So, I haven't blogged in awhile. I don't know if I don't have much to say or I feel like I'm always talking about the same things over and over again. My life is pretty routine, as routine as life with four little kids can be. But then.....it happened. Yesterday I took the kids to the park and met up with some of my friends to let everyone blow off some steam. We had a good time and got home and I started making lunch. Somewhere during this process something started to go wrong. My back started hurting like crazy which then moved into my stomach and basically my whole body. I could barely stand or walk and was getting pretty annoyed since my plans for the rest of the day were to finally get the post Christmas tornado cleaned up.
After fighting the urge to cry and the pain not easing up after 3 hours I finally caved. I called the advice nurse at Kaiser who basically told me I would have to wait until the next day to get an appt. if I could stand the pain. I waited another half an hour or so and then admitted defeat, no, I could NOT stand the pain. Feeling bummed about my thrashed house and plans with my babe to go see This is 40 ruined, I caved in and asked Andy to take me to the ER.
[Instagram addict even in the hospital.]
We packed up Tulip, left the kids with my sister, and made the 20 minute drive to Kaiser Moanalua which felt more like 2 hours. When we finally got there and checked in it came to a screeching halt. The check-in nurse said the wait would be about an hour, I don't know if I really waited that long or me rocking and moaning in the waiting room made her speed the process up a bit. Finally got checked in and answered lots of random questions, at this point the pain was subsiding a bit and I was regretting getting myself into this process but we decided it was better to wait it out and see if we could find out what was wrong since I had felt this pain more than a few times since I gave birth to Tulip.
[Morphine! Hooray!]
They admitted me. I was starving and thirsty at this point but alas, nothing by mouth. Bloodwork came back negative so my doctor thought a CT scan was in order. I had to down 2 bottles of lukewarm, sugar-free [gag] "fruit" drink. I like to call it Devil's Juice. It was sick, I had to take Zofran in order to not throw it up. All not cool. Since the CT scan couldn't happen for another two hours Andy took Tulip home since we didn't really want her at the hospital and after I drank the juice I couldn't breastfeed her for awhile. One of my awesome friends brought breast milk to our house so we could bottle feed her until the yuck was out of my system.
Andy got back to the hospital just as another good friend was dropping off a whole mini cooler of breast milk from a woman on the Human Milk for Human Babies site.
Sometimes the generosity of others amazes me and reminds me that, yeah there is a lot of shit and bad things in this world but I don't have to contribute to it and there are people out there that remind me of the good parts. That in itself is awesome to me. CT scan results came back, surprise! Appendicitis!
[The name Breeza was not fooling me!]
So at least now, some answers! Not the answer I wanted to hear but I was glad that:
1. I'm not a hypochondriac
2. I'm not a wuss.
For a minute there I was thinking it might have just been really bad gas. That would have been embarrassing. A lot of back and forth and they finally scheduled my surgery for 8:30am the next morning. Andy went home to be with the babies and work his graveyard shift and they transferred me to an actual room where I soaked in all the cable goodness I could get while sleeping off and on.
For me that meant watching QVC and wondering if all the clothes on there are technically "old ladie's clothes" or could I pull them off?
Andy got back to the hospital around 8 and we snoozed on the bed together since they pushed my surgery to 10:00. Finally they took me back to surgery, at this point I'm trying not to freak out at the thought of being naked and unconscious while holes are being poked in my body. I went into the surgery room, they put the mask on my face and I thought to myself "I wonder how long this stuff takes to....." Snooze.
[Ooh, liquid diet. Yum.]
Woke up in recovery. Basically a giant room with people lining the walls in various states of waking up. Awkward. My nurse was nice and I complained about being hungry enough that she gave me an orange popsicle. The kind with TWO popsicles connected. Heck yeah. She wouldn't let me leave until I said the pain was fine so I sucked it up so I could be out of there and back with my love.
So in the end, I was ok. It was scary and surreal. I'm now missing a part of my body that isn't one of my teeth. I've survived my first surgery and non-pregnancy related hospital stay.
I spent a long day on pain meds, begging for food and water, having engorged boobs and laying in a hospital bed with my husband having a marathon Ridiculousness marathon.
I was lucky that they were able to do it lapriscopically, with a little camera, so I have two holes in my stomach and not an incision. One on the left side of my stomach and one down in my belly button?! That one creeps me out a little bit.
I came home to my four beautiful children, sore but relieved.
A clean house courtesy of my Stepmom and sister. Kids happy and fed thanks to a great friend.
Andy cooked me a salmon dinner. I ate and hugged my kids and I was thankful.
Just when I thought 2012 could surprise me no more, I was wrong. ;)
[My Welcome Home committee! So happy to see these little faces.]
