On Wednesday night, after dinner, my stomach started hurting up near my ribs on the right side. This has happened before, and I usually chalk it up to digestive issues and/or constipation of some sort, and within a few days it gets better and I go on with my life. I took a stool softener and went to bed, no worries.
On Thursday, I woke up with the same pain, and went about my day. I had Kennedy by myself most of the day since Brandon worked a closing shift that night. By the end of the day, however, I had lost my appetite and could barely eat anything. I was in greater pain than I had been that morning, and try as I might, I could not get Kennedy to go to sleep so that I, too, could go to sleep. I laid on the floor in the bedroom sobbing, one arm up in the bassinet trying to calm her, just praying she would go to sleep. I couldn’t hold her to comfort her because I was in too much pain. Brandon came home that night at 11:30 pm to me crying with the baby still awake.
I woke up at 4 am with severe pain. I felt as if I had been stabbed in the stomach and lit on fire. It hurt. I’m not normally a wuss when it comes to pain, but this was like nothing I’d ever felt before. It was worse than childbirth. Brandon kept asking me if we should go to the ER but I insisted on waiting until the next morning to go to urgent care, because it was a cheaper copay. How sad, that this is what goes through your mind when you’re in this awful of a situation.
Brandon called out of work on Friday morning and so did I. His mom came over to watch Kennedy so he could take me to the urgent care. On the way I had texted my mom, and she was pretty insistent that maybe I should go to the ER instead to make sure it wasn’t anything serious. Brandon had said the same.
Finally I listened and we went to the ER. Luckily, it was empty and they got me back right away. By this time the pain was intolerable upon movement. Standing hurt, sitting hurt, laying was excruciating. I just remember breathing shallow and hoping to God I’d be okay. I missed my baby and I didn’t want anything to happen to me. I was scared. I’d never been in this much pain before.
Over the next few hours, they palpated my abdomen (and I almost jumped off the bed with the pain), I was given morphine which didn’t even touch the pain, gave a urine sample, had blood drawn and a CT scan of my abdomen (which BTW was the most miserable experience, having to get out of the hospital bed and lie flat on the CT bed and then get up again and back into the bed, had me full blown sobbing by the time they wheeled me back to my room). Within an hour of that ordeal, the ER doctor came in and gave the bad news: yes I did have some gallstones but nothing major there, however I had appendicitis and they needed to operate to remove it ASAP.
We were wheeled up to the surgery floor where they prepped me. I met the surgeon briefly but honestly don’t really remember much at this point because the pain had gotten so bad. I kept falling asleep and was in and out until they came to get me for surgery. They wanted me to get up and pee beforehand, but I insisted they just do a catheter because the thought of getting out of bed again brought me to tears. I said goodbye to Brandon, they gave me something to relax me, and wheeled me away. The last thing I remember is them waking me in the OR and asking me to scoot over to the operating table from my bed, and then that was it.
I woke up in the recovery room, which apparently took a long time. Once I was awake they took me to my recovery room where Brandon was waiting. He looked rough. I could tell that he was so worried and scared. He waited to make sure I was okay and then headed home to check on Kennedy and give his mom a little bit of a break since she’d been there all day. He came back later that night, and then went back home to stay with Kennedy. This was the first time I was away from her and I hated it.
I was in the hospital for two days recovering. I got to go home on Sunday March 1. I left with a drain in my stomach and two types of antibiotics along with painkillers. I was messed up. I hurt, but not as badly as when I was having the appendix pain. Apparently it was so bad because it had ruptured (which they think is what the 4 am pain that woke me up was). I could barely walk, and had to sleep on the couch because I just couldn’t lay down. So I was sleeping in the recliner couch while Brandon slept on the other couch so I wouldn’t be alone. Kennedy was sleeping through the night by this point thanks to Brandon getting her on a schedule, so that was probably the best thing that came out of all of this! I couldn’t breastfeed during this time because of the antibiotics I was on, and it actually made me kind of depressed due to the drop in hormones. I also got my period right after we got home so that fun dealing with that on top of everything else.
After a week, I had my follow up with the surgeon to get the drain removed. By this point, I didn’t really feel much discomfort and was starting to feel better. He warned me that my stomach muscles would cramp up when they pulled the drain out since it had to go through the muscle and such, but I thought I would be fine. Oh boy. They laid me back and when the surgeon pulled out the drain I swear to God it felt like he was ripping my insides out. I almost passed out from the pain. They advised it would be 6-8 weeks before I felt good again, but I was released with no restrictions.
In the weeks after that I slowly got better. I started breastfeeding after my antibiotics were done and felt more normal again. Brandon stayed on leave with me until the 23rd, but then the world locked down because of COVID-19, so he ended up staying home longer. Thankfully he did, because I honestly did not feel 100% again until the 8 week post-op mark and it was so great to have the extra help at home.
The moral of the story is, if you’re having severe pain that makes you curl up in a ball on the floor while sobbing and not being able to care for your child, go to the ER right away. I think my recovery could have been a lot quicker and smoother had I not waited. But – live and learn. At least I won’t have appendicitis ever again.
AbstractIrony 