Tales of My Appendix

I ended this post by saying I was going to bed.

But I didn't. I laid awake for two more hours, feeling crummy and discouraged. Eventually, I forced myself to get up and get ready for bed...because my stomach hurt and I had to use the restroom.

Like most people, my stomach hurts from time to time. Sometimes I wake up with a stomach issue and have to medicate. It's usually not a big deal. This time, though, I decided not to medicate. I just went to bed like I'd promised my blog audience I would...albeit belatedly.

Two hours later, I woke up. Because nausea. I went to the restroom, thinking that if I used the toilet or threw up, I'd feel a lot better and everything would be okay. But it turned out that I couldn't use the toilet or throw up...not for lack of trying. I was on my knees on the cold tile, forcing myself to dry heave over the toilet bowl, when I realized that I wasn't nauseated anymore. My stomach just really...hurt.

I thought back over the last few hours. Come to think of it, eating dinner had been a chore because I wasn't hungry. I'd assumed that was because I'd eaten the same thing for every meal for a week straight (one of the joys of cooking for one and having leftovers), but maybe I'd actually been sick? Food poisoning? After eating the same thing for every meal, it seemed unlikely that food poisoning would be striking now. And food poisoning usually meant vomiting, not intense pain...

I grabbed my phone and entered "intense stomach pain below belly button." A few results came up, but only one caught my eye: "appendicitis."

And for some reason, I was like, "Yup. That's it. That's the one. I'm going to have to get my appendix out."

Cool as a cucumber with intense stomach pain (which is not that cool, tbh), I called my mom. It was three a.m., but she still answered.

I explained my symptoms and said something like, "What if I have appendicitis?"

She told me to go back to bed and that if I still felt the pain in the morning, she'd take me to her clinic for some tests.

"What do you mean by morning?" It was, after all, three a.m.

"Whatever time you normally get up." She told me not to eat or drink anything. Not that I was going to do that, anyway. Once again, medicating did not seem like the right course of action, and the only reason I'd eat or drink was to medicate. I was distinctly not hungry.

I hung up and, calmly, lay back down. I was in too much pain to sleep. After about forty-five minutes, I texted my mom to let her know that the pain had moved exclusively to the right side of my stomach. After an hour and fifteen minutes, I realized that I wasn't tired at all and that the temple would be open in the next forty-five minutes or so. I'd desperately wanted to go to the temple all week (re: feeling crummy and discouraged), but I wasn't sure I'd be able to. This could be the perfect time! I excitedly got to my feet to get ready and then realized that standing was a mistake. I got back into bed and realized that was a mistake, too. Any time I moved positions, I hurt. The only thing I could do was lie on my back quietly and hold very still. Nix to the temple.

Eventually, I drifted off for an hour or so. Then it was time to get up.

I'm blessed with a rather hyperactive imagination. I wouldn't say I'm a dramatic person, but I do sometimes entertain extremes, probably because extremes are far more interesting than moderation. Because I know this about myself, I have a habit of counterbalancing my extremes. As I got ready to leave the house, I reminded myself that I didn't know if I had appendicitis, that this could just be a bad stomachache, that I could be jumping to conclusions, and so on and so forth. When I emailed work to let them know I wasn't coming, I said nothing about my appendix. When I dropped my car at the mechanic's (as I'd been planning to do that day for a week), I explained that I would probably be unavailable as I was going to the doctor and possibly the emergency room. It was only after the mechanic pressed me for details that I said I might have appendicitis. When I got to my parents' house, I listened to my mother's medical spiel.

"Hmmm," said my mom. "You don't have any release pain, which is unusual for appendicitis." She mentioned a couple other symptoms I was lacking or that I had but which didn't jive with appendicitis.

I listened to her, because she was the medical professional. But I was surprised by her commentary. I still had a feeling that I couldn't shake that told me I was suffering from appendicitis.

I went to my mom's clinic as soon as it opened. As the nurse on duty, she ran some tests. She also made me put on a hospital gown, which was a new thing that has never happened to me.

The doctor then showed up to poke a little and prod a little and tell me what my tests said. The tests did not say, "You have appendicitis and should go to the ER." They said, "Normal. Normal. You're completely normal. Your white blood cell count is at 11, which is at the high end of normal. The only slightly abnormal thing is that 85% of the white blood cells in your body are cells for fighting infection."

Again, I was taken aback. Because my gut feeling still told me (in more ways than one) that appendicitis was the answer. But maybe I was crazy? Or just not a doctor. Maybe I was just being a big ol' wimp about a big ol' stomachache.

