#appendix story

[sweaterkittensahoy]

So, next month will be the 18th anniversary of my appendix coming out. Which I remember because it was January 2008, which is the same year I got married, so here's that story again:

So, back in 2008, I woke up one January day with my lower right abdomen hurting like hell and a very mild fever. At the time, I highly suspected but I had endometriosis but knew no doctor would listen to me if I tried to get help for it (I had stopped trying to explain it was not "normal" period pain to doctors six years before this, when I was 19).

My period was super regular, and it was due. Mild fever? Eh, hot flashes happened occasionally. Get up. Eat. Think about how the pain started just before I fell asleep, and I thought, "Huh, weird it hasn't moved. I wonder if it's my appendix."

And then did what a lot of people with chronic pain do and went, "Nah, no way."

I went to class. Which included taking four flights of stairs because the elevator in the building was super slow. When I got done with that class, I didn't try for the elevator because I had exactly 10 minutes to get across campus, so I took four flights down, and then walked across campus, and by the time I got to the door of the class, I was two minutes later and sick sweating all over myself.

"Gayle!" My prof jovially shouted, delighted to make good on his promise to us all on day one that he would make us explain our lateness and let the class decide if we stayed, "Why are you late?"

I stood there, sick sweating and my abdomen pounding, and said, "Um, I think I have appendicitis?" Because a ten-minute walk across campus had softened my resistance to the idea.

"No vote!" My prof declared. "Sit the hell down."

I sat the hell down. I made it through class. Then I got up and shuffled towards my next class. Because I could not walk upright at that point. I was doing the Futurama Farnsworth shuffle, bent like a shrimp, and I was halfway to class when I remembered I had to wait an hour for that class to start, and I realized I could barely walk as it is.

I called several friends. None of them were able to pick up. I shambled to my car and drove my first-gear-sticky stick shift with no power steering to Urgent Care. I did not call Sean because his management was awful and he was on warning for--I am not making this up--grabbing a print out off the printer from behind someone else's chair while the person was in their chair and making a phone call.

Anyway, I wrangle my car to Urgent Care and go up to the desk.

"And why are you here today?" asked the desk worker.

"I think I have appendicitis."

"I'm sorry to hear that. You have a seat," said the desk worker, who had clearly seen my type before.

I get into a chair. I get back in about fifteen minutes. The nurse takes my blood pressure and checks my temperature (101.4) and asks why I'm in today.

"I think I have appendicitis," I say.

"Okay, and on a scale of 1-10, how do you rank your pain?"

So, at this point I had lived with severe pain on every period for over a decade and no medical professional had ever believed me when I tried to explain. Like many other people, I had learned by medical failure that my pain wasn't that bad. So, with all this in my head, I said, "I mean, I guess a 5? Maybe?"

She takes it all down and leaves.

Doctor comes in. "So, you think it's appendicitis?"

"I mean, I'm used to this much pain for my period, but I don't get a fever like this regularly."

"Okay. Any history of lower abdominal issues before this? IBS or anything?"

"No, but there's uterian cysts and ovarian cysts in the family."

"Well, ovarian cysts are normal."

Sidenote: Fuck every single doctor who has ever said this to me or anyone else because you would think if I'm mentioning anyone had ovarian cysts it's because one fucking burst. Because otherwise it's super rare you know you have them.

Anyway.

Doctor says, "Okay, well we don't want to do surgery if we don't need to, and your temperature isn't terribly high. Do you want something for the pain?"

And then I said the dumbest thing I have ever said in my life, "No, it's no worse than my period. I'm fine."

I regret nearly nothing in my life. I regret those words. Because of what's coming up in a bit.

We are not nearly to the end of this story.

Doctor says, "Okay, so we're going to need to do a pelvic exam to check for fibroids or cysts."

You know how a pelvic sucks shit when you're feeling totally healthy? Yeah. The one upside was one friend managed to make it to me and was able to hold my hand while I had it done. And the doctor did his best, but the speculum has always hurt me (even now), and boy was it worse.

So, the doc finishes and says, "Everything feels normal. I want to get new stats while we consider next steps."

"Cool," I manage to say, all of my muscles trying to contract at once.

Doc goes out. Nurse comes in. Same nurse as before. Checks my blood pressure. It's a little higher. Checks my temperature (101.6). Offers me pain meds again.

"No, it's fine. If I don't move from this position, I'm fine."

The way I was brainwashed by not being listened to. My fucking god.

Sean makes it in by now. He has gotten off work and when he told his managers, "Hey, Gayle might need surgery, so I don't know if I'll be in tomorrow," their response was some variation of, "Um...we need you to be reliable, you know." So, that went well.

The doctor comes back and says with no sign of issues on my sex organs and with the pain so bad and with my temperature where it is, they wanna run a Catscan to check my intestines/bowels/colon for problems.

To get a Catscan for your lower abdomen and colon, two things have to happen:

1) You have to drink a fuck ton of contrast dye mixed with apple juice while getting an IV of contrast dye. The apple juice does not mask the taste of the dye.

2) You have to get contrast dye put up your butt when you lie down for the Catscan.

And do you know what you have to do after you get that Catscan? Shit your brains out. Shit your brains completely out. Over several trips to the bathroom. Which requires you to clench the muscles around the appendix and thereby make the appendix pain worse as you continue to shit your brains out.

Oh, and do it very quietly because you can hear voices (not words; just voices) through the bathroom wall and realize there's a small child in the next room and don't want to terrify a small child by screaming out the shit-pains.

And then the doctor came back in and said, "Well, you Catscan didn't show anything. Let's get new stats."

At some point between my last stats-check and my silent screaming as I shit my brains out, the nurses had had a shift change. New nurse comes in, introduces herself, and takes my stats. My temperature is still 101.6. She gives me a look of someone who knows her instincts are usually right and says, "Hold on, let me get a different thermometer. I don't always trust the forehead ones." She comes back with an under-the-tongue thermometer (thank fuck I was genuinely concerned what else might happen to my ass at this point), and she sticks it under my tongue.

103.8

103.8

103.8

"Yeah, I thought maybe. These forehead thermometers don't always like high temperatures," the nurse says. She pats my knee very gently. "I'll be back in a minute."

"Are pain meds still an option?" I ask, having been defeated by the post-butt dye shits.

"Probably not."

She leaves. The doctor follows her back in about two minutes later.

"We're going to do a rebound test," he says.

He presses on right over my appendix. I sigh in relief because the pain is gone.

He lifts his finger.

This part of the story has two versions:

Here's what I remember I said, "What the fuck is wrong with you?!"

What Sean (the much more reliable narrator) remembers I said: "Oh god, please don't do that again."

"Okay," the doctor says, "you're going to need your appendix out."

And so it happened. On Sean's birthday. Which is the most serious medical issue that happened on his birthday but not the one with the longest last consequences.