If you have not been watching my instagram stories, you don’t know but my appendix burst recently and it was a very interesting and funny (not so funny at the time story). Let me paint you a picture. It’s a Wednesday afternoon and my boyfriend and I were doing some errands and what not. Our friend was with us and we ended up at the mall which in itself is okay. Next thing you know I am doubled over in pain which is very annoying and we could not figure out why. I had some dairy that day and I am allergic to dairy which sucks but we just thought that that was what the problem was. I took a pain pill and carried on with life. The pain subsided but did not go away and although I was worried, I did not think too much of it because in all honesty, I was used to it as I did not take not eating dairy seriously.
I woke up on Thursday still in pain. This is a day before Easter, so it’s serious as most things will be closed come Easter weekend. Anyway, I told my boss and she suggested I go to the doctor just in case it is something serious. She’s such a worrier so I was annoyed but I went anyway. Boy, was I glad that I did. The doctor was so great. I had seen her a couple weeks prior as I had the flu so she knew who I was. This is both a good AND bad thing haha. She touched my stomach very lightly and I just burst into tears. Not a good sign. She told me I needed to go to the emergency room as soon as I could as she was sure it was my appendix.
Cue the mental breakdown for a number of reasons: I was not sure if my insurance was going to cover this; it was Easter weekend and I needed to work and help out as the kids were out of school; I’m far from home and did not know the American hospital experience. My boyfriend was working and no one could go with me to the hospital; I needed to have a CAT scan and I knew it was a tunnel thing which scared the crap out of me. Long story short, I drove myself to the hospital and my boss met me there. She’s great. She stayed there with me until she had to pick up the kids and basically do my job. The nurses and doctors were fantastic and calmed me down through everything. They also gave me morphine to subsidize the pain (which did not help as I was in THAT much pain) and after the CAT scan -which went well and the person performing it had a collegue from South Africa, who sadly was not there that day- so they helped me stay calm through everything, which I appreciated immensely.
My really bad eating habits worked out in my favour because I was able to go into surgery really quickly as I had not eaten for about 8 hours at that point. The surgery went well from what I was told and I am now recovering at home. I had a really bad reaction to my pain meds so I can’t take anything for pain and there’s a lot of pain as they cut open all my muscles. (yaaaaaaay) For the most part, I had really amazing nurses and doctors look after me while I was in hospital. I know it will be a long road to recovery and I am trying to take it easy, which is hard but at least I am trying ha!
