Only thing is, I didn't know it at the time. No one in my immediate family ever had it.
I had just lifted up a TV--a Panasonic 43" plasma set, and you may know how heavy those are--when I felt that pain. I didn't give it much thought--I probably just took an Advil or a couple Tylenol. I thought I had just strained something, and the pain would go away soon.
One night later, I felt a fever. But at that time, I figured I just needed to get plenty of rest and take plenty of fluids--that ought to work, right? The only worry I had was that maybe my luck with avoiding COVID-19 ran out; what if I got it from someone at my most recent food shopping trip?
The next night, I had sweats and chills, and the pain in my abdomen also got worse, and for those reasons, I should have gone to the hospital. I still insisted in my mind that these would ultimately go away.
It was another two days before I finally went to the hospital. At the time, I couldn't even keep down sips of water, so I thought maybe I had unknowingly given myself food poisoning from something I cooked at home. (As it turned out, not being able to keep down food or drink was caused by constipation, which was the result of all the rest I had taken.)
Based on elevated white blood cell counts and a CT scan of my abdomen, my doctors came to the diagnosis of acute appendicitis. Since the medical standard is to remove the appendix when appendicitis is present, I figured that I would have surgery in short order.
However, the doctors informed me that due to the severity of the inflammation, it would not be wise to perform surgery right away, because with all the inflamed tissue, there was the risk that the surgeons might cut away some tissue that might ultimately be good tissue. In the meantime, I was fed intravenously, and I also received antibiotics through the IV.
Long story short, I got sent home way too early due to a spike in COVID-19 cases. I had to go back to the hospital a few weeks later after a stabbing pain erupted in the area of the appendix, and I ended up finally getting appendectomy until March 9.
In the nearly two years that have passed, I wonder how I could so easily forget how tough things were while I was sick, weak and hospitalized:
- The time I had to walk around, just hours after my appendectomy, just to turn my bladder back on (and with the IV machine hooked up to my arm)
- The times I had to walk around, even when I was in pain, to get my digestive system going again (also while tethered to the IV machine)
- The pain from the gas the day after the surgery (especially in the shoulders) Not being able to get a good night's sleep, much less be able to sleep on my side
- Constantly waking up with sweat on the back of my head and my chest, the sweat smelled like bile
- The stabbing pain on February 28--that was my appendix at its worst, and I was sure it had burst at that point
- The inconvenience of showering while tethered to the IV machine
- The frustration of putting my hospital gown back on after showering
- The times I had to drink down that potassium--yuck!
- Having to wear slip-on shoes and suspenders for the first two weeks after my surgery because it was impossible to wear a belt or tie shoes without feeling pain in the abdomen
Why do I want to remember all this? Because I do not want to ever again feel so sick that I have to be hospitalized.
So, if you ever feel pain above the belly button and it moves to the right lower abdomen, and the pain feels like someone hanged a plumb bob on your intestines, you probably have appendicitis and you need to get that looked at.
