Ask The Guy who just had an Emergency Appendectomy!

In My Humble Opinion
1

G’day, fellow dopers. I haven’t been posting much lately, so I’m sure no one missed me, but I wanted to share this heinous little slice of hell with you! Two weeks ago, I went to the ER at about 10 PM with some pretty serious lower abdominal pain. Turns out my appendix had burst - probably on Wednesday that week (the day before my trip to the ER).

On Tuesday evening that week, a friend came over unexpectedly, and we ended up ordering pizza and drinking some beers. I woke up in the wee hours of Wednesday morning with what felt like severe gas or indigestion. I wrote it off to the effects of too much beer and pizza on my aging body and tried to get back to sleep. Things didn’t get much better, and by Wed. evening, SmithWife was after me to go to the doctor. I managed a long nap on Wed afternoon (very uncharacteristic of me), but I barely slept at all Wed night, as the pain in my abdomen had been increasing all day. All day Thursday Smithwife was after me to go the doc or the ER, but I steadfastly declined. In the meantime, I had taken Pepto, Alka Seltzer, Advil cold and Sinus, and finally GasEx to clear up the ever-increasing pain in my belly. Nothing worked.

Thursday evening, I agreed that if I didn’t feel better friday moring, I’d go see the doctor, and further agreed to let SmithWife take my temperature - 101.3. By 10PM Trursday night, I was ready to admit defeat, and announced I was going to the ER. Since we’ve got a 2 year old, I drove myself, and assured SmithWife I’d call on my Mobile and keep her updated. After about 45 inutes, I saw the triage nurse, who took my blood pressure -135/75 - high for me, and my temperature 104.8. Yeah. She looked at me incredulously, put a new prophylactic on the thermometer and took my temperature again. 104.8. I think maybe I lost a few IQ points, walking around with my brain cookin’ like that, but that’s another thread. BTW, we threw out the thermometer we had at home and bought a better on.

SmithWife was a little freaked out by 1 AM, got the baby up, and came to visit me. She stayed for about 20 minutes and demended to speak with the ER doctor (to make sure they were taking good care of me) before I convinced her to go home. They got me in for a CAT Scan at about 3 AM, announced my Appendix was the culprit at about 4 AM, and got the Surgeon out of bed and had me in the Operating Theater at 5 AM. I know they got him out of bed because when he got there, he frowned down at me and said “So you’re the guy they got me out of bed early for, eh?” Thanks, doc. Way to instill confidence in your patients.

So that’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it.

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How the hell do you report a post!?! I meant to post this in MPSIMS! Mods? Anyone? Would you mind moving this for me?

Thanks,

Winston

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I guess your writing from hospital, how’s the secondary infection treatment going? Are you on a drip with large doses of antibiotics?
Do you know if the sliced you fully open, or if they managed to cut the appendix out using small abdominal incisions?
Good luck, hope the secondary infection is low or nonexistant, they can be a bugger to shift.

4

Glad you’re OK. That’s some dangerous shit.

Were there any early symptoms that you didn’t recognize at the time that, looking back on it now, you think must have been related to the incredible exploding appendix? Any early warning signs you ignored?

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Actually, they sent me home last Monday, after just 4 days in the hospital! (I’ve got an HMO). They could not do the Laproscopic procedure due in large part to the fact that the Appendix had burst. I guess that makes quite a mess inside, and they need to really open things up and flush out the entire abdominal cavity. I’ve got an incision about 4 or 5 inches long, and a small hole where the JP drained. I got the stitches and the JP removed this past Monday, and the the incision opened a little bit and bled, and the JP drained a little overnight on Monday (mmm… internal organ fluid!). Otherwise, I feel a lot better, and the infection is pretty much cleared up. I’m going to get blood work done early next week to track my white count, liver function, etc. back to normal.

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Hey, thanks! Yeah, that was some pretty scary shit, indeed.

As far as early symptoms go, it hit pretty hard and fast. It felt like an incredibly painful gas pain that wouldn’t budge in the lower right abdominal area. Or like I swallowed a jagged metal Krusty-O and it got lodged somewhere in my intestines. Looking back, the power nap I took on Wednesday should have tipped me off - I never nap during the day, but I felt really run down and sleepy. I probably already had a 104+ temp by then, but didn’t bother to take my temperature. Stupid. I have an unusually high tolerance for pain, which is sort of a blessing and a curse. I really should have gone to the ER on Wednesday with the symptoms I had, but I still foolishly thought I had an incredibly bad hangover and indigestion.

