Lord Larehip

Last Sunday I was feeling s-hitty all day and had vomited copiously early that morning. I had no appetite but I went to visit my mother for dinner anyway because she's a widow and I want to touch base with her at least once a week--dutiful son that I am.

I told her just to make me some soup because I couldn't eat anything else. When she gave me the soup, I couldn't eat that either. I was sitting in a reclining chair staring at the TV feeling miserable not knowing what was wrong with me. This was the third attack in a year. The first was last January where I had identical symptoms but I recovered after vomiting. The second occurred in March where the bad tummy wouldn't let me sleep. I went into work so exhausted and nauseated that I went home early, fell asleep and then felt better once I awoke and returned to work the next day. Then nothing for the rest of the year.

Now it was happening again and this time it was markedly worse. My mother was really worried because I never get sick, never have to go to the hospital, never even bothered to find a primary care physician. I just don't get sick. Then as I'm sitting there, this huge pain erupts in my belly. I sat forward and moaned. My mother wanted know if I wanted to go to the hospital. "No," I grunted, "I'll be alright."

She went to find a medical book she has to look up my symptoms. While she was searching for it, it hit me: appendicitis. Had to be. So I got up and said that I have to go to the hospital. We should have just called an ambulance but she drove me to the nearest emergency room. So, I get stuck in a waiting room for an hour and 15 minutes with my mother who is now refusing to leave my side. She's having a conversation with two other couples who are also waiting for service but I stayed out of it--I just didn't feel good at all, really couldn't make a conversation.

Finally, they called me in and a doctor came in and asked some questions. He ordered a morphine injection for the pain and a CAT scan. The morphine knocked some edge off the pain but far from eliminated it. Sure enough, the CAT scan revealed "acute appendicitis." Considering that I've had a bad appendix for a year without knowing it, I suppose it had a lot of time to become acute.

I went under the knife a few hours after the diagnosis. As they wheeled me into the OR, there was a clock on the wall. It was 1:25 in the morning. A guy put an oxygen-type mask on my face and said, "Have some oxygen, buddy." I counted the breaths I took--4. The next thing I knew, I was waking up in the recovery room. Then a guy wheeled me to a regular hospital room where they immediately hooked me up to a ton of IVs. My mother came back about 7 am and told me she had my clothing and my wallet.

The surgeon who did the operation came in to see me. He told me they removed my appendix laproscopically--through the navel. It left virtually no scar. He told me the appendix had burst and was full of pus. I told him that I had planned to go home from my mother's and swallow some Zz-Quil and knock myself out until morning and hopefully I'd be feeling better. He said that my plan would have resulted in my death or a coma. They got to the appendix in the nick of time. Even then, I had to stay longer in the hospital to make sure I was not at risk of infection.

I never realized how much being in the hospital is like being an inmate. You're tethered to that IV post like a damn ball-and-chain. Every time you get out of bed, you have to take that post with you. It became like a part of me. You wear that gown--the kind open in the back so your ass is always hanging out--like a prison uniform. It's a kind of role-playing. And it's rather dehumanizing. You can't go anywhere or do anything. You just roam the halls dragging your ball and chain and then you go back to your cell and lay down in that bed, which I grew to hate. Even though the nurses were quite nice and professional and were there to help you get well. So I can imagine what prison has to be like. But there are certain similarities.

For example, time slows down as you wait to be released. You never get a good night's sleep in the hospital. Every time damn time I fell into a decent sleep, a nurse would wake me--time to take my vitals or time for a new IV or I had to get another shot. I was poked, jabbed, filled and drained more times than a pin-cushioned gas tank. So you sleep when you can. You nit-pick your sleep whenever you can get it. Pretty soon, it doesn't matter what time of day it is. I can't imagine feeling that way for 25 years.

Getting out of bed the first couple of days was murder! It really took an effort of will to do but they wouldn't give me a "urinal"--a plastic jug basically--to piss in. They wanted me to have to get up because laying in bed all the time is actually worse.

I started walking in the halls dragging my IV around. That really helped though. It made getting out of bed much easier--not that it was all that easy but at least it was not the torture that it was at first. But food went right through me. Whatever I ate, it came out about 10 minutes later and it was exactly like baby s-hit. A beautiful, young blonde nurse kicked it off by shoving a suppository up my ass but told me it would help get the bowels working which it did, it opened the gates. But sh-itting is key. My roommate was a nice old man in his 80s on his 6th abdominal surgery (I cannot imagine going through this again much last 6 times). He asked me if I had had any bowel movements yet. When I said yes, he said, "Then you're home free." That poor man was really having problems and it doesn't look good for him

After 5 days, one of the doctors who operated on me came in and asked if I was ready to go home. I wanted to scream F-UCK YES!!! GET ME OUT OF HERE!!!! But I just said, "I believe so." He asked me about urinating and bowel movements and I affirmed I had had them and he said good. He pulled out the drain tube from my belly. It was connected to a bulb that collected the drainage--a pinkish liquid--which the nurses collected and analyzed once a day. I was SO glad to be rid of thing! Within a couple of hours, I was released and my mother came to get me. She seems to be holding close to me because she nearly lost me.

A very nice elderly man came to get me with a wheelchair. He said I seemed pretty anxious. I said I was. He said he was once a patient there and knew how I felt. "Hospitals are nice places to visit," he said, "but only if you're going to leave in a couple of hours." Got that right.

So here I am back at home, getting back into my life. Not allowed to return to work yet but that's fine because I'm frankly not feeling up to it. I need a break after all that rest and convalescence. I'm on meds--antibiotics and pain-killers--that turn my pee to a weird, dark, cloudy color and it doesn't smell like pee. The smell is indescribable. My hips and tummy still hurt and I have to be careful not to stand or sit too fast. Rolling over in bed is also a chore. But it's getting easier. Anything is better than that pain that took me to the hospital in the first place. There are no words that can convey how agonizing that is.

Appendicitis is now successfully treated but even into the early part of the 20th century it was a death sentence. It killed Houdini, after all. All I can say is that those poor people who died of it died in the utmost agony--that much I know.

So when you find yourself with a bad tummy that keeps you up all night, go to the hospital. It's keeping you up for a reason--so you don't die in your sleep. It mimics the flu, though. I first thought I had a bug because I was vomiting and had chills and sweats. What did that have to do with my damned appendix? I still don't know but I do know that it just might. If you have a bad tummy ache that just doesn't make sense or that just won't go away then go to the hospital.

Once you get that huge pain that is relentless, your appendix has just gone critical, it has swelled up and that's causing your pain. Once swollen, it doesn't shrink back down so the pain won't subside. From there, it will burst and that can release toxins into your system if not immediately removed that will kill you. Just ask Ringo Starr, he nearly died of a burst appendix when he was a boy.

So, you've been warned if you bothered to read this far. I have some meds to take.

Ninetales

dawg welcome to the burst appendix club. I joined last may.

my appendix is still inside me tho. I was misdiagnosed and went a week without treatment and I got super lucky cuz my appendix walled itself off so the shit it carries didn't leak out which would've killed me. the burst is a terrible god damn pain so I feel ya bro get well

John Wilkes Booth

wouldn't be a larehip thread if it wasn't novel length tbh

didn't read the whole thing but i skimmed, hope you feel better larehip

Chula Vista

Jeez! When you gonna be back among the normal folk?

__________________

“The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well,
on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away
and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.”