Well by now you have seen that things have been awfully quiet over here on the blog. Except for a few deadline articles, I haven’t had much energy to write. If you follow me on social media, you might have seen that I was in the hospital for a week for an emergency appendectomy. I thought I would write up my symptoms in case any one of you have ever wondered what it feels like to have a ruptured appendix! Honestly, I hope you never have to find out.
I really have to start the week we moved from NY. We stopped at Subway on final leg home to Louisiana to collect the rest of our furniture. I ordered a tuna subway and ate it with everything tasting fine. The next morning I noticed my stomach felt off and thought perhaps it was food poisoning when the remainder of the day my stomach cramped continually. It was miserable and I went to bed for the rest of the day without any other symptoms. I believe this was the start of my appendicitis. If you read about appendicitis the symptoms can come and go for months without the appendix rupturing. The next day I felt weak but much better and life continued on.
We settled into Florida and everything was good for 3 weeks in our new home. On Monday evening on July 1st, I cut a watermelon. When I cut into it, I could tell it was bad. Just to make sure I took a tiny, tiny bite. I thought it was stupid for me to taste bad fruit but went on with no problem. Later that night around 1 in in the morning I woke up with intense cramping, similar to what I had had when I at the Subway sandwich. After throwing up a bit the pain subsided for a few hours and I fell asleep only to awaken again with more pain. This time as I stumbled to the bathroom I just fell to the floor. I had to call Chris to help me get up and was literally in agony. All the time I kept thinking and telling him it must have been the watermelon I had eaten. For 5 days I had all the symptoms of food poisoning. As fast as it hit me, it left. By the weekend I felt much better and resumed my normal activity. All the while, my parents I had been begging me to go to the doctor but I had no idea where to go since we just moved and brushed it off.
For the next week, I felt good. I ate normal and my stomach felt like it was on the mend with no lingering issues. Exactly 2 weeks from the time I had eaten the watermelon and thought I had gotten food poisoning the pain all came back. This time Chris came home to find me in tears as I cried just saying wanted to feel good again. We toyed with the idea of going to the ER that night but I put it off one more day. The following day I woke up and knew I had to do something. I started running a low-grade fever and noticed when I pressed on my lower right abdomen there was a hard lump. That was enough for me to text Chris and tell him when he got home from work we were going to the ER. I just happened to go to the park that morning with G and a mom was telling me of a great hospital in the area. I looked up the hospital and decided that was the one that seemed to have the best reviews and was the one I needed to go to. We packed G up and headed to the ER when Chris arrived home.
After doing an ultrasound on my stomach the tech immediately told me that I was a mess on the inside. I knew that I had waited too long. The staff whisked me into the MRI room to get better imaging on my abdomen but the surgeon stooped me before I could even get the test done. He said he knew all he needed and I needed to get into surgery immediately. I was so scared. I asked him if I was going to be OK and he kindly assured me I was. Within the hour I was in the OR room getting prepped for surgery. The surgery revealed that my appendix had ruptured and 2 abscesses had formed keeping in all the pus and junk. This is the only way my body did not go septic. They were just starting to leak out in my body which was why I had spiked a fever. The surgeon told me that more than likely my appendix ruptured 2 weeks prior when I had thought it was food poisoning. He said that a lot of times appendicitis can have very similar symptoms as food poisoning.
I didn’t know it then but only 50% in my situation survive. That isn’t a very comforting number. However, I know without a doubt God spared my life. I was so emotional the week after as I spent recovering in the hospital. All I kept thinking is I could have left George motherless if I had waited any longer. Every doctor I saw told me it was a miracle I was ok. One doctor said it was like I had climbed Mt. Everest but because I was young my body could fight it. I know ultimately it was God who spared my life.
It has been 4 weeks since my surgery and I still have off days. I would say that it took me a good 2.5 weeks to feel kinda back to normal. Last week our family beach trip made me walk a ton up and downstairs and I think that definitely helped me regain strength. Each day I feel is better and I am still working on gaining back the 10 pounds I lost. 🙂 Thank you to everyone who prayed, sent flowers and checked in. I have never felt more loved than I have during this season. So that is a recap on where I have been. Hopefully, life will return to normal now!
