I woke up at 12:30am with the worst pain I've ever experienced. Actually, it's a toss up between that pain and the pain of having the packing removed from my nose after that surgery. But, that's an entirely different story. I can tolerate my fair share of pain, really at it's worse I've only called my pain an 8 out of 10. For me to call it a 10, I'd have to be unconscious from the pain, nearly dead. Anyways, I suffered through the night somehow until 8:30am and then convinced one of my roommates to take me to the Health Center at BYU (this is no way degrades the care of the Health Center, they are great!!). Let me back up just for a second, my pain was in my abdomen, but was not localized like appendicitis usually is. Since I knew appendicitis is usually pain in the lower right quadrant of the abdomen I figured that it was not appendicitis so I could put heat on it, which I did. BAD BAD idea. NEVER EVER put heat on appendicitis. It can kill you! I'm an idiot. Luckily I survived my stupidity. Back to the Health Center....I received IV #1 and fluids. They took a x-ray of my abdomen and the Doctor determined that I was constipated. Are you freakin' kidding me?! Worst pain of my life and he's says it's just constipation. Yeah right. He wouldn't give me any pain medication because he said that would make the constipation worse. Lovely. I stayed in misery for the next 4 hours at the Health Center. They finally sent me home sometime after noon (they took out my IV) and told me to call if I started vomiting.
I went home and of course...I started vomiting. At this point they decided that I needed to get in to have a CT Scan. So I drove to the Imaging place, bawling my eyes out. At this point, I called my brother and sister-in-law and asked them to meet me there. At the Imaging place of course they had to start another IV (IV #2) to do a contrast CT Scan. If you've never had one of these done, I'll just tell you this, it leaves a copper taste (kind of like penny's) in your mouth and also makes you feel like you peed your pants. I know, awesome. At least I can have empathy for my patients now, I guess. They did the CT Scan and I sat in the waiting room with my bro and sis- in-law and nephew for a while crying until they told me to go straight to the hospital, I had appendicitis, I have to have surgery immediately. Basically, do not pass go, do not collect $200. So, luckily the Imaging place was around the corner from the hospital. I was no longer in any shape to drive though, so I had to leave my car and have my sis-in-law drive. I'm so grateful for the Priesthood in my life. My brother gave me a blessing on the way to the hospital, it wasn't the only one I would get during this hospital visit.
We got to the hospital ER (I don't remember what time it was). So much for being an emergency, though. I sat in the waiting room of the ER for like another 2 hours, puking my guts up in a bucket. Oh the joy. I vaguely remember that one of the bathrooms was flooding in the waiting room too, but maybe I just made that detail up, I don't know. My brother called my Mom while when we got to the ER waiting room to tell her what was up. Unfortunately, I had not warned her of what was going on, so she just got a phone call from my brother saying..."we're in the ER, Jennie has to have surgery." Hahaha, my poor Mom. My brother thought I had talked to her earlier, so that news was a bit of a shock to her. Luckily my home in Colorado is only a 5 hour drive from Provo, so she left right away. Now, to the blind date part....
I had a blind date planned with a guy who's parents were good friends with my parents for the night after my surgery. Well...as I was puking in a bucket in the ER waiting room, my date called me to finalize details. Of course I didn't want to answer, so I made my brother answer and explain to him that I was in the ER and about to go to surgery for an emergency Appendectomy, so the date would have to be postponed, obviously. End of story, right? Wrong! But I'll get back to that a little later.
I had a blind date planned with a guy who's parents were good friends with my parents for the night after my surgery. Well...as I was puking in a bucket in the ER waiting room, my date called me to finalize details. Of course I didn't want to answer, so I made my brother answer and explain to him that I was in the ER and about to go to surgery for an emergency Appendectomy, so the date would have to be postponed, obviously. End of story, right? Wrong! But I'll get back to that a little later.
I was finally admitted to the actual ER around 5pm, where they FINALLY gave me Morphine for the pain. YAY for narcotics!!!! Big fan!!! So basically I hadn't had ANYTHING for pain for the past approximately 17 hours since my pain had started. Yeah, it was the day from Hell! Well, I had never had Morphine before and it works great for me, but it also knocks me out and makes me pretty loopy. Basically I am NOT responsible for ANYTHING I say when I'm on narcotics. I DO NOT edit what I say and basically you could probably get me to tell you anything. I'm pretty sure it would NOT make any sense though, sorry. I'm not sure if I received IV #3 or if they left the one in from the Imaging center. I thought I spent like 2 hours in the ER waiting to go into surgery. I found out later that it was actually 5 hours. My poor brother, who must seriously love me, sat with me for the entire 5 hours. I love him dearly!! Poor guy! Apparently there were like 3 or 4 more cases of Appendicitis in the ER at the same time I was there, which was really random. I was finally taken back into a prep room for surgery at about 10pm. They gave me something that they said would make me kind of drowsy. Hahahaha, yeah right. I was completely out in like 30 seconds. I don't remember anything until they were taking me into my room 3 hours later. I wasn't even awake to go into the OR. I woke up at 1am as they were wheeling me into my room on the Med/ Surg floor and my Mom had just barely arrived.
