Delayed Due To Emergency Surgery

By now I should have posted about the San Diego Zoo as well as Halloween.  But a little part of my body didn't want to cooperate and delayed things for a bit.

Back on November 2nd I was working in the PICU. My belly didn't feel right, almost as if I had food poisoning. But the expected diarrhea never came. Instead, I just kept having a dull achy feeling in my belly with the occasional wave of chills. Being in the hospