Update 3 July 2019: This was one of my original posts on my old domain about my appendicitis episode. I’ve debated removing it more times than not but it was the act of being near death that made me finally have the courage to start my blog so I’ve decided to keep it. Bottom line: Don’t let anything hold you back from your dreams.
It’s been two weeks since my emergency surgery for appendicitis. Monday I’m allowed to go back to work, although on light duty. No climbing around ships for another couple of weeks. My friends that have visited and family have heard the story but I felt like for notoriety sake, I would write it all down. Maybe I’ll even save myself a few tellings ;). Mostly though, I wanted to make a point: make a habit of listening to your body.
What started it all
It started on a Tuesday. An hour before I was supposed to get off work and head to my Japanese Kanji Class I started to not feel right. I emailed my 先生 (sensei = teacher) that I wouldn’t make it and headed home. I started getting chills so I took my temperature and was at 100 F.
That’s not a big deal for most people but when you normal run around 96 F, it’s getting on the high side. I took some medicine and went to sleep and the fever broke around midnight. Wednesday morning I was bright eyed and bushy tailed and back to my normal 96 F.
That wouldn’t stick though. After lunch, I was on a steady decline. A coworker had brought me back a sweatshirt as おみやげ (omiyage = souvenir, more of that part of Japanese culture later) and that was my only saving grace. I was freezing but stubbornly, stuck out the rest of the day. Even still, by the time I went home, I was convulsing I was shivering so badly.
My lower stomach had started to hurt and I had a horrible headache but I chopped that up to the fever dehydrating me. Medicine started to not work. Or not work much. My fever eventually hit 104 F and it was off to the hospital. Something was causing that and I was starting to worry, I’d never been close to that before and it was too close to the danger zone for my comfort. Plus I felt awful.
The first hospital trip, was it appendicitis?
Riding to the hospital wasn’t the most pleasant thing and once there they checked my vitals and my fever had come down to 102 F. They got me on meds and waited for it to drop a bit more. The doctor was concerned that due to my stomach hurting that he couldn’t rule out appendicitis but my head was hurting me more at that point and normal checks for stomach pain weren’t doing me in. He said I could run tests now or give it 24 hours and see how I did. It was late, all I wanted to do was sleep so I took the later.
And the second… “The surgeon will be here in 3 hours”
Fever’s for me tend to always break during the night and come back with a vengeance during the day. This was no different. This time it was my stomach pain I couldn’t kick. By that evening I couldn’t take it anymore so back to the hospital I went
I was crying and a mess. They immediately hooked me to an IV and started pushing fluids into me. Blood work came back negative but to be sure they ran a CT scan. Being at a Navy hospital that had to go back to the other side of the world for analysis at that time of night and it took several hours till we had the results. That word was “the surgeon will be here in 3 hours, they will get you first thing this morning”.
If I hadn’t listened to what my body was trying to tell me, they wouldn’t have caught it before it burst. If I’d been stubborn and not gone to the hospital because “it was just a fever”, it could have been worst. That’s scary.
Since they caught it early, they were able to do a laparoscopic appendectomy and I now have three small incisions instead of one large one. Recovery is less and frankly, I’m happy that I’m alive because I know what appendicitis can do if not treated. I know not everyone has my luck and has it festering for days before bursting.
Listen to your body. I wasn’t the first, and I definitely won’t be the last.
This is the first I’ve seen the full story. Glad you’re okay. <3
It’s not exactly short ;). Hence writing it out. I changed to title so it wasn’t as long but I kinda want to change it back to “… or that time I almost died”.