The funny thing is they put me on the floor below where I worked. 3 weeks previously I had started work on the Medical/ Oncology Floor as a PCT (Patient Care Tech- basically a CNA who gets to draw blood and put in catheters, woohoo :P). I was even supposed to work that weekend. That obviously didn't happen, but I did go up to visit my co-workers, IV pole and all, just to prove that I wasn't just skipping out on work for fun. :) The next day was pretty blurry for me. I was on a lot of drugs, which not only knocked me out, I was also in pain. I know a bunch of people from church, who I didn't know yet (later we became really good friends) came to see me. I don't remember the details though. The funny thing about narcotics and me is that, like I said, I don't have the ability to edit things when I'm on them. So, apparently I told me brother something that is entirely too graphic to put on here (I've taken so many medical classes that I tend to use correct medical terms. This isn't coming out right. Ok, I described something in detail in medical terms that normal people don't use in casual conversation). My mother was mortified, though. I think it's hilarious, but my brother was kind of horrified. Anyways, me on narcotics is dangerous for casual conversation.
Back to the blind date thing. The evening after my surgery, we got a phone call in my room that my Mom answered and guess who it was? My blind date. Yeah, guess where he was? Downstairs in the hospital. Oh yeah. No, I'm not kidding. He drove like an hour and a half to get there, it wasn't like I could turn him away. Another note on narcotics, they make me incredibly emotional. So I was completely irrational and had just been crying about something. So anyways, I got to meet my blind date while lying in a hospital bed wearing literally nothing but a hospital gown, no make-up, I've just been through surgery, and I'm totally loopy on narcotics. Lovely. Talk about embarrassing. He does get points for making me cookies and bringing me a card, but I can't quite forget how humiliated I was. Now it's just funny, but it wasn't very funny at the time. Apparently, my Mom spent almost the whole time talking to him. I was too drugged to be very conversational. That may be kind of rude, but considering the state I was in, I didn't care. I did end up going out with him later on our date, which was disastrous, by the way. It was awful. He was sizing me up for marriage the whole time, basically. But, I don't want to totally trash the guy, so back to my hospital story. Nope, I'm not done. It gets better, although the blind date part is done.
I should have gone home the next day (Post-Op Day #2?), I think (I don't know, the days all kind of ran together). But I do remember the PCT coming in the next morning and taking me vital signs. She stuck a sat monitor on my finger and nearly panicked when it read my Sats as in the 70's. Yeah, VERY bad. Ok, your "Sats" is your oxygen saturation in your blood. Basically you want it to be above 90% (my nursing professors say much higher, but basically when it gets to 88% it rapidly drops)...so the fact that I was in the 70's was a bit of a panic moment for them. I had to get a chest x-ray, which showed that the bottom of my lungs were starting to collapse (I had atelectasis, my nursing friends will appreciate that diagnosis). Basically, that put me at a big risk for getting pneumonia, unless I started moving around and coughing, deep breathing. By the way, when you've had you're stomach muscle cut through, the last thing you want to do is cough or deep breathe. Yay for nurses who told me about using a pillow as a splint. Ok, I better stop there before I get really carried away with the nursing stuff. They also sent me down for ultrasounds on both of my legs to check for DVT's (blood clots) from lying in bed too much (a cause of the atelectasis). It was a rough day. I finally got to go home the next day (I think). Recovery was like 3 weeks at home and another 3 weeks not lifting anything. That was just a laparoscopic appendectomy. (P.S. Yes, this means I have 3 tiny scars, one of which is in my belly button, basically he destroyed my belly button. I don't really have one anymore). I can't imagine what an open appendectomy would be like. Recovery sucked, to put it lightly. Lortab (Vicodin) was my friend for weeks! Thank goodness I only had one appendix, I NEVER want to do that again.
Anyways, the good thing is it did give me a lot of empathy for my patients. I know what it feels like to have a sore throat from being intubated. I know what it feels like to be in pain from having air inflated into your abdomen for surgery and then to have to burp it up for the next day (yes, they do that, and yes, it actually hurts). I know what real pain feels like (to a degree, of course, pain is subjective and different for every person). I know what it's like to need pain medication and to have to wait forever (or so it seemed) for your nurse to bring it to you. Ok, I should stop. Basically, I learned a ton from the experience.
Hmm...did I forget anything? That's a really long story, sorry. It's better when I tell it in person, with my voice inflections and facial expressions, of course. I'm not telling this to be cocky or dramatic, it's just a great story. Anyways, I refuse to go on anymore blind dates. They're not worth it. What would happen next time? I'd probably get hit by a truck and have to get my spleen out or something. I can only lose so many internal organs. Yeah, it's not worth it. No go. 
(because I'm morbid and like pictures) :)
(because I'm morbid and like pictures) :)