Appendix No More

I had my appendix removed, Abu Dhabi-style, on Thursday. 

And while I wish this was a result of the surgery...

...the only true result I'm feeling is less pain where my appendix used to be. But, I'm at home, slowly recovering (who knew three little holes through your abdomen could raise such a painful ruckus?) and enjoying my week off from school.

The Full Story:

After three days of lower right stomach pain, I finally went to the ER at 7pm on Tuesday night. After an ultra-sound, two CT scans, and three different doctors' consultations, they decided that yes, my appendix was inflamed, but no, they wouldn't admit me to the hospital because I hadn't vomited and didn't have a fever.  Finally at 5am, they sent me home, with directions to call the hospital at 8am to schedule a surgery consult.

We went home, slept, then called and made an appointment for 2pm on Wednesday. The surgeon took one look at my abdomen, pressed down on my appendix, and said, "No doubt. Surgery. Not today. Tomorrow." 

And that was that. I got to sleep in my bed that night and had surgery Thursday morning at 7:30am.

My surgeon was fabulous: straight to the point, methodical, yet caring. The nurses were attentive and seemed to genuinely care about me.

The only hiccup throughout the day was when it came time to discharge. The surgeon had visited me at 4:30pm and said I could go home: discharge papers were complete and I was just to let the nurses know when I was ready. So, I took one more nap, ate some pretty decent hospital food, and then informed the nurses that I was ready to go home. 

The nurses then informed us that another doctor would have to come and discharge me and she wouldn't be available until after 9pm. At 10:45pm, we were finally allowed to leave the hospital after a doctor, that didn't do anything more than walk in the room, smile at me, and say, "Good?", said we could. 

So we got home a little later than we had hoped on the first day, but Rob had the weekend to recover before going back to school and I had the whole week off to recover (and I'm still dreading going back on Sunday, isn't that sad?).

Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers! 

-F