Just got back from the hospital
Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2009 1:23 pm
So let me tell you a story about how my life got flipped-turned upside down. 5 days ago my stomach started to hurt. Not bad, enough to dismiss it as something that would go away. Day 2 comes around, pain is a bit worse, but again I dismiss it. Day 3 comes. Pain is starting to hurt and is concentrated in my pancreas region. I get some pills but since I don't know still what the exact problem is and they don't help much anyway. Day 4 hits and I try to go to my 8:00 am class. I make it 30 minutes through before leaving and heading to the college's health clinic. After about an hour I finally get a nurse to see whats going on with me and she goes over the few things it could be. It could be nothing, it could be a kidney stone, or a ruptured appendix. To be save they call an ambulance and I go in one to the nearest real hospital (the on campus one doesn't perform surgeries or cat scans or stuff like that). When I get to the hospital theirs more waiting involved and one of my friends come for moral support (actually she came towards then end of when I was at the college health clinic). Lots of waiting, various doctors/nurses poke me in the belly and have me dress in one of those hospital gowns. After more waiting I finally get a cat scan and they inject some iodine into me to make the scans more clear (standard procedure). More waiting occurs, then I am sent back to the waiting room with my friend. I notice that I am getting a bit swollen in areas and breaking out. Turns out that I find out my first allergic reaction is to iodine! Fast forward 15 minutes and the docs and nurses give me some benedril and morphine to settle it down. It helps and eventually the swells go away. Eventually I have to get prepped for surgery because it turns out that I had a ruptured appendix. More waiting and the surgeons talk to me saying they are going to put me under Anastasie during the operation. They give me a shot which is a "prep" for the Anastasie. I go out within 10 seconds. I have no recollection of what happened during the operation and I don't recall having any dreams during it. When I wake up there's some pain and they give me 2 doses of morphine. Bit better but it still hurts. I pass out again before seeing my mom and friend by me. Over the next few hours I wake up and pass out over short periods of time. My friend leaves and my mom eventually leaves too. 12am of the next day hits and I kinda wake up. I REALLY have to urinate but I can't! This goes on till about 2:30 am before I eventually gain enough control over my body again to urinate. They also have me hooked up to like 5 things at the same time during my sleep and they all start beeping/going off/etc because I moved around too much. 3 pages to the nurse and 45 minutes later I finally get some help. They remove 2 of the things that are hooked up to me but keep me on the 2 more important things (iv with antibacterials and air). About every 30 minutes to an hour someone comes in and checks my temperature and blood pressure. This goes on for the rest of the night and to about 7am. I also had to pee pretty bad every time I was woke up. Eventually this slows down around 7am and the doctor prescribes something to help the pain in my stomach go down. The nurse said the fastest way for recovery was to walk around so I do about 40 laps around the hospital wing I was in. Mind you I was walking slower then a 70 year old but the fact is I did it. Although i was still in pain I was deemed good enough to go home. That's pretty much my story and I will be on about 4 different medications for the next week.
I'd say my experiences are similar, but maybe less painful then http://www.tuckermax.com/archives/entries/date/tucker_ruptures_appendix_hilarity_ensues.phtml#284
I'd say my experiences are similar, but maybe less painful then http://www.tuckermax.com/archives/entries/date/tucker_ruptures_appendix_hilarity_ensues.phtml#284