Adios Appendix!

Well, it's been a whirlwind couple of weeks around here, to say the least...I survived round two of exams and presentation nonsense...well, almost...Let's start with Valentines day. Have I mentioned how much I hate Valentines day? It wasn't bad tho. Husby suggested takeout BBQ dinner at home via candelight (with the Munchkins too, of course) which was probably the best idea yet. Since I have school by our fave BBQ joint I offered to grab it on the way home. Yum! He had his usual pile of ribs, and I tried something new, these crab cakes coated in pulled pork...Seriously. I kid you not. Now, I have been phasing meat and meat products out of my diet gradually, so I expected the tummy ache that ensued Monday evening. And I kind of expected it to linger into Tuesday, I mean, deep friend and pulled pork, I earned it. But come Wednesday it was like I was being stabbed in the gut over and over again, and I only made it 2 hours into my 11 hour day at work when the boss started calling the local urgent care offices to see who had what imaging equipment to figure out what meanness was attacking my insides.
Using Colleen and Lisa's differential diagnosis, we narrowed my RLQ pain down to ovarian cysts, appendicitis, or diverticulitis, I just needed someone to take pictures of my guts and tell me which one it was. No luck finding Urgent care though, so I had to suck up the copay and visit the local ER.
It was interesting. I sat there for a few hours being poked and prodded (OW) and then drank some contrast dye mixed with crystal lite that I was told would give me diarrhea. Yay. CT scan was inconclusive (and boy is that gonna cost me) and by the time the surgeon got there Jon had arrived. We opted to take the diagnosis of possible cysts since my WBC wasn't elevated and although I had about no appetite I wasn't nauseas or vomiting. They offered to keep me for observation, or take out the lil guy for kicks, but I had a big test on Thursday (covering intraabdominal infections, mind you, Irony!) and a presentation to give on Friday that I hadn't quite finished yet. My super nice awesome nurse was busy when it was time for me to go, so this other nurse tossed a bunch of papers at me including a prescription for half the NSAIDs I currently take, confused the hell out of me, and lead me to tears of frustration. Supernicenurse came back and apoligized, and I just hoped that I would never have to see any of them again.
Well, I was up a couple times during the night with the stabbing pain, which was worse despite my pile-o-pain pills (not the 400mg Ibu the ER doc offered me though, something about duplicate therapy he didn't seem to understand...)and driving to school Thursday AM was not a pleasant time. Not to mention the after effects of all that crap they made me drink for the imaging, I was a peach, for sure. I spent a good chunk of time on the phone trying to get a hold of my PCP at the VA to get in for an ultrasound to confirm the cyst hypothesis, or obtain some sort of referral to not have to pay thousands if I had to go back to the ER....To find out my PCP was leaving the clinic and they could get me in in MAY. MAY. MAY! I requested to leave a message for a nurse or ANYONE but since they didn't have me reassigned they didn't have anyone to direct my message to. Lovely. They ended up finding a cancellation in someone's day for next Wednesday, so I took that for the time being, and hoped the pain would go away.
I made it through my test. Not excited to see the grades on that one, a two hour exam and I left in about 40 minutes because I was pretty sure my guts were going to grace the classroom walls one way or another. Texted husby to meet me at home and take me back to the hospital. Once I was back in the ER with not-so-nice nurse taking care of me (luckily I felt to crappy to care) they did bloodwork and my WBC was elevated. They opted to inspect my appendix situation laproscopically, and told me they'd take it out either way, and got me ready for surgery.
So here it is, Saturday night, and I'm working on this recovery nonsense. It went really well, and although I'm super sore I no longer have this stabbing pain in my RLQ.
I just caught up on emailing all my professors to make up my work from Friday and for Monday and Tuesday, so that I could take it easy a couple days. Since my back is already in bad shape, this whole having my stomach muscles cut into thing isn't the best ever. I'll tell you what is the best ever though, my husby for attempting to take care of me, my folks for bringing me flowers, my friends for entertaining me and making us all dinner, and all the people sending warm get better fuzzies my way. Who knows, maybe I can get some lazy projects done the next couple days? Maybe?
:)