Coping With Appendectomy

On Tuesday night at around 8pm my stomach starting hurting really bad. I thought it was just a really bad stomach ache or gas so I just laid in bed for a while but the pain started to become unbearable to the point that I couldn’t even walk upright. So I laid in bed and then at around 11 or 12 midnight i started to feel extremely nauseous and i went to the bathroom and threw up.

I called joey and asked him if he could look up symptoms on the computer and tell me what comes up and he said that it could be appendicitis and i should go to the hospital. i thought there’s no way i could have appendicitis, i don’t have any health issues.. etc. So i took some pepto because i still was convinced that it was just maybe stomach problems, but the pain was getting worse to the point that i was crying. At around 5am i went to my mom’s room crying in pain and explaining everything to her and i also started to have fever and i threw up again. She took me to the hospital and that’s where hell began. Ok, let me back up and say the facility, staff, etc are all REALLY nice but being in a hospital is the last place you want to be. So i get wheeled off onto a bed and then the nurse comes in with an IV and needles and i start freaking out. i was saying “Oh no” etc.. I have really juicy veins so when they were putting in the IV in my arm i felt a rush of warm liquid all over my arm and i just didn’t look because I knew it was blood and i heard a little panic in the nurse’s voice and she just said don’t worry, it’s just a really big vein and some blood came out. After they cleaned me up i looked over and i saw some dried up blood on my arm and on the sheet and i was just like arghhh. They gave me anti-anxiety and pain medicine through the IV and i started to calm down a little but i started to get nauseous again and threw up in the bathroom there.

They then told me i had to drink this solution so that they could give me a cat scan. So around 8am i went to get a cat scan and they had to put a contrast material intravenously so that they can see everything clearly and that liquid made me have a weird warm sensation from my neck down to my bladder. So after they did the cat scan the doctor was asking me if i only experienced pain yesterday etc.. and just the way he was asking me questions i knew i had appendicitis so i flat out asked him, “i have appendicitis, huh?” and he’s like, “well, we’re not suppose to tell the patient until we get confirmation from the other doctors etc so don’t tell anyone I told you this but im 99.9% sure you have appendicitis im sorry etc..” i was just like “damn, this really sucks.”

so i get rolled back into bed and then they said i was going to have surgery at 12pm. At around 11am they moved me onto another bed and took me upstairs and prepared me for surgery. It was pretty funny that i had to wear two of those hair net things to get all my hair in. And yes, i got plenty of comments and questions about my hair but everyone was really positive and nice. Anyway, I got more medications through my veins, and the nurse explained to me what every single one was for so that was cool but i don’t remember what. So there was like 5 doctors and nurses who were going to be helping with the surgery (anesthesiologist, laparoscopic surgeon head doctor, etc..) asking me the same questions about everything. So at around 12:30pm it was time for surgery. I got rolled off into this cold room that looked exactly how all surgery rooms look like on television. From here on out everything started to blur together. I remember everyone kind of rushing and touching me and moving me around and just so many things happening at once. I remember them wrapping a blood pressure thing around my left arm with some foam thing to keep my arm still and i remember asking “is it suppose to be this tight??” and he’s like yes, it will loosen up soon etc. Then someone put an oxygen mask on me and they were like “here, breathe in some oxygen.” I think they lied to me and that that was the mask for the general anesthesia because i knocked out after that. I don’t even remember where i woke up and I really don’t remember being rolled onto the elevator onto the fourth floor and into my recovery room.

When i finally started to regain where i was at and what was going on i started to feel the worst pain of my life, 5 times worse than the actual pain of the appendicitis. I couldn’t move anything at all, not even the slightest inch without feeling the worst rush of pain. They took out the IV from my arm and stuck one in my hand and started injecting painkillers through the IV. It helped but i still felt a lot of pain. I really don’t remember that much of the first night except that i couldnt move anything but my head and i wasn’t able to sleep and i couldn’t even get up to use the restroom which was about 5 feet away from me so i had to use a bed pan. Every 4 hours they had to come in to take my blood pressure and temperature and every i don’t know, maybe 6 hours they came in to change the bag of hydrating solution and bag of antibiotics which was attached to me and which was plugged into the wall so i couldn’t go anywhere outside a 6 foot radius. So Thursday morning at around 4 or 5 am they had to take my blood again so they pricked my right arm and that wasn’t so bad but this time i warned the nurse (it was a guy, though) and i said “sorry if i curse” lol he was like noo its ok haha. When i was on painkillers i tried my best to try to get up and use the bathroom so i think thursday afternoon was when i finally was able to suck up the pain enough and took about 2 minutes to actually get up out of bed and finally barely walk to the bathroom. Thursday night i was experiencing a lot of pain to the point that i was crying so they doubled up on the pain killers and that was great. But honestly, even with one it’s strong especially since its intravenous so it hits you right away so you can’t even imagine the amount of pain i was in. So i got a few hours of sleep and friday morning at 4am once again i got my blood drawn but i was feeling so much better that morning..

I wanted to go home so bad, i began to get really bad cabin fever. Being attached to an iv made the claustrophobia even worse. At maybe 11 the surgeon came in and said that i was able to go home if the other doctor said it was okay too. The other doctor called and said he was coming in at 3 and i said ok, so in my head i was really anticipating him coming at 3…what a horrible mistake. I really should have known better because of all the times my mom has lied to me about “being around the corner” but really coming to pick me up one or two hours later after school when i was in high school. So here i am watching tv, getting excited because its 3..and then 3:30 passes by..4…4:30..5. My mom came in the hospital at around 4 so she was waiting too wondering where he was as well. I had a mental breakdown at around 5:30 I started crying and cursing really loud. the nurse came in and saw me crying and she asked if i was in pain and i was just like no i just really want to get out of here etc etc and i was really freaking out..you have no idea how close i came to ripping the iv out of my arm. the nurse finally said she was going to take out the iv and i was so excited. It hurt a lot but i was so glad that it was not attached to me anymore. i was nearly free. Finally the doctor came in and checked me and said that i was able to go home.