In reality... the Wednesday morning the week before Thanksgiving I woke up not feeling real great and considered calling in to work , but I had a pretty big project due, so I took some tylenol and drug myself into work. After lunch, I started to really not feel good and was pretty sick to my stomach. By the time I got to school for my big Sudan presentation that evening, I was feel so bad that I had Caleb come pick me up and started calling after hours urgent care centers. We were trying to avoid ERs since I really thought it was a stomach bug or food poisoning and didn't want to pay ER fees.
We drove around for more than an hour in the pouring rain trying to find an open urgent care center. Apparently having posted hours means nothing to businesses up here. At one office that was supposed to be open until 7:30, at 7:18 there was a sign on the door that said "we reserve the right to close early if we have reached capacity." Really? What is the point of being an AFTER HOUR, URGENT EMERGENCY care office if you close early? I don't get it.... But that is not the point.
Eventually we found a place in Arlington. After filling out some paperwork and watching about 45 minutes of Tora, Tora, Tora they took me to the back. Unfortunately, in the time we had been waiting, the pain had shifted from my whole stomach, to my lower right abdomen.... and we all knew what that meant. The doctor didn't have to look at me long before she told us to get to the nearest ER, and quickly. We were pretty surprised and flustered. It was already 9pm and neither Caleb nor I had been home since 730 in the morning, we were in our business clothes, the dogs were still locked up and we hadn't eaten dinner. Caleb took me to the ER to get me checked in and left to go get us clothes, get him food, and let my poor dogs out.
By the time he got back at 10, I had a full work up in the ER and had chugged my 2 glasses of contrast for a catscan. Which was then proceeded by an ultrasound and yet another cat scan, and blood work. All of this took place while I was drugged with the ER's strongest narcotic. By 4am we did not have good news. My tests were inconclusive. It did not look like appendicitis, ovarian cyst, bowel obstruction, or anything else they could think of. All we knew was that I was in agonizing pain so the ER admitted me to the hospital up to the 5th floor surgery wing.
The 5th floor was not the kindest to me. They continued to prod around on my increasingly painful stomach, draw more blood, pump me full of painkillers and tell me they had no answers. Okay, no answers is not exactly true. For 24 hours I listened to the doctor tell me that there was no way I had appendicitis and that I was overexaggerating the pain. That just made me mad. At one point the pain in my stomach was so bad I could barely get back into my bed. Embarrassing to admit, but I was sobbing and the doctor looked at me and goes "what do you want me to do about it?" I wanted to say a whole lot of things that were not nice or worth typing up on the blog, but my response was "I want you to do your job and make it stop!" After complaining to the nursing staff and management about my oh so rude doctor, we got several more opinions from different hospital departments. From about 2pm until 8pm, a parade of doctors and specialists came through my room and each one told me that I had appendicitis. BUT, the jerk surgeon maintained that my cat scan from the ER 24 hours ago proved I didn't. In the meantime, the pain continued to increase. Finally we were able to convince my doctor's boss (the actual attending) to consider surgery. I basically told him that it had to be worth at least taking a look? So began my late night surgery.
I went into surgery at 10 and was back in my room by 1am without my appendix : ) I don't like to gloat, but I WAS RIGHT! When they got in there, my appendix looked terrible so they took it out. Of course, I learned this from the nurse the next morning because the doctors were too chicken to come admit they had been wrong and let me suffer for so long! By 930 the next morning, the hospital was already talking about discharging me. Caleb had to go to work for a few hours, so two sweet girls from church came and kept me company for a few hours. We packed up, were discharged, and I was home by 230. And so my 72 hours in the hospital came to an end.
Caleb and I have been joking that it felt like we were there alot longer than 72 hours. Probably the all-nighter in the ER and the late-night surgery threw off our sense of time. I'm not sure who is happier that I'm home, me or my dogs. They are both curled up together next to me and wouldn't leave my side. I think they were better medicine than the painkillers the hospital gave me.
Our church was so nice to us - they came to visit us and brought us dinner for almost a week. I was pretty worried at first about what we were going to do having a crisis with our families so far away. Our church has really stepped in to fill that gap. They prayed for us, brought us food, checked up on us. I'm not sure what we would have done without them.
The recovery has been WAY tougher than I would have thought. For a week I could barely get myself off of the couch - which gave me a great opportunity to catch up on movies and read Stieg Larrson's Millenium trilogy - fantastic books by the way. I went back to the doctor last week and he gave me the all clear - except that I can't exercise (bummer) and can't pick up heavy things.
I am starting to feel better and went back to work and class last week - although it almost killed me. I am starting to feel better and the pain has almost gone but my energy just isn't back yet. I spent last Thursday running a few errands and Christmas shopping and I spent all day Friday sleeping it off.
So, needless to say, this has been a November to forget. I've done nothing that I wanted to get accomplished and definitely did not enjoy my Thanksgiving. Oh well. You can only lose your appendix once :) That being said, I am now looking forward to truly enjoy my December. So far. So good.
I have one more week of school and I am done for the semester! I have 2 more papers to write, but I think I've got them both under control. Thanks to Amazon.com I have just about finished my Christmas shopping. Let's not talk about wrapping.... ask me in a few weeks. The best part is that we GET TO COME HOME IN 2 WEEK!!!!!!!!!!!!! We are both really looking forward to getting away for a few weeks. Plus, this will be Rhett Butler's first trip to Arkansas and Texas!
