The Day I Lost a Piece of Myself...Literally

So, yesterday I lost a little piece of myself and I am so happy to see it leave. That little piece was my appendix. After 3 horrible days of what I thought was the stomach flu (considering that Eric and Graecyn had just had it themselves), I was still experiencing pain in my lower right abdomen from what I thought was a pulled stomach muscle from vomiting. I went into work Friday and started talking with one of my physician colleagues about my week and how I was feeling. After telling her about some of my symptoms, she had some concerns and put in a call to one of our surgeon friends. As soon as he was out of surgery, he was in my office to do an assessment (a definite perk of working in a health system). He decided I needed to go to the ER and have some tests done to see if it was an appendicitis or possibly something else.

So, off to the ER we went where a blood test found nothing, but a CT scan showed something "brewing" in there (according to my surgeon). If you've never had a CT scan before, it is the weirdest feeling as the dye is injected...I instantly felt warm all over and thought I had peed my pants (thankfully, I hadn't).

My surgeon met with the radiologist to read the results and probably no more than 10 minutes after I had gotten back to the ER triage, my surgeon was at my bedside with his team letting me know it was definitely an appendicitis and that I would be in surgery within the next hour. Holy crap! All of this happened so fast (in about a 3 hour timeframe; another perk of having employee VIP treatment). I was on the phone with Eric while the surgeon told me the plan, so he heard it all and immediately started trying to figure out what his own plan of action would be...a definite challenge considering it was 2:30 on a Friday, most of our close friends that we trust Graecyn with were working, daycare closes at 5:30 on Fridays, and all family is 13 hours away. So, of course Eric was in a panic trying to figure out how to get Graecyn up from her nap, organized, and to the hospital (a 30 minute trip with parking) before they wheeled me into surgery. He did great to get there fast, but was about 30 seconds too late as they were wheeling me away to surgery right as he arrived. It was a short, successful surgery (less than 45 minutes) and the surgeon did find a perforation on my appendix, so it was on the verge of rupturing, which is really, really bad. After about an hour or so in postop/recovery, I was in my room talking to Eric & Graecyn and already feeling much, much better!

I am so, so thankful that I went to work Friday and that everything fell into place the way it did. I know there was definitely someone watching over me.

Waiting in the ER triage for my CT scan.

A little post-surgery snuggle time; the best medicine!