appendicitis

i guess i should share with you my experience before i try to forget about it completely. :) 

april 1, 2011

april fools day

go figure. 

i started having pain early, early, early this morning. as in midnight. i couldn't get comfortable, and therefore couldn't sleep. 

it felt like my abdomen was completely sore. it went through to my back, and made it so i couldn't lay on my sides or my back, or any position really. it would come in waves. most of the time it was really dull constant pain, but then i would get these stabbings of pain that felt like my insides were being ripped out. 

not that i really know what that feels like..

so i learned to breathe through it. 

tried taking ibuprofen, because i've learned that i always try that first. 

didn't help. 

sam left for work, and i called my mom and asked her what i should do. 

my stomach felt bruised. it was REALLY tender to touch, and if you pushed on it, it would send stabbing pains all through my stomach and back.

i've had ovarian cysts before, and those hurt something fierce, so i assumed it was another cyst. 

so i tried to get in to see my aunt who is a midwife to see if we could find any cysts. 

unfortunately she wasn't working that day, but i made an appointment with one of the other doctors. 

thank heavens for amazing family, my sister came and took bubba over to her house, and my mom took me to the doctor. i couldn't really stand upright without being in severe pain, so i probably looked funny walking around hunched over. 

ok, not probably, i DID look funny walking around like that. 

got in to see the doctor, who was very nice by the way, and did an ultrasound. 

just what i feared. 

no cyst. 

of course not! this had to be more difficult than that! 

she was worried about the pain, and the fact that i had a slight fever (my thermometer didn't pick anything up) so we did blood tests. 

a pregnancy test to rule out ectopic pregnancy, and a white blood cell count to see if my body was fighting something. 

so home i went to try and sleep while my sister watched bubba. 

sam came home, he ate dinner, and tried to rub my back to ease the pain.

then i got the call from the doctor. 

pregnany test was negative 

(duh) 

but white blood cell count was almost double what it should have been. they like seeing it below 10, and mine was 17.

definitely fighting something. 

"you really need to get to the ER so they can diagnose more"

so we gathered some things for bubba, since we didn't know how long we would be and ran them to my parents house, and then headed in to the ER. 

got there, checked in and put in a room, stuck an iv in me, and filled me with fluids. 

took me back for a ct scan to see if they could see something with my appendix. 

we waited. 

sam had fun with the little t.v. in our little space, and i spent the time covering my ears so i didn't have to listen to the guy next door throwing up. bleh. 

doctor came back and said it looked like appendicitis, but they can never be sure (i'm sure for liability reasons..) sometimes they don't look like it, but you really have it, or sometimes it looks like it, and it comes out you don't. but the surgeon was there and they would have him look at my ct scan and me, and come in and talk to me. 

so we waited again, and finally a surgeon came in and told us that we would be going in for surgery. 

great. 

we had about 3 hours. 

my parents came, and my dad and sam gave me a blessing. 

they finally took my up to the room i would be staying in, and got me somewhat prepped for surgery. 

 this was taken by my dad just before they wheeled me to surgery.

just before midnight they came and got me for surgery. 

i remember being nervous (i've never had major surgery before!) but mostly calm. 

i could still joke around, and i didn't have that pit in the bottom of my stomach. which was good. 

i met with the anesthesiologist and nurse and they got me prepped. 

it was really weird being wheeled into the O.R. no one else was in there yet, just me the anesthesiologist and the nurse. i moved myself from that bed to the operating table and settled in. i was told to count back. so i started at 100 and made it to 98 before the next thing i remember was waking up in the recovery room. i was in and out of it for about 10 minutes before they took me back up to my room where my parents and sam waited. this was about 1 in the morning. 

my parents checked to make sure i was ok, and then left to head home. 

sam stayed by my side and tried to sleep. 

kind of hard to sleep when a blood pressure cuff goes off every half hour, or a nurse walks in every so often. :) but we did our best. 

we were up for the morning about 6:00. they tried giving me percocet throughout the morning, with zofran to help with nauseousness, but that didn't do well. i couldn't function at all. jackie and kaleigh came to see me, and i think my eyes were closed the whole time. i kept opening them, telling them that i was sorry i wasn't much fun right now. and then i would close them again, and go in and out. 

and we attempted to watch conference while in there. i don't remember ANYTHING about those 2 sessions..

i finally was able to talk them into just giving me ibuprofen, which helped a LOT more. i was more aware and was finally able to move around. 

we were able to go home about 5 in the afternoon. 

funny, the only times i threw up in the hospital, was when they gave me anti-nausea medicine. haha.

here are a couple of pictures of the incisions. if you don't want to see, close your eyes and scroll down. :)

i had 3 incisions in my stomach. it was done lapriscopically, so they are just small incisions. but i still couldn't lift anything for 4 weeks. (i'm 2 weeks in :)) (in the second picture, my belly button is the bottom incision, and my hips are at the top of the picture, sorry it's upside down, but that's the perspective i have of it. :))

results came back, and it was definitely just appendicitis (no definite reason for it to be inflamed) and was definitely swollen. while they were in there, they found that i had endometriosis as well, and took care of that while they were there. tests results all came back ok and normal after that. 

recovery has been ok. it's been hard not being able to lift bubba and carry him around. also hard not to do things for myself and try and rely on other people. we had some people in our ward who were kind enough to be able to bring us dinner for a few nights, and they've been good to check up on us. :) and now they just look like scars. still sore, especially if anything touches them. and i have a hard time wearing levi's because they sit right on the lower incision. so i've been in pajama pants most of the time. :)

i have the most AMAZING family EVER, who helped take care of things. they came over every day for the next week to help me. 

so that's my adventure. :) i don't ever want to do it again. :) 

especially now that we are seeing the bills. 

yuck. 

but all is ok, and that is what matters.