I was pretty wrecked for 2 or 3 weeks, but in retrospect I wonder if that was because I was a fairly fit and active young man, and using motorbike to get around. In my present job, which mostly involves sitting at a desk all day, I think I might have gone back to work earlier.
My class wrote get well cards to me too. But I guess I didn’t make an impression because 5 years later, (I had moved away), a girl from that class moved out to the same town as I had. She had notably red hair so I recognized her and her name. I came up to reintroduce myself. She stared at me and said I have no idea what you’re talking about, I don’t remember writing a note to any kid in the hospital. The next week she brings in the 2nd grade class picture and says “see, you’re not in my class”. I pointed out that the picture was taken while I was in the hospital. We graduated high school together and even the in my year book she wrote “I still don’t remember you from 2nd grade”.
Mine was in 1960; my mom took me to the doctor, where I threw up Lipton chicken soup in the parking lot, something I also never did. I remember being in the hospital for a week, and I still have a really ugly scar directly below my naval, as I remember hearing them tell my mom they weren’t sure where it was. 
No iPads then so the doctor could prop it up on your stomach to help him/her navigate to the right spot. 
Actually, a friend of mine, my age (71) had an emergency appendectomy about a month ago and the doctor had to go in twice because he couldn’t find hers either. :eek: Hell, he COULD have used a YouTube video or something (probably too proud).
One of my sister’s high school friends had an appendix that wasn’t in the usual place, so the surgeon couldn’t find it either! It had burst, and then sealed off, and in the meantime, they were looking for ovarian cysts and other similar things that could befall a young woman.
(The long story begins) They were best friends, and made the supreme mistake of deciding to room together in their college dorm. :smack: Everyone told them not to, but hey, they were 18 and knew everything, KWIM? Anyway, within a week, they were mortal enemies, and my sister packed up her stuff and moved in with our brother until campus housing could find her another room. Lesson learned.
So, what does that have to do with the above paragraph? We all found that out when my sister was admitted to the hospital about 5 years later to have a fibroid tumor removed, and her whole extended Italian family were in the surgical waiting room. After that, they put them in the same room, because most med-surg patients are elderly and they thought it would be a good idea because they were the same age! Both of them had IVs and catheters, and my sister thought it would be nice to bury the hatchet and catch up, but no, the other girl told the nurses, “I am not rooming with her!” and my sister was moved down the hall because she was the one in better condition.
My sister was disappointed (at first) to find out that this girl was, at the time, in a relationship with an abusive man from a really yucky family, but she agreed with our dad who said, “Maybe they belong together.”
They’re not even Facebook friends, so that rift must be permanent. (I sort of understand, because I want nothing to do with my “best friend from high school” myself, and declined both of her FBF requests.)
Here’s the part I skipped. I went to my doctor the day before what turned out to be D-Day with stomach pain so bad, I was curled up (literally) and moaning in a chair in the waiting room. Doc ordered an x-ray and said I had an ileus. He told me to drink a bottle of magnesium citrate (a laxative). I objected that I was the opposite of constipated, but he shrugged me off and said to drink the stuff and eat dinner. Since they’d given me painkillers and he was the doc, I followed advice. I threw up dinner (twice), and I’m lucky the laxative didn’t kill me, since it was my appendix. I’ve since learned that appendicitis can cause an ileus, but I guess the doc didn’t know that.
When my brother was sick, our mother, the doctor, thought it was just constipation. He was very sick by the time he got to hospital, has a very large scars where they opened up his abdomen, and was in hospital for some time after that. His memory of going into surgery was that he’d lost his sense of balance, and as they wheeled him in he was afraid he was going to fall down off of the gurney, which was wheeling along on the wall or ceiling, and he really didn’t want that to happen, because he was already hurting so much. Later, he was very pleased with himself when he was well enough to stand up – and then sit down, again.
I remember her waiting at home for the call from the hospital to tell her that he had died. As a doctor working with small children, my mother still thought that a mothers opinion was a very important diagnostic signal, but personally, she never gave much weight to her own opinion about her children’s medical condition after that.
After my own operation, my brother read the pathology report and observed that it indicated that the diagnoses was correct. He explained that the pathologist /always/ finds some small amount of inflammation to justify the surgery – that’s just being polite – but if only a small discrete bit of inflammation is documented, that’s just the pathologist being complete. And polite.
It seems that the whole thing is much easier now that they do routine scans before operation.
A friend a former co-worker of mine (age - mid 50s) went in to have his removed and never came out. Consider yourself lucky.