What a day!

Last night I felt incredibly unwell. I don’t mean a little iffy, I mean I genuinely thought I was going to die.

I’d felt okay at work, I felt a little odd but just thought that I needed to eat something healthy. Ha. When I got home my stomach was in pieces, it was agony. I was all swollen and I felt like I needed to be sick but couldn’t. Even then though, I just thought that I’d picked up a bug or something. I decided to go to the doctors in the morning to get looked at, just incase there was something I could do.

By the time I got to the doctors, the pain had moved down to my right hip area and I could barely walk. It was very odd: I was fine sitting down if I stayed in one position, but any time I moved it was like someone was skewering me.

I waddled to the doctors office and straight away she told me to get onto the bed so that she could have a feel of my belly. It was horrible! She poked and prodded and everything hurt. One of the tests she did was sort of tap the left side of my belly…oh my goodness, when she tapped down it was fine but on the up movement it was agony. I had to pee in a pot. Great. The doctor tested it and concluded that it could be one of a few things but that I should definitely go to the ED (A&E).

She quickly got on the phone to the hospital and spoke in code for a minute or so before checking that I was okay to get there. I was.

I drove myself!

At the ED, I was seen very quickly…that should have alerted me. Last time I was there I think I spent an hour before even getting seen by the triage nurse. Anyway, they got me in, popped me on a bed and put me into a hospital gown. They put an arm needle thing in me and tested what felt like every fluid that could be extracted from my poor deflated body.

After a while they decided that I should go up to the ED ward and wait there, as it’d be more comfortable. 

I had a few nurses come and talk to me, a doctor perform even more tests and explain what they were doing. Basically, there are a lot of things going on in the abdomen. It could be any of a wide number of things, from a gallbladder infection, kidney stones, kidney infection, bladder infection, something wrong with an ovary, appendicitis, something wrong with my guts…the list goes on…so they have to conduct a lot of tests in order to rule out the things that aren’t wrong with me. 

Next they told me that I’d probably be staying here overnight in order for them to keep an eye on me because they’re not sure what’s actually wrong. I would have a scan in the morning (it was late so they couldn’t do one then) and from that we’d know what to do next. 

Finally, as I was getting ready to make the journey upstairs, a surgeon popped in. He asked me all sorts of questions, some very strange, and then asked me to tell him exactly what symptoms I was feeling.

So I told him: Pain in my right hip, sharp, like someone stabbing me. It had started like an all over pain very suddenly, and then moved down to the right overnight. Can’t walk properly. Bloated. Not at all interested in eating or drinking. Really need to fart…but just couldn’t. Hurt to stand on the right leg. Felt better sitting down in a leant back position. Felt better if I stayed very still. Felt better if I raised my right knee towards my tummy, oddly.

From this, he explained the next steps. Ordinarily they’d do a scan and see what it is, but we’d have to wait until the morning. Apparently most of what I was feeling is typical for appendicitis, however, my bloodwork wasn’t showing up with what it would normally with this problem, so they weren’t sure that it was appendix related.

Once I’ve had a scan we can see what’s going on and go from there. However, if it is appendicitis and it bursts overnight, we’re in for a full blown, open operation. 

He gave me two options:
Option 1: Go in now, keyhole, and see what’s going on. If it’s the appendix they’ll whip that out. If it’s not, they’ll have a look at everything else and if there’s still nothing going on they’ll whip the appendix out anyway.
Option 2: Wait until the morning. This is risky as it might rupture in the night and then it’d be a proper operation.

I said that if all options end with my appendix being removed, I’d rather go in and have it done via keyhole as the recovery and stress will be much less. So, we agreed that they’ll operate, via keyhole. I prepared myself for being moved up to the ward so that they could get me ready, however they wheeled me off for a cheeky CT scan. Apparently there was a quick gap, so they got me in to check quickly. The surgeon had to check the results with his CT scan reading colleague before he’d inform me of what was wrong.

It was the appendix!

By this point it was about 7:30pm and James was due to arrive to meet me at the hospital. I had to message him extremely quickly and explain that they were wheeling me up to the theatre right away.

The next thing that I knew, I was in the surgery preparation area and the anaesthetist was explaining what they were going to do. All a bit scary really. They wheeled me through to surgery. In the theatre, there were so many people! There were nurses, doctors, anaesthetists and then the surgeons.The nurses got me onto the bed and attached me to the heart rate monitor, got a pulse checker on my finger and explained what was going to happen (I would get some anaesthetic and oxygen). I then had an anaesthetist come and give me the anaesthetic and off I went to sleep!

When I came round, I could hear the nurse looking after me in recovery talking to me. I couldn’t talk back though. It was very odd because last time I was anaesthetised I came round quite quickly and demanded my clothes back! This time I couldn’t talk. For some reason I kept signing the NZSL sign for ‘sad’. Not sure why! They wheeled me through to the GSG ward (General Surgery and Gynaecology) where I would stay to recover. I was very groggy, very forgetful! I had a killer throat, so they gave me an ice block…but I kept forgetting that I had it. 

James walked in a few minutes after I got to the ward. It was very nice to see him. He was a comforting sight to see. He had to keep reminding me that I had an ice block to eat. As it was late by this point, James had to go and let me rest. I wanted him to stay!

Overall, I’m fine…but what a day (or few days).