Uh ... hi.Thanks so much for your kind wishes and thoughts. I checked my mail and guestbook this morning shortly after I got home, but it's taken me some time to get through all your entries for the last few days, and now to put in mine. Wasn't it nice of the kid to post an entry for me?
So, Saturday morning we got up early and drove to Rutgers, which was really no problem except that I woke up with terrible indigestion. (This is what we English majors calls foreshadowing.) After a bit of a mix-up with what room she was supposed to be in -- no panic -- she went off and I settled in on a bench with a book. But I really could not concentrate to read. It was a remarkably beautiful day; this bench I was in was right near the river -- the Raritan, I believe, runs through New Brunswick and Rutgers -- and I even walked around campus a tiny bit, past the graduate students dorm I lived in in 1976. Hit the ladies room a couple of times, and then back to my bench, where I watched an episode of The Jetsons on the iPod and then chatted with another woman who was waiting for someone. By the time K came out, I was thinking "Boy. Wish I was home."
I was in lots of pain for most of the ride home, less than an hour. We stopped at CVS where I picked up Pepto, Mylanta, and Alka-Seltzer, as I hurt too much to decide right then and there what to take. Got home, took Pepto, collapsed on the bed, face-down. No improvement whatsoever, tried lying on my side, no change. I thought, in an hour, I'll get K to take me to the hospital. But just then, the Hubs came in from work and saw me, we talked about it, and off we went. We got to the hospital around noon.
I got into an ER cubicle by maybe 12:20. While we were waiting, I was saying to him that I knew this wasn't diverticulosis; didn't feel the same, and I couldn't imagine what it was. In a lighter moment, I said "Hey! Maybe this is the thing I've been dreading my whole life! Appendicitis! No, wait; can't be that, because I can do this." I pulled my knee up to my chest, my foot on the seat in front of my butt. I've always heard that if your appendix is inflamed, you can't do that.
By the time I saw a doctor -- maybe two hours later -- he was pretty sure that it was just gas, but he ordered a CAT scan anyway. Then they forgot to put my name in the right slot for the CAT scan, and three other people went before me who weren't supposed to and the technician who had promised to work me in was gone for the day. By this time, I had decided it was gas, and felt pretty much like a fool, so I told the nurse to take out my IV because I was leaving. This was 5:00. He got me into the CAT scan ASAP -- the Hubs had also convinced me to stay and have it done -- and I begged the scanner folk to hustle the results because I had already been left off the list, etc etc. At 5:50, an extremely surprised looking doctor came in to tell me that my appendix showed very early signs of inflammation. Did I have a surgeon I wanted to use?
Hey, doesn't everybody? So I said, no, but I would call my doctor on Monday morning, and he would give me the name of one. This guy looked at me like I was certifiable, and said "Not Monday. Tonight."
Tonight? Shit!
So he called my doctor and got a name, and that guy came in and by maybe 6:30 or so, we had agreed: that appendix, regardless of what state it was in -- since it wasn't really clear on the scan -- was coming out that night, around 9:30.
You could have knocked me over with ... well, with an appendix; they're about pinky-fingered size, you know, as it turns out. At this point, the Hubs dashed home to gather some things, and they took me out of my ER cubicle and had me parked in the hallway for an hour or so. By this time, gas was no longer a problem for me, if you get my drift, so that was a pretty bizarre situation to be in, but I figured, who cares, everybody around me is bleeding or having heart attacks or is worried about someone else who is, so there. The Hubs came back, along with both of the girls. (I had had them calling the Sibs and filling her in once I left the cubicle and couldn't use their telephone anymore.) At about 7:30, they took me down for surgery, the whole family trooping along.
The surgeon and all of them were very nice. I made them promise many times that I would be really, really OUT, and I certainly was. I drifted off chatting to them all about something, and woke up in recovery a little before 11:00. They told me the next day that it had taken about 45 minutes.
I saw the fam in recovery around 11:00 and was up in my room by midnight. (In recovery, I was one spot over from where I had been for three whole days following my brain surgery, which somehow I realized even though I wasn't quite awake and said to the Hubs, pointing "I was there, right?" and after figuring out what I was talking about, said yes, that's where I had been.)
I was not in terrible pain, but of course, still had anesthesia in me; they gave me a shot of morphine once I was in my room. I figured "Hey, morphine!" and declined any other sleeping medication, apparently a poor choice. I ended up not sleeping at all, all night, except for dozing off for a minute or two at a time. I was on my back and couldn't turn, and as I would fall asleep, I would hear myself snoring and wake up. I had the TV on all night long.
The nurse got me up to go to the bathroom and 6:00 am, and although getting up and walking wasn't bad, it hurt a lot to try and lay down in the bed again. I told her I was going to sit there on the edge of the bed until I was discharged on Monday morning. By this time, I was getting percoset for the pain. Anyway, she shoehorned me back in, and I think that's the last real pain I've had.
Sunday, I was drifting in and out between lack of sleep, drugs, and family visits (twice each from the Hubs and the girls, once from the Sibs and her husband) and phone calls (one from each of her twins). I could not read at all, although I had a few magazines; just trying put me to sleep for a minute. But by this time, I was walking around on my own, although I had to take an IV pole with me. Of course, I had the dreaded IV in the wrist, which creeps me out and I detest it, but there I was.
Last night, I got my regular pills that I take to sleep, and I slept, at least for two or three hours at a time. I even turned the TV off at a reasonable hour, like one or two am. In the morning, the doctor came to see me, gave me the send-off instructions, I finally got the IV out at 10:30. I got dressed, and K came to take me home.
There it is: Chai's Big Adventure, in every detail. All I've got left now is the soreness at the incision and, for some reason, a sinus headache. Probably because I didn't keep taking all my allergy pills and sprays in the hospital; the only regular meds they would continue were for blood pressure, which, btw, was nice and low when I was leaving there this morning. I took a nice nap this afternoon, and R came over when K left for work, and will be on duty, as it were, until the Hubs gets home. But I'm fine. I'm not moving any furniture this week, or probably doing much of anything else (except for having to mail out three Amazon things tomorrow) for the rest of the week.
On the downside, this didn't happen during the school year, so I didn't get to miss any school. On the upside, I've got nothing else going on this week, so I didn't have to miss anything else. The ultimate silver lining is that, after 53 years, I can finally stop hypochondriac-ly worrying about whether or not my appendix is going to rupture with no warning. Turns out, I got a warning. The surgeon says it would have probably ruptured by the end of the week.
Okay, I'm all awake now, so I'm going to talk to the kid whose with me for a bit. Thanks again, all! See you tomorrow!