The doctor said, "You have two options. You can go to the ER now and just have them double check things. Or you can go home and see if your pain gets any worse and then go to the ER if it does. Are you okay with that plan?"

And I was all, "Sorry, but which one of those things did you want me to do?"

The doctor hesitated. I've met some of the doctors my mom works with. Let me tell you, they are not humble people. This doctor seemed different, because he opened his mouth and said something not at all based on medical science: "If it were my daughter, I'd want her to go to the ER just to be safe."

So off I went to the ER, frantically texting along the way. Letting all interested parties that I had to go to the emergency room. Still not saying anything for sure but dropping phrases like "suspected appendicitis" just to prepare everybody in case my feelings were right.

I got to the ER and checked in. They give me a nifty little ER bracelet. My dad, who'd left work to come with me, didn't get a bracelet. But he didn't have to put on a hospital gown, either. Or get hooked up to 10,000 different machines. Or have to answer a lot of invasive and repetitive questions about health issues. Happily, I was able to say that apart from an abnormal year of migraines, ankle deformities, and UTIs, I am spectacularly healthy.

The questions unearthed a few things. Namely that it still looked like I didn't have appendicitis. There were the underwhelming blood test results...the lack of release pain...the fact that I endured the pain quite well without meds...the fact that the pain was ebbing and flowing somewhat...no fever...huh.

But I was in the ER, where they pinpoint a diagnosis at all costs, so they tucked me under a warm blanket, gave me some morphine, and told me to wait because I was going to have a CT scan in the near future.

Some people like narcotics because they make them happy. I knew from experience (wisdom teeth removal) that narcotics do not make me happy. All the morphine did was give me some kind of throat-swelling panic attack (?) and then make me slightly groggy. It didn't even seem to help much with the pain. It also made the CT scan feel a little surreal. I remember being wheeled in my hospital bed to the CT scan room (it was like a roller coaster! but in a bed!), but the CT scan itself is something I can't recount with confidence.

I do remember that not long after, the doctor came and said, "I hope you're not too attached to your appendix!"

The CT scan confirmed: it was inflamed and had to come out!

I don't know how to explain how I knew I had to get my appendix out long before medical science showed it. It was unlike any other spiritual impression I've ever had. It didn't come because I'd inquired of the Lord, and it didn't come with warm fuzzies. It was just...there. It didn't even really feel very spiritual. My mom said she had a similar experience. While my dad was sitting with me in the ER, my mom was making arrangements to leave work and come take his place. She wanted to be with me when I went in to surgery.

In any case, if I'd waited until my pain was more symptomatic of appendicitis to seek treatment, my appendix probably would have ruptured. I would then have had to be rushed to the ER and may not have made it through. I was definitely being watched out for.

So there I was, miraculously already in the ER to be treated preemptively. I had also miraculously not eaten anything since the night before, so I was ready for surgery whenever they could squeeze me in. The downside was that since I'd come in before the danger was imminent, my emergency surgery was not-so-emergency. I ended up waiting a good fourish hours, and they were loooooong. I passed the time by texting (almost) everyone I knew and by getting up to speed on the surgery, which was laparoscopic. Which sounds kind of like a Christian denomination and not a surgery. But it really just means that instead of giving me one long incision, they were going to cut me open in three places and insert a camera for visibility. I was informed that it should be clean and quick since my appendix was unruptured. Also that the surgeon was going to adjust the anesthesia since the drug usually used had a marginal relationship to a drug I'm allergic to.

They were very nice to me while I waited. They moved me to a private room and assigned me some nice staff members. Mom and I were both bored out of our minds, but presently I was wheeled down to surgery. I was introduced to my surgeon and the anesthesiologist, whom I liked and trusted immediately. I didn't have too much anxiety about the surgery itself...until we went to go do it. Then I was seriously reconsidering whether I could just live with an inflamed appendix. (Medical science says I probably couldn't have. Medical science doesn't know how I am when I set my mind to something.) Anyway, the anesthesiologist said it was his job to watch me the whole time and keep me safe, and I felt okay about commending my life into his hands.

They wheeled me to the operating room and helped me move onto the operating "bed" (a squishy table covered with paper and two pillows, one under my head and one under my knees). They started hooking me up to things.

The anesthesiologist put an oxygen mask over my face. I remember thinking that I did not feel tired at all and wondering when the anesthesia would kick in. That's the last thing I remember before the surgery took place.