was), and he and Sarah prayed for me. That made me feel a little better, honestly.
I cried and cried in the waiting room. The pain had reached a new high. Besides, I was only a little way away from knowing whether or not they would cut me open. I got there at 10:00 AM. They were late, so I had to wait until almost 11:00 to see my doctor. And...ha...I was still crying. XD For the record, I was crying until about 1:00 PM, just so I don't have to mention again that I was crying. Everyone felt really bad for me because I was in so much pain.
My doctor, a lovely young woman whose name I don't know, was very kind and understanding. She pushed my stomach, rocked me, hit my feet, and asked me some question about a pizza that Ryan has distorted and retold many times at my expense. At any rate, she told me she was sure it was appendicitis. (Or rather, she was sure as she could be that it was appendicitis. The only way to be 100% sure is to operate; she put herself at 98%.) She ordered my bloodwork.
In case you weren't aware, this requires that they stick my arm with thin pieces of metal to force blood out of me. Another "in-case-you-weren't-aware": I'm afraid of needles. This was very traumatic for me. Still, I managed to suck it up and get it done (after all, they weren't about to say, "Well, she is throwing a fit...maybe we could do something different?"). That left me free to worry about the surgery.
They sent me up to the surgeon, Dr. O'Dell, where he asked me the exact same questions I had been asked throughout the day. Then, as he examined me, he decided it was very likely I actually had an ovarian cyst that had ruptured. Mum has these CONSTANTLY, so it seemed even more likely. I wasn't buying it. My labs hadn't come back yet, so O'Dell ordered an ultrasound to check out what was going on inside of me.
Okay, let's look at this: my pain kept getting worse, and it magnified it 300x whenever I was touched or pushed. So a huge man in a pink shirt named Ed calling me "darling" as he jammed this thing into everywhere I ached did NOT make me happy. The gel was warm and terrible. Nothing about that was enjoyable. I especially loathed having Ed pull my panties down when I didn't do it far enough. (I hate you, Ed. And your pink shirt.)
The results of my bloodwork were inconclusive, as were the results of the ultrasound. Next came the CAT scan.
The CAT scan was so terrible that I cannot for the life of me recall one thing in my life that was less enjoyable. And that's all the detail I care to go into about it on my journal.
The results, however, were very conclusive, and immediately I was wheeled in my cool wheelchair to the Intensive Care Unit to prepare for my emergency appendectomy.
That's all for tonight. Next post: The Surgery, the Recovery, and the Boy Who Really Pulled Through for Me.