I am so relieved! I no longer have an appendix to worry about! Ever since a really good friend of mine AND my roommate got appendicitis while I was in grad school (within a week of each other!), I have been deathly afraid of having my appendix act up at an inopportune time. When we were thinking of moving overseas, I wanted to have it out preemptively. When we traveled or went for a hike, I crossed my fingers that everything would be fine. And any time I’ve had stomach pain or nausea, I’ve kept a watchful eye out for a fever to develop. So it is with great relief that I report that my pesky appendix is gone, never to worry me again!

I count myself very fortunate that my friend and my roommate shared their stories with me so I’d know what to watch out for. My friend threw up all night and was sicker than she had ever been in her life. My roommate, too, was throwing up during the night. They both ended up with abdominal pain and both ended up with a fever. My story is similar, and I hope it will help someone else recognize the symptoms early so they can have an easy time of it like I did.

I started feeling nauseous around noon on Sunday. We had just had a big Uzbek party the day before, and I was thinking it could have been the greasy food or the vodka that did it to me. But no one else felt sick. I had also had food poisoning a couple of weeks before, so I thought maybe that was it. But again, no one else had any signs and we had all eaten the same food. So, I went on a picnic, where I didn’t eat much, and generally tried to wait out the nausea. Around 5:00, I started to get some pain on my lower right side. It was right around my right ovary, so I thought maybe it was related to ovulation or something. And I had no fever. But I still couldn’t eat and still couldn’t get very comfortable. At around 9 PM, I called a friend, just so I could be distracted from the nausea and hopefully not throw up. (I never did actually throw up.) Around 10:00 PM I got off the phone with her because I was feeling worse and the pain was increasing. I took my temperature and had a very slight fever — just 99.6. But the combination of the three symptoms set me in motion, and Frank and I took off for Georgetown Hospital.

We got there around 11 or 11:30 PM and the place was empty. I wrote “abdominal pain – appendicitis?” on my admit slip and they brought me back immediately. By this time I was having a lot of trouble walking because of the pain on my lower right side. I couldn’t really lift my right leg up, so when they admitted me to a room, Frank had to pick my right leg up onto the bed. When I was immobile, the pain wasn’t too bad. But sitting up, walking, and generally moving was really painful, and I found myself walking doubled over to ease the pain. They gave me an IV with fluids since I hadn’t eaten or drunk much that day and since, if I was going to be getting my appendix out, I wouldn’t be able to eat or drink until after the surgery. They offered IV painkillers but I didn’t want them. They did, however, talk me into an IV antibiotic as a precaution, just in case my appendix ruptured. Strangely enough, the antibiotic actually seemed to help relieve a little bit of the pain. For a minute I thought they had given me the wrong thing — I had asked for the antibiotic but they gave me the painkiller by mistake. Turns out that was not true — they had given me the antibiotic. So, I definitely didn’t need the pain meds. As long as I had Frank to lift my leg up (and, by this point, pick up my hips to move my whole body to the middle of the bed), I was fine.

Frank and I hung out in my ER room and played cards. We got a lot of attention from the ER docs and from the surgeon because it was a really slow night. Around 3:30 AM I had a CT scan done and 10 minutes later the doctors came in to confirm the appendicitis diagnosis. They weren’t able to take it out then and there because there was no anesthesiologist available. So that meant that the surgeon that had been consulting with me wasn’t going to be my surgeon. But they scheduled me for 7:30 AM and assured me that the new doctor would be good too. Frank and I tried to get some rest, and around 5:30 AM I was admitted into a room to wait for surgery.

7:30 came and went with no sign of me going anywhere. The nurses on the floor didn’t seem too interested in getting me out of there, but we pestered them enough that they finally called surgery. Around 10 AM a surgeon came in and said that because I was an “add on,” I needed to wait for an opening in the schedule. He said it could be as soon as noon, but would more likely be 2 PM. I told him that was fine, but that the onset of my symptoms was noon the day before and that we were hitting 24 hours. I also told him that I had no plans to stay in the hospital overnight, so I needed to get in and get out so I could get home. He told me that people don’t generally leave the same day, but I reiterated that I wouldn’t be staying overnight. He left, saying that it would probably be 2 PM, and Frank and I started playing cards again. About 15 minutes later, the nurse came in to tell me that transport was on the way to take me to surgery.

Frank and I went down to the surgery staging area and met a really great team of student doctors and nurses. Everyone seemed to find it funny that I was so excited to get my appendix out. But the excitement was genuine and I wasn’t afraid at all. The surgeon came in to introduce me to the team and have me confirm — with everyone listening — that I was getting my appendix out. Earlier I had joked about writing it on my stomach and he got all serious and said that they are very careful and they make sure everyone understands what is being operated on while the patient is still awake. Then the anesthesiologist gave me some knock-out medicine and explained that I would stay awake and be working with them for a while, but that I wouldn’t remember anything. I didn’t believe her, but it was true! I remember Frank saying good bye and “I love you” as he headed off to the elevator. I couldn’t say anything back and my eyes teared up. A nurse sympathetically put her hand on my shoulder and smiled, and the next thing I knew it was 12:00 and I was waking up in recovery. It’s so strange!

I actually do remember struggling with the team when I was coming out from the anesthesia. I had a breathing tube and I remember that I couldn’t breathe and I panicked. I remember fighting with them and trying to get them to understand that I couldn’t breathe. They wanted me to cough, but I didn’t want to. And that’s all I remember. But my very first thought as I was trying to open my eyes in recovery was that I owed everyone a huge apology. Through half-lidded eyes I was searching for any member of the surgical team, but I didn’t see a single one of them. A nurse saw that I had woken up and she came over. I asked her to apologize for me and then I asked her for some water. She gave me ice chips and I couldn’t eat them fast enough. I was SO THIRSTY!!!

They wheeled me back to my room and Frank was just coming back at the same moment from taking a shower and feeding the kitty cats. I drank over a liter of water and 5 little juice containers, went to the bathroom all on my own, and told them I was ready to go home. A surgeon (not my surgeon) came to check on me around 7:30 or 8 PM and I told him I was ready to go home. He said my surgeon would be happy to see me after his case and I said that if everything had gone according to plan, I didn’t need to see him. I said I’d catch him at the follow-up visit. So, he went away, prepared the discharge instructions, and around 8:30 he came back to let me go home. I had one more dose of IV antibiotic and then I was out of there!

It was around 9:30 PM, so I had been in the hospital for less than 24 hours. And despite the surgery, I was feeling better than when I went in. We stopped at Whole Foods on the way home and Frank loaded up on liquids for my liquid diet — juice, soup, and of course, lots and lots of ice cream. It was so nice to be home and on my own couch (until Little Girl Cat jumped up and landed smack on one of my holes!). We went to bed around 11 or so, and the next morning I was feeling really great.

The recovery was extremely rapid — every morning I felt better than I had the night before, and every night I felt better than I had that morning. The progress was dramatic. Frank and I took a walk up and down the street on Wednesday and then went up and down the street twice on Thursday. Friday we walked several blocks for me to do a restorative yoga class. And I went back to work on Monday. Now it’s exactly 2 weeks later, and I’m almost back to normal. Last week I plateaued a bit, with walking several blocks still very tiring. But now most of the puffiness and swollen belly look is gone and I can walk just as much as I used to. I have my follow-up visit on Wednesday and then I imagine I won’t have to think about any of this again.

Here’s a picture I had Frank take on Wednesday before I took my bandages off. I meant to post it right away to reassure everyone that I was fine, but alas, never did that. So, here it is…a little bit late for reassurance.