I got appendicitis.
The whole experience was really quite uneventful in the end, but it was the first time I'd been in the hospital on my own account in nearly three decades.
It started on Monday morning right after I had finished my "Biggest Loser: Cardio Max" workout and eight Otter-Pops. I figured the slight percolation in my abdomen was due to the not so bright combination of high fructose corn syrup and high endurance lunge exercises. It would subside. All day I lived with the ache. At night I thought it was gas and I'd just take a Gas-X.
3:00 am, Tuesday morning rolled around and the pain had done the exact opposite of what I wanted it to do: It had gotten worse. I got up, spent some time in the bathroom, took another gas-X, and went back to bed.
3:15 am, Tuesday morning: that was the longest 15 minutes of my life. I spent some more time in the bathroom. By that time it was getting hard to lay on my stomach so I went downstairs to try sleeping in the seated position. As I curled up in the rocking chair I happened to glance at the computer at my feet. Out of curiosity I cracked it open and went to WebMD. My only thought was to rule out the improbable: Appendicitis. All I could think of was "which side is my appendix on, anyway?" According to WebMd, it was the right side of my lower abdomen. I poked the right side of my gut and immediately winced in pain. "Bummer" I thought. I quickly read through the other symptoms: nausea, vomiting, and fever. I had none of those symptoms so I thought "maybe I'm in the clear". Something kept telling me that I wouldn't be so lucky.
By 4:00 am Sarah was fully aware of what I had been experiencing and we had sort of uncouched the idea of appendicitis because really, what were the chances?
Pretty good, it turns out. By 5:00 am I knew for sure something was more than "not quite right", something was wrong. The pain was increasing. I tried to sleep again, sure that it wasn't appendicitis because I had no other symptoms.
By 6:00 Sarah had called her father. He and I spoke for about 3 minutes and he told me that an over-the-phone examination left little to conclude, but that he feared it might be appendicitis, and that if I was to take action, I needed to go to the ER because they would be better suited to the worst case scenario.
At 6:05 my mother answered her phone with a "what could possibly be worth an early morning call. I'm on vacation" tone in her voice. "Hey, mom. Sorry to wake you up. I was wondering if you would be able come and watch the kids."
"why?" she responding sounding a little more alertly.
"I have to go to the hospital." I got the feeling she was out the door before both legs were in her pants. She's always been reliable that way. Twenty minutes later my dad called and wanted to know what was up so I ran it down for him. He told me that mom was well on her way. He then told me to take care of myself and we hung up.
By 8:00 we were in the ER and within 20 minutes I was being seen. After a blood test and a helpful dose of morphine it was determined that appendicitis was the ailment and surgery was the remedy.
(In the ER right after the Morphine. Oh Yeah!)I was moved to a room on the 4th floor with a beautiful view of downtown Eugene and some lovely trees. Sarah waited with me the whole time. I probably would have been much more scared without her there. A little appendicitis was nothing compared to three childbirths.
At around 1:30 pm I was moved to the waiting area where I would come to learn the meaning of waiting. For ninety minutes I reclined in a most uncomfortable bed waiting for the people in green to take me away to the OR. They seemed to be taking their time.
After the first 20 minutes an anesthesiologist came and told me what to expect but that he would not be the one administering the drugs to me in my surgery. After another 40 minutes a surgical nurse came in and told me again what to expect, and again he told me that he would not be in on my particular surgery. 30 minutes later they came and got me.
In the interim I learned that my blood doesn't breathe well while my body is sedated. As I waited in that long empty room I would start to doze off and an alarm would sound every time my blood oxygen level was too low. I would simply breathe more deeply and the alarm would turn off. After 45 minutes of being rudely awakened by the alarm, a nurse finally got worried and strapped an oxygen hose to my head. "Great, now I get to breathe through a tube while waiting to be cut open" I thought to myself.
(This is actually the after-shot, but you get the idea of what I look like in a breathing tube)The next step was to move over to the operating table. I'm not a little fella and this table was maybe 16 inches wide. To make sure my large self didn't fall off the minuscule table, they proceeded to strap me down. This was getting better by the second. Then came the mask over my face, a woman's voice telling me the drugs were coming, a feeling of falling into a well then...
"John, John. You're okay. You're in recovery. You're okay now." The voice sounded strained and a little nervous. The nurse seemed to be trying to calm me down. I thought that was odd since I had been under general anesthetic for the last hour or so. I found out later that I had reacted quite violently to being awakened from the anesthetic. I apparently tried to strangle the anesthesiologist. The nurse at my side in the recovery room had sort of explained it to me, but I heard most of it as she explained it to another nurse. Recovery was not my bravest time. My mind was lucid and mostly alert to the point I could explain with great detail where I was and what I was doing there, but I felt out of control of my own body. I wanted to feel normal but I didn't. I wanted to be with Sarah but I wasn't. I wanted to go home but I couldn't. I was in limbo and it scared me. I felt like crying the whole time but I didn't. The nurse walked me though some waking up exercises and some light banter before I was taken back to my room.
I was so happy to see Sarah that I almost cried when she took my hand. I wanted to sleep, but I was afraid of falling back down the well and struggle to get back out. After a short visit I felt sleep coming on and we decided that she should go check on the girls and my mom and give herself the opportunity to change from clothes covered in Jack pee.
I slept for a little over an hour and awoke a new man. I felt much better. My wounds didn't hurt, I felt able to get up but was encouraged not to by the nurses. I peed, I ate, and I watched a little TV before calling Sarah. I had done it. It was over and all I had to show for it were three inch-long scars in a diagonal array across my gut that brought up images of an aerial view of the pyramids in Egypt. The first surgery of my life had gone without much in the way of pomp or circumstance. No collapsed lungs, no defibrillator, no clamps sewn into my sternum (as far as I know). It was like taking the car in to remove a recalled part: pretty routine for everyone but the car. I will never forget this experience. I will never forget the smell of saline sweating out through my veins. I will never forget the odor of the rubber that carried the oxygen to my nose and how it made all of my food taste weird. I will never forget how nice everyone was to me as I went into surgery and how they treated me like a violent criminal as I came out. I will never forget the day I got my appendix removed. Of course the story to accompany the three scars will be more along the lines of how I got shot three times in the stomach and survived. I mean, who cares about a laproscopic appendectomy anyway?
