askyermom

I told this story so many times now, I almost forgot to write it down.

It could spoil the story to start with saying I had my appendix removed, but really, there was no actual suspense. I have been telling myself every bellyache was probably appendicitis for my entire life and I finally got to be correct.

I’ve heard from other people about their experiences, and most of us agree it is an annoyingly ambiguous discomfort–the appendicitis, that is. For me, it started with a bellyache after church. I became concerned that I had eaten something unpleasant at the buffet. I almost never eat cured meat and there were some very seductive salami slices. I caved and ate a bit. The combination of salami and cake are nothing to worry about in the grand scheme of things, but I suspected I had hurt myself with willy nilly nibbling.

We already had tickets to the movies, so I went with a couple of young people to see something called “Obsession.” The film was a bit heavy on the body horror and included a couple of my least favorite types of violence depicted with loving attention to detail. Not surprisingly, this did nothing to improve my bellyache.

It was a relentless pressure. No position change helped, no amount of walking around or routine remedies put a dent in it. I had no desire to eat and that’s not a big deal until it stretches out to the ninth hour or so. I couldn’t sleep and while I knew I could scrounge around and possibly find a pill that would knock me out, I didn’t try. It seemed important to keep this miserable vigil until I figured it out.

At midnight, a rumbling began, and like a veteran mom, I scrubbed the toilet and prepared for the reverse journey of my afternoon cola. As projectile vomiting goes, I’d give it a ten. There was no greater velocity to achieve, and it was over with merciful speed.

At the Mountain Time witching hour, I got my second clue. Food poisoning will generally take a lot less then twelve hours to exit the body and it will not cause a pain that moves to the location of your appendix. I had no fever, so I still held out some skepticism.

I felt I couldn’t drive and I felt weird about calling an ambulance. I decided my best bet was to hire a car to take me to the urgent care office when it opened. I must have walked the dog first, but I’m sure we didn’t go far. It was a holiday, so there was no traffic on the road and when I arrived there were no other patients. They suggested I go on to the Emergency Room, but I insisted they examine me first.

It was clearly an appendicitis situation or something very similar, they said. I asked if they could get me a ride and started to cry. I always forget how much it upsets people to see a mom cry. They were very professional about it and did not openly acknowledge my self pity spilling over.

Due to the holiday, or the general lack of human accommodations, the only way for me to get a mile up the road was to hire another car myself.

I don’t recall ever being dropped off at an Emergency Room before, but it would have been weird if the driver wanted to walk me in or anything else. He just wished me well and went on with his holiday of driving. I started to cry again at the basic decency of all these people who were pretending not to notice my tears.

Because I’d been examined already, everything happened pretty quickly after that. It might have been a great deal faster if they were fully staffed, but it was Noah’s Ark ER: two nurses, two orderlies, two scan technicians, two surgeons, like that. I was urgently shuffled into their scheme and had a scan that showed a very large appendix that had not burst.

Bursting is bad. I heard from my doctor about a case of a woman who walked around in that foggy discomfort for weeks before it was discovered that her appendix had burst and she did not have a back problem that required physical therapy after all. She lived. Hooray for medicine!! Bursting used to mean you were in grave danger, and she was, just less grave than say, 50 years ago.

An outrageously handsome surgeon quizzed me about my symptoms and what I wanted to do about them. I could not make him tell me that he would ask to be sliced up if he were me. I could not make him promise to give me back my appendix, either. He later told my daughter that my appendix was gangrenous and nasty, so I get a gold star in surgical decision making if nothing else. Daughter Bo was entirely charmed by this information and enjoyed telling us all about it.

All my local kids had been away for the holiday weekend and many of my pals were annoyed that I had not asked for help until I was already on a bed with wheels with a dying cell phone. This is an excellent point. My reasoning is not entirely sound under stress, and the night before would have been a great time to call a friend or neighbor to talk through my skeptical appendicitis theories.

A dear friend managed to charm her way into the pre-op area without being a relative or on-duty medical person. I was so grateful to see her and to have the waiver of rules for the holiday that made it possible. Maybe everyone did feel a little sorry for me after all.

Obviously, I lived and I got to have the heaviest sleep I have had in ages in my own bed again the same night. My gals fetched and fed me and monitored my wobbling around in the meantime. As emergencies go, it was a pretty low-key emergency. I simply felt bathed in relief and gratitude to have my life saved again with so little drama.

For a little while, I thought my hypochondria was cured again, too. It always recedes when I have diagnosed myself correctly. I have not been distracted by stray symptoms or swept up in improbably scenarios until today.

Clearing out cobwebs on my screened in porch, I was irritated how little wildlife a screen really prevents from getting in there. I thought I might have seen a couple of tiny spiders skitter away while I was at it, but there has been a notable lack of spider life in my house this summer so far. My feelings on that are surprisingly mixed. I hate to find them and I hate to miss them.

Afterward I had a persistent tickle and cough. I should drink some water, I thought. I just drank some water, actually. I began to pace, wondering if I should take an allergy pill. What if I inhaled a spider? I did not inhale a spider, surely, because there were no spiders of consequence out there. If I call 9-1-1 will I have time to tell them I am going into anaphylaxis before I actually lose the ability to speak? So now, the spider that was not there, that I did not inhale, has bitten me and caused my airway to collapse in my imagination.

Why the hell can’t my imagination collapse for a bit?

At least now I know my imagination isn’t located in my appendix, nor is my hypochondria.

Love,
yermom

My book, not a cookbook, Don’t Eat Your Children is available at most retailers for mail order. Try this one: Bookshop.org. If you liked it, please review it and give it to a friend in need!!