October 13, 2016
It was a normal day; I went in to work and went to lunch at
Subway for a seafood sub sandwich. Ate my lunch and went about my work. At around
2:30pm I started feeling odd not quite right. I told my boss that I wasn’t
feeling well and left for home.
I have a ten minute drive home and was feeling kind of sick
to my stomach. Was it the sandwich did I get food poisoning? I no sooner get
home in the door and take off my jacket then I’m running for the bathroom to throw
up all of my lunch. Maybe it’s the flu? I crawl into bed and lay down. Nope
back up to the bathroom I go. This goes on till 2am, I just lay down then back
up puking out nothing I have nothing left in me but bile YUCK!
I finally fell asleep
and can barely comprehend in the morning I feel awful. I have a fever and no thermometer
to take my temperature. My daughter
stops by my bedroom on her way out to work my son had already left for work.
She asks if I feel ok I tell her I think I have the flu. She heads out to work.
I’m lying in bed I cannot even get up to go get my cell phone to call into
work. TV is too loud so no to TV. In and
out of consciousness I go. I feel terrible.
Finally get my cell phone and my mother calls me to check up
on me. I tell her I feel awful and that I cannot take it anymore. She gets in
her car and heads over to my place to get me. I can’t get out of the bed my
side is in utter pain. I slowly roll myself out of bed and get on my coat and
grab my purse. Out the door I go I can barely make it down the stairs to the
sidewalk. Mom is pulling into the driveway. I slowly make my way to the car and
can hardly sit back into the seat. It hurts so bad.
The drive to the hospital is utter agony! Every bump in the
road sends daggers of pain throughout my side. They have been working on the
highways so everything is torn up and a mess so many bumps in the road. Why did
they have to pick the fall to do road work? UGH I hate them.
We pull into the hospital emergency room door entrance the
doorman helps me get out of the car and into a wheelchair. Oh man that hurt so
bad. He wheels me into the hospital and mom goes to park her car in the
underground parking lot. I’m waiting at the desk for them to come get me and
mom gets back to me faster than they can get me admitted into the emergency
department. They wheel me back to a room
so I don’t disturb the waiting room with all my moaning and groaning. It’s like
6:30pm on Friday night. I sat down there for hours I MEAN HOURS! It was like 4
hours before I got a CT scan. It was confirmed my appendix had ruptured. OH NO!
I sit and wait and wait and wait in the room, here comes
some Doctors to have me sign the surgery release and then wait some more for a
room, and for time in the OR. I get to a room at 3am I’m miserable. They gave
me Fentanyl it helps somewhat for the pain.
My kids showed up to the hospital to see me at O’dark thirty
and sat with me until 3am then they went home as they had to work too. They do
come back later to see me later in the day Saturday.
3:15am I’m wheeled down to OR for surgery, finally! Get this
vestigial organ out of me it’s causing too much pain! We roll up to the OR and
I see too much. Someone is being operated on and the Surgery doors are open and
they say they are not ready for me yet. There is blood all over the place EWWW!
They hurriedly Spray or hose down the room after they finish with the person in
the room. I see the Doctor in a hospital blue suit and he looks like an alien
in his surgery gear! There are big machines with arms coming out from them Oh
my! This looks scary this is the first
time I’m scared! Then they wheel my bed into the OR and have me slide over to
the OR table. A weird shaped bed made out of a hard plastic with a u shaped divot.
The Nurse Slaps a mask over my face and
says take deep breaths 1, 2, 3…… Out I went. Don’t get me wrong the staff was super nice
and helpful I was just scared.
Next thing I know I’m being wheeled back to my room. I’m so
out of it at this point. I must have passed out on the way back to my room.
Back in my room and company comes to see me all day long
Saturday it was nice to feel the love from friends and family around me at this
time as I was drugged up too LOL. My boss even came and sat with me for three
hours Saturday evening. After she left I think I fell asleep a lot on and off.
Major meds keeping me comfortable. Many pills and blood sticks later. They wake
you up every couple hours to check for the infections of having had a ruptured
appendix. I got to eat some food at some point but wasn’t that hungry.
Sunday morning I had some breakfast and I mean some I wasn’t
all that hungry still and it all tasted awful. I think it was the anesthesia that
messed with my taste buds because all the tasty stuff tasted like nothing at
all. Gross!
I got to go home around 11am with an open wound from my laparoscopy
surgery and had seven staples all together with the two smaller incisions. With
instructions to pack the wound with a specific kind of gauze and use sterile
water and that it would take a good week and a half for the wound to really
start closing.
The Doctor prescribed two different types of antibiotics and
Pain medications. My tongue has turned completely white from the surgery and
being so sick. Eating food for the next week was not easy, small amounts my
stomach has shrunk to the size of a walnut. Mom helps me out with the packing
of the wound three times a day. I sleep intermittently all day for a week. I
had Hallucinations from the pain meds so I quit taking it two days after I get
home. I’d rather feel the pain than be out of my mind seeing weird things.
Hehe in the hospital all I could see was the Simms
characters with their diamonds above their heads for everyone that came in to
see me. Going about their Simms lives and doing their Simms jobs. It was quite
funny. I’m sure I laughed out loud too.
Week two I went home and boy that was nice to get back into
my own bed. Not that I did much during that time watched TV and You Tube videos
made some meals and lazed about all day long. On the second week on Thursday I
had a Dr Appt to remove the staples and get checked, doing well. Yay!
On week three I went back to work with instructions to not
pick up anything more than a gallon of milk. Yeah, I understood that I could
hardly move without some slight pain. I was not going to take pain meds. I can
power through this pain.
Moving forward to today week seven, I feel much better I can
move around fairly well and only some stitch pain inside if I move wrong.
Symptoms of afterwards, weeks and I mean weeks of diarrhea. That really was awful!
And even now when I have much better bowel movements I get backed up and my
intestines can really feel the pains of where my incisions are at. My guts hurt
and ache. But then you know sit down and go! I have constant burping from the
amount of gas they used to fill my stomach for the surgery. Yuck. But I’m doing
much better than that first two days of being sick. Why does this organ have to
betray us?
I heard that it can take four to six months for the anesthesia
to work its way out of our system after surgery. Sure feels like it when I
burp, yuck. I also have to say that this was worse than childbirth. I also hope
that week eight goes better. It does get better each day it just takes a lot of
time to heal. And that is frustrating for someone who is very active.
I just wanted to get this all off my mind so that I can move
forward from here and get completely well and feel normal again. I think I haven’t felt well in a while and
just didn’t realize it! Go figure high pain tolerance haha.
December 7, 2016
