Ok, so here is what happened. Tuesday morning around 3 or 4am I woke up with a stabbing pain in my right side. Worst pain ever.I threw up a couple times. I am not someone who ever wants to go to the doctor, but I couldn't wait to make an appointment! They couldn't see me until 11am, so I had to endure it until then. The pain as so bad I couldn't sleep, so I was just tired, in pain and miserable.
So, we go to the doctor. We hadn't been to one since we moved to Utah, so we just looked at the list off our insurance and found the closest one to our apartment. I didn't care who we went to, I just wanted to feel better. Turns out I should have cared! So, the doctor checked me out, and said it was probably one of 3 things. Appendicitis, a sist on my ovaries, or constipation. He took some x-rays(which wouldn't even show if it was appendicitis) and he treated me for constipation, the least dangerous of the 3. But he convinced us that it wasn't appendicitis and he gave me some pain medicine,some poo-medicine(that's what I called it), and some anti-nausea stuff and sent us home saying to come back if there were any problems. He told us he was going out of town but he would be back Thursday, so to come back then if it didn't get better. So, he made us think it wasn't serious, but man was he wrong!
So Wednesday I actually did start to feel better. I was able to get some sleep so that really helped. I even had Steve go to work, I thought I was feeling ok. Well, that didn't last that long. I had to have Steve come back home, and they had some special thing at work, so he was all the way over by Park City, and he had to have someone take him back to Salt Lake to get his car before he could make it home. While that was happening I almost passed out a few times. I was just super dizzy. The pain didn't seem as bad though.
By Thursday morning, the pain was unbearable! I couldn't even walk. I didn't think I was going to be able to make it down the stairs to get to the car to see the doctor(which didn't have an appointment again until 11am). It took me a long time, but I made it. Steve had to get a wheelchair to bring me into the doctor's office. So the same doctor I saw before sent me to go get a CT scan. They didn't have one in their office, so I had to go to a different office to get it done. While Steve and Lorelai got some lunch, I sat there and drank that nasty drink so they could take the images. When they looked at my images they sent me directly to the hospital, I had appendicitis.
So, I got all checked into the hospital(which took forever, stupid volunteers couldn't even take my blood pressure. Kudos to them for volunteering, but I was in pain!). They put me in a little waiting type room with a bed and took some blood and that kind of thing. Then they told me there were a few people ahead of me for surgery so it was going to be awhile. In the meantime, my mom and dad were cancelling their plans to go to my cousin Elizabeth's wedding reception, and coming to Salt Lake for my surgery recovery. Steve and Lorelai stayed with me for awhile, but I had them go home to get some real sleep, since we didn't know when my surgery was going to be.
Around midnight, they start getting me ready for surgery. They said it should take less than an hour, and they would just put 3 small cuts in me and that the recovery would be quick, and I would only have to be in the hospital a couple days at most. Well, unfortunately, that didn't happen. My appendix had not only ruptured, but it had completely liquefied. They ended having to remove part of my ascending colon as well. Surgery ended up being about 4 1/2 hours, and instead of 3 tiny incisions, I had an 8 inch cut starting at my bellybutton.
I was in the hospital for 6 days. I missed Lorelai's 2nd birthday, and I had never ever spent a night away from her before this. Luckily my mom was able to stay and watch Lorelai. I don't know what I would have done without her! She is amazing. I had a REALLY hard time not being with my little girl. The longest I had ever been away from her was about 5 hours before all of this. Anytime any of the nurses or anything would mention her I would just be in tears. Actually talking about it now, I still start crying. I missed her so much. She didn't like getting to close to me though, but she would at least give me a kiss before she left. I think it scared her to see me with stuff all attached to me.
So, I came home and still was in a lot of pain, I couldn't really walk much, it took me a while before I could even stand up straight. My mom ended up staying for about 3 weeks. We were also suppose to move into our new home about 2 weeks after surgery, which is why mom stayed a little longer than planned. She pretty much packed up half of the apartment all by herself. With all her health problems, she still was there to help me. Have I said how amazing she is???? But our house kept getting pushed back, so we didn't move in for a while, so Mom went home. I was doing pretty well, I just couldn't lift anything over 10 pounds. This made it pretty challenging with Lorelai, and trying to get the rest of the house packed up. I couldn't do much, and I felt pretty useless. When we did end up moving into our home, the Saturday before Father's Day, I still wasn't allowed to pick anything up over 10 pounds, so I was once again useless. The elder's quorum from our ward came and helped us pack up the truck, they were awesome! Got it done in 2 hours. And then when we got to our house, one of Steve's co-workers and his son, daughter and wife helped us unload the truck. We just had most of it put in the garage, but they put all the big stuff in the house. It was unloaded in seriously like 45minutes! We were so thankful for all the help that we got that day.
So yeah, that is my appendix story. Its been a little over 2 months and I'm doing well. My scar doesn't look that bad, I mean it is still this huge thing, but its not terrible. A couple days ago I tried working out for the first time, nothing to strenuous, just a little stepper for about 15 minutes. Thought I was going to die after! Didn't hurt really when I was doing it, but afterwards, I was in pain!!!! So, I'm putting off working out for a little while longer unfortunately. But I can finally do a little more around the house now. I still try not to lift too much, and if I'm starting to hurt, I have Steve lift Lorelai and help me a little more. He has been WONDERFUL through all this.
So, this could have been all avoided, and I could have just had a simple little less than an hour surgery and barely visible scars if my doctor wouldn't have taken the easy way out. I just wonder that if I was his child, is that the same treatment I would have received? Or would he have been more concerned and treated me accordingly?