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Sounds like you got away quite well, get the physio help you can when the scars can cope with it, that sort of long scar can beggar your chances of having a good six-pack. (tho you can make up stories about how you had to commit seppuku to force through an important multi-million dollar Japanese deal, since you have the scars to prove it).

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6-Pack? Not since college, bub. :wink: I’ve had more of a “12-pack” the last few years, though since the beginning of the year I’ve managed to get down to 185 (from 205).

And I’m going to tell people I have no recollection of any surgery, and that during regression therapy I learned I was abducted by aliens and they performed “experiments”.

I’m getting fitted for my tinfoil beany next week.

9

I’m glad you’re recovering and feeling better. You could always tell people that you got “shanked” in prison. You should say this with a tough guy swagger so that others will readily believe you.

10

OK. I have to ask.

I had my appendix removed about 10 years ago in college. Part of the diagnosis involved “feeling” it to see if it was swollen. Of course, you can only access it from the inside out cough. At least…that is what I was told.

So…the doctor stuck his hand up my anal cavity to feel it. And as a teaching hospital…some other fella did to.

I’ve hoped and wondered to this day if that was normal. Seemed like it was on the up and up. Very unpleasant though. Any sexual activity involving my rear strictly off limits now :slight_smile:

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Well, you know I did shoot a man in Reno, just to watch hime die. :wink:

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I think someone was pulling your… ehem… leg, when they said you can only feel an appendix from inside. They must have been feeling around in there for something else.
I had my appendix removed in an emergency surgery in 1991 and they just pressed on my abdomen. When I stopped screaming my bloody head off, he set me up for surgery that morning.
My symtoms came on pretty quick actually. I had come home from work, ate dinner (2 servings, I was mighty hungry), played with the dog outside then later went to bed. About 10:30pm I started having projectile emissions from both ends. :eek:
I had the runs until I had nothing left in me and I couldn’t stop puking. And the pain was like the worst, worst cramps I’ve ever had. (And I’ve had whoppers where I couldn’t WALK before)
So, I figured, “Hmmm… Really bad period this month I guess” and went back to bed. Did NOT sleep.
My mother-in-law saw me sitting on the couch in the morning, looking quite green and insisted my husband take me to the doctor, NOW!!
So we went and they had that puppy out in a couple of hours from when I walked in the door.

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Um… <Ahem>
No, they didn’t do anything like that with/to/for me, although the ER Doc was kind enough to rule out hernia. Kind of like some a good news/bad news thing.

Doc: Well, Winston, the good news is that you don’t have a hernia!
Me: Well, that’s certainly a relief.
Doc: The bad news, though, is that your appendix has burst, which is far more serious than a hernia.
Me: Huh?

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Synthesia sorry but that sounds like rubbish, my doctor could tell it was apendicitis and get me to hospital without any such intrusion. Might I ask the indellicate question, are you much overweight? Maybe if their is too much body fat then an external examination id impossible?
If it makes you feel better (it didn’t me) when I got to hospital, none of the doctors their believed it was a burst appendix, and one particular nurse was so sure it was a bowel worm gone septic that she poked arround up there until I said that it really hurt, to which she claimed to have found the head of the worm. Later when my white blood cell count was getting catastrophic they just slit me open, poked arround inside and found it was the burst appendix that my own GP had diagnosed with ease a day and a half before. When I mentioned this to my GP after he was incredulous, since to him it was an obvious burst appendix from his first examination.

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… sorry, I just noted Winston bought up the subject of Hernias.

Anyone who has had major abdominal surgery needs to watch out for future risk of Hernias, so be careful y’all.

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“But, doctor—I’m just here for a twisted ankle!”

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Eve, I love it when you post evilly :smiley:

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Glad to see you are well, Winston /smith. I had an emergency appendectomy in February, but luckily the rascal hadn’t burst yet, so I was able to have mine doen laparoscopically, so I don’t have a scar (although my navel has a lump of scar tissue as a little commemoration).

And yeah, the doctor did the anal digital probe (although I could have given him some advice on technique).

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:eek: I feel somewhat violated. Again!

Perhaps the funniest thing is when a surgeon came in to tell me the diagnosis I never let him get a word out of his mouth.

“You got another thing coming if you think you are going to stick your hand up my ass! Go ask the other two guys what it felt like!”

My mom really thought that was funny when the surgeon retold that.

Maybe its a rural thing :eek: …

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In a fantasy other life, I’ve always wished that I’d become a doctor, just so I could see the looks on the ER staff’s faces when I reach in to the patient, yell “FIRE IN THE HOLE!” and fastball the throbbing puss-engorged appendix against the operating room window with a mighty splat.