I did go to my brunch. Midway through, I had a bit of indigestion, just a bit. When I came home, I decided to take a nap in hopes that I would feel better. I didn't. In fact, nausea set in, and I had a terrible pain in my abdomen, unrelenting. The pain got worse. I vomited. I thought I had the stomach flu. And then, I thought I'd better start cancelling out my committments for the next day. My friend was on line when I called to cancel our meeting, and she punched in appendicitis . I had every last symptom, except I was rather the wrong age.
Here's where the Red Sea parted. I went to the ER of the local hospital, which I never would have done, had I not felt so terrible. It was almost empty. Unusually empty. I was taken immediately. They gave me an IV anti nausea drug and morphine, bless their little hearts. After that I was cool as a cucumber.
The ER doctor said that he had only seen three cases of acute appendicitis in patients over 50 in all his years. That's me, I'm over fifty.
They had to do CAT scan to see what was going on, and I had to drink a half gallon of barium beforehand. I was actually pleased to do so, because I was so thirsty. I was supposed to wait two hours for the barium to penetrate, but a surgeon came in to examine me after about an hour. He had just finished removing another appendix, and was, as he put it, "all warmed up".
I didn't know him at all, but was reassured when he was familiar with Belleruth Naparstek and her guided imagery tapes (I was bemoaning their absence.) He had trained at the Cleveland Clinic where research was done on enhanced surgical recovery using the tapes. I thought that was a good sign.
He palpated my McBurney's point, I screamed in spite of the morphine, and I was rolled into CAT scan immediately. We are talking no waiting. I have waited longer at a restaurant than I did in this ER.
Get this. The CAT scan technician, from above, told me how much she liked my hair, and asked me for my hairdresser's name. She lost interest when I told her she was thirty miles away. She was also impressed by my eagerness to drink another large glass of barium (I was still thirsty).
I arrived in the ER at about 6 and I was in the OR by 10. Impressive.
Denoument: I had an emergency appendectomy, via laporoscopy, Sunday night. Too bad I hadn't the presence of mind to ask for a little liposuction too.
Sorry, I have to wait for enough light to take a photo of my flowers. I could photograph my bottle of Percoset, but there is identifying information all over it.
Posted by Dakota at January 27, 2004 05:10 PM