To say the very least it has been another hard month. I am so grateful for how the windows of heaven have been opened to our family. Getting appendicitis was not the first thing I thought we would encounter as our next bump in the road.
It started with fasting on Sunday morning and feeling a little yucky as we went to church but I just passed it off as fasting pains and taking meds on an empty stomach. By the end of the first hour I really felt unwell and tried to eat some of the kids church snacks thinking a little food would easy the feeling. I could only handle a couple of bites before I felt too nauseous to have any more. I suffered through most of Primary and almost didn't think I would make it to the end when I was alone in my class with 3 four year olds. I prayed that they would just keep coloring for the last half hour while I just hung onto my chair and tried not to lay down on the floor and moan. I made it out of church slowly and slightly bent over. The short ride home made it all worse and I shuffled my way into the house and to my bed as fast as I could. I began to vomit and and it seemed not matter which way I lay nothing felt even a little better.
This is when I started to do a real evaluation of what I was feeling. Vomiting doesn't help, I don't even really have anything to vomit as I had been fasting since the night before (not normal), can't eat food to help (not pregnancy sickness), there is no relief in any position (not normal), the pain is just staying in one spot and getting worse (not normal either). Trever had come up to try and take a nap by this time and I tell him I am suspecting appendicitis. He is looking at me like 'are you serious?' He asks if he can do the 'push' test and I almost freak at the very thought. That is when I was convinced myself that I should go into the hospital; if my immediate impulse at the thought of my stomach being touched is horrendous I might need a doctor to check it out.
I am starting to feel so horrible I am beginning to have trouble speaking, as I would rather just moan in pain. I can't straighten out at all and any vertical movement makes me feel like I want to vomit again. Trever gets our friends (the Listers) from across that street to watch the kids while he takes me in. I make it out of the house ever so slowly and bent over the whole way. By the time we arrive at the hospital the ride has made me feel even worse, there are no ER spots and so Trev parks in a physician spot and gets me a wheelchair. I fall into that with my bucket and he wheels me in and leaves me in line so he can move the van before he gets in trouble for parking where he did. I don't even lift my head to check the line. Suddenly there is a lady by my side asking if she can push me up to the triage window. After I answer a couple of questions from the nurse the nice lady also wheels me over the the intake window, when Trever shows up. It doesn't take too much longer before my body gives it's final hurrah and I vomit in the bucket while in the waiting room. I have to say I never thought that I would be one of the people who ever puked in the waiting room. I am so absorbed in the pain that I don't even know how long we where waiting for. I just know that we showed up some time after three pm, and it seemed like an eternity to be left unchecked.
We finally get in and they put me on an IV right away to rehydrate me, they also give me morphine for the pain (that is awful stuff for the head). The ER doc checks me out and orders a CT scan and has the on call surgeon come check me out. They were also concerned it might be some belly button hernia? When the surgeon checks me out he is a little skeptical that it is my appendix because I am feeling quite good at this point, but since I already drank the contrast for the scan we might as well check things out. The CT scan comes back saying that my appendix is slightly inflamed, and appendixes don't get better they only get worse so surgery is booked. We know that surgery has been booked because we hear an announcement saying that room 9-4 is to be prepped for surgery. I look at Trev and say 'that is my room!' So sometime between 10:30pm and 11pm I went in for my laproscopic appendectomy. By 12:45am I was recovered enough that I was transported to my room.
It started with fasting on Sunday morning and feeling a little yucky as we went to church but I just passed it off as fasting pains and taking meds on an empty stomach. By the end of the first hour I really felt unwell and tried to eat some of the kids church snacks thinking a little food would easy the feeling. I could only handle a couple of bites before I felt too nauseous to have any more. I suffered through most of Primary and almost didn't think I would make it to the end when I was alone in my class with 3 four year olds. I prayed that they would just keep coloring for the last half hour while I just hung onto my chair and tried not to lay down on the floor and moan. I made it out of church slowly and slightly bent over. The short ride home made it all worse and I shuffled my way into the house and to my bed as fast as I could. I began to vomit and and it seemed not matter which way I lay nothing felt even a little better.
This is when I started to do a real evaluation of what I was feeling. Vomiting doesn't help, I don't even really have anything to vomit as I had been fasting since the night before (not normal), can't eat food to help (not pregnancy sickness), there is no relief in any position (not normal), the pain is just staying in one spot and getting worse (not normal either). Trever had come up to try and take a nap by this time and I tell him I am suspecting appendicitis. He is looking at me like 'are you serious?' He asks if he can do the 'push' test and I almost freak at the very thought. That is when I was convinced myself that I should go into the hospital; if my immediate impulse at the thought of my stomach being touched is horrendous I might need a doctor to check it out.
I am starting to feel so horrible I am beginning to have trouble speaking, as I would rather just moan in pain. I can't straighten out at all and any vertical movement makes me feel like I want to vomit again. Trever gets our friends (the Listers) from across that street to watch the kids while he takes me in. I make it out of the house ever so slowly and bent over the whole way. By the time we arrive at the hospital the ride has made me feel even worse, there are no ER spots and so Trev parks in a physician spot and gets me a wheelchair. I fall into that with my bucket and he wheels me in and leaves me in line so he can move the van before he gets in trouble for parking where he did. I don't even lift my head to check the line. Suddenly there is a lady by my side asking if she can push me up to the triage window. After I answer a couple of questions from the nurse the nice lady also wheels me over the the intake window, when Trever shows up. It doesn't take too much longer before my body gives it's final hurrah and I vomit in the bucket while in the waiting room. I have to say I never thought that I would be one of the people who ever puked in the waiting room. I am so absorbed in the pain that I don't even know how long we where waiting for. I just know that we showed up some time after three pm, and it seemed like an eternity to be left unchecked.
We finally get in and they put me on an IV right away to rehydrate me, they also give me morphine for the pain (that is awful stuff for the head). The ER doc checks me out and orders a CT scan and has the on call surgeon come check me out. They were also concerned it might be some belly button hernia? When the surgeon checks me out he is a little skeptical that it is my appendix because I am feeling quite good at this point, but since I already drank the contrast for the scan we might as well check things out. The CT scan comes back saying that my appendix is slightly inflamed, and appendixes don't get better they only get worse so surgery is booked. We know that surgery has been booked because we hear an announcement saying that room 9-4 is to be prepped for surgery. I look at Trev and say 'that is my room!' So sometime between 10:30pm and 11pm I went in for my laproscopic appendectomy. By 12:45am I was recovered enough that I was transported to my room.
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