Coping With Appendectomy

I think I have awful food allergies and haven’t eaten wheat, oats, milk, eggs, or anything containing gluten for 15 yrs, and if I get into too much fat on meat I have instant stomash cramps and diaherra..so when I felt a gas attack coming on I was sure it was related to food. But I hadn’t eaten anything unusual that day.

At 11am I took gas-x and drank ginger ale which sometimes help, but the gas and cramps got worse. I couldn’t seem to get any of the gas out either. My bowel habits had changed a bit lately too..if I went at all it was just little bits so I thought maybe I had a blockage of some sort. I’m hugely afraid of hospitals and dr’s and especially drugs. I eventually gave in and asked my husband to take me to the ER. After waiting a long time in the waiting room I was given a room. The Dr that night wanted to run tests by having me drink a radioactive drink and maybe inject me with radioactive dye and I paniced and ran out of the emergency room. The cramps had eased a bit and my very angry husband brought me back home. That all happened between 7pm and 9pm.

By midnight I was still in agony with gas and stomach pain. It was up under my rib cage on both sides and right in the center of my sternum and then eventually my entire tummy was swollen and gurggling. Back we went to the hospital. This time there was a new shift of people on although the intake guy recognized me and was still there. The doctor assigned to me ran blood tests and said they looked ok but to be sure he ordered at CT scan. The scan showed acute appendicitis. The Dr then looked at my blood tests again and said oops, he’d looked at the wrong one and I did have an elevated white blood cell count. This was not a good start for a suspicious person like me. Some of my pain also felt like it was in my back on both sides down low and I asked him if he was sure it wasn’t gallbladder. A surgen was called and the appendectomy scheduled for 2:30om the next day. I spent the night in the emergency room with anitbiotic drip and finally a morphine derived pain killer. I had reached a point where I concented to anything they wanted to do to stop the pain. More complications - I happed to be and am embarassed by it, a heavy smoker. Of course, they wouldn’t let me smoke but i did manage to take my drip pole with me and hide out behind the er driveway to have one cig about 4am. Keep in mind that I was told the Dr would write a script for a nicotine patch for me, but that never happened.

Went through the usual pre op where I answered a hundred questions and then the Dr met with me and asked the same questions all over again. I asked for a nicotine patch again and for prevacid to help with stomach acid after since I still think that may be an onging problem. Again, none of that happened. They did the laproscopy. I was shocked by how low in my pubis area one of the holes was. To the point where the hair was shaved down there. Anyone else have that experience? I spent an entire sleepless night where teh minutes seemed to tak hours and hours just to tic one minute. They were giving me another kind of morphine drug and more antibiotics. The doctor had signed my release right after surgery saying there was no bleeding or complications so I could go home whenever I wanted to. Part of the sleepless night came from not having my hormone replacement patch, which I also asked the Dr to give me a script for, and I asked my husband to bring one from home, but husband said he couldn’t find the box. I called the pharmacy and asked them to refill which they did, then I asked my husband to pick it up (24 hr pharmacy), but he refused saying he was too tired and would see me in the am.

By now I have a raging headache, my belly button was especially painful and I’m wide awake and having hot flashes, oh, and the cigarette issue Going thru withdrawl of several things..not even the morphine could cut my problems. I was able to get out of bed..was encouraged to do so by the very very nice nurses. Here’s the comedy part… I decide that I will do whatever I have to to smoke. That after almost two days with no nicotine, the headache, and hot flashes, at least that drug I had in my posession. So I limped out to the desk and told the staff that I needed their help to find a lounge or outside where I could have a puff or two. Guess what? Seems the hospital was in “lock-down”. Next door at the post office, two men had broken in, the police chased them and they ran on foot over to the hospital area and the police were searching for them. No people allowed in or out of the building. I thought I was a fairly elaborate lie for the front desk to make up just to keep me from smoking. Back in my room, I could see police cars roaming the parking lot and no traffic coming in or out so I guess it was true after all.

By 6am I didin’t care if I got shot by a criminal, I wanted out to have a smoke. I went to the front desk again and actually broke down crying. They took pity on me and told me I could go by myself to the outdoor patio where the employees enter the building. I couldn’t believe they’d let me go by myself, but they did. I got down there draging my IV pole had two puffs of a cigarette and became so dizzy I almost passed out. So I quickly put it out and clinging to walls made it back to my room. I was released about 6am and am now miserable at home.

I am back to having so much gas that I don’t know what to do. I called the hospital and talked to the ladies at the nurses station and they told me to walk and walk and walk to work out the gas. I’ve been doing that. I’m taking tylenol for pain which doesn’t help much, I haven’t been able to eat and I feel sick in my stomach. It hurts so much. I am looking forward to getting through tomorrow because I’m told the third day is better. No one seems to be talking about having this much post operative pain. I’m still wondering if the appendix is my problem or if it’s something else like gall bladder or inflamed intestines. I sure wish I new what to do.