2 posts tagged “wtf appendicitis?”

"beth" 6,674 / 30,000 (22.2%)

I am loving this story. 

I've stopped for the night now, as I've hit a less-interesting point (traversing the rest of the desert where nowt happens, and reaching Fall) that I'm too tired now to figure out how to tell, but the ideas are still swirling in the back of my sleepy mind.

Bizarre-o happenings in China are story-licious.  I may work that into "beth", or make it something else.  We'll see. 

Added:  Oh yes, forgot to mention.  I got my stitches out today, from my little surgery wounds, and some of stitches had grown into my skin.  Which was so much fun when the nurse had to remove them.  It was like a joke about changing lightbulbs, only different - How many nurses does it take to remove one of Alex's stiches?  3!  Stupid knot had disappeared into my skin, and had to be tugged out with a needle.  And two of the other stitches had cut into my skin, leaving two thin lines of scab across the surgery wound.

Actually it hurt less than it sounds - stung, really, and only once badly enough to have me crying out.  One of the nurses was distracting me by talking about uni stuff.  She was really sweet - called me "Poor darling" and then got really embarrassed at having called me that. 

And now I have even more scabs to not pick.  *twitch*  This ain't easy, y'know.

Coming in right at the top of the wtf-randomness-meter:  I got appendicitis. 

Wednesday evening I started getting killer stomach pains, but thought it would pass.  After a couple hours of curling up on my bed, crying, my flatmates told me I should call a doctor.  The doctor said I should go to a hospital, said it was probably a stomach bug or something but because of my age they had to rule out appendicitis.  I went to the hospital and got given something for stomach problems.  It didn't work.  The pain subsided briefly, then kicked in like a bitch just as we went to a different hospital for a more thorough check-up.  Which featured me staggering past some wards, sobbing from the pain, and the nurse saying "Do you mind not waking up all the other patients?"

Um. In agony here?

I threw up the oral painkillers so they stuck a thingywhatsit in my arm and gave me morphine.  Which was sooooooo good.  Killed the pain in minutes.  Then, after much poking and prodding and the same questions asked over and over, I got to go to a ward and lie down (this at about 5.30am, now Thursday).  At about 7am a bunch of doctors came round, said they reckoned it was appendicitis and I'd be put on the emergency op list.

Didn't get the op till 4pm Thursday.  Was a bit scary, going under general anaesthetic, and when I woke up apparently I freaked out at having an oxygen mask on or the tubey thing, so my oxygen saturation dropped quite low.  But when I'd calmed down I put the mask on, so I was okay.  Turned out it was appendicitis (rather than an ovarian cyst, their other consideration).  I spent Friday in a different ward, and my parents brought me home to theirs Friday night for several days R&R.

I have three little cuts - I got "keyhole surgery" rather than one big cut.  One cut just under my belly button, one further down, and one off to the left. 

I still can't quite get over the randomness of this all.  One day I'm fine, next day I'm in agony and my appendix is going batshit on me.  The surgeon said it hadn't burst or anything, was just inflamed, so it was a clean op and I should be fine.  Just gotta take it easy for the next week or so. 

Fucking random.