Friday, May 27, 2011

And then THAT happened . . .

Wednesday night, 10:00 p.m. I went to bed feeling a little out of sorts. By 11:00 I realized I hadn't fallen asleep yet, and I was having some pain from my stomach area all across my abdomen. I figured I was having some sort of digestive episode, so I got up and ate a yogurt and some crackers. The hours ticked by during the night, and the pain just kept getting worse and worse. I was especially tender in my lower right abdomen (dun dun DUN) and getting pretty nauseous. By the early morning hours, I had developed a low fever and realized I was actually whimpering from time to time. I had never fallen asleep. At around 8:30 I decided it was ER time.

I couldn't stand up straight, but I hunched my way over to my CRV and drove about 5 mph to my nearby small-town ER. In short order they had an IV in me with some anti-nausea medication. Sweet relief. Then they added some explosively effective pain meds, which made me study the beauty that was the ceiling tiles. I drank about a half-gallon of lemony liquid that helps to light you up for the CT scan. And lo and behold, the scan clearly showed an extremely fat and unhappy appendix. No time to wait; it had to come out immediately. This isn't what I had planned for the holiday weekend.

Two of my friends picked me up and transferred me to the larger medical center in Eugene. They popped me in a room, my friends left, and about twenty minutes later I was being wheeled to OR prep. A nurse talked to me, a tech talked to me, the anesthesiologist talked to me, and the surgeon talked to me. They all wondered if I was nervous, this being my first experience with general anesthesia. But I had had no time to even process what was happening, I was still flying on some leftover pain meds, and I had missed a night's sleep, so I was actually just kind of dozing off. I was perhaps the most relaxed surgery candidate of all time.

About two minutes after being wheeled into surgery, it was lights out, and the next thing I knew I woke up in recovery feeling awesome. They had told me I might feel anxious, but I was the opposite of anxious. I was so so so happy that that sick, toxic pain was gone. Plus, I was very floaty and peaceful. Those ceiling tiles again!

Back up to my room, a quick visit with a couple friends, a night of being poked and prodded once an hour every hour, and then I was discharged at noon today. Talk about a whirlwind. I just woke up from a nap and am feeling sore but good. I was supposed to be at the Bright Eyes show in Bend tonight, but oh, well. Apparently my appendix came pretty close to perforating, but didn't, so I am not going to complain.

No dressage for two weeks.

4 comments:

Dom said...

Ouch! Not a fun way to spend your day. Glad you got it taken care of. Heal quickly!

Jana said...

Glad it all went so well. Those pain meds sound lovely. :)

Kathleen @ ForgingAhead said...

So glad you got treatment in time! Recover well.

Kate said...

Ugh, appendixes. Totally useless, anyway...you won't miss it ;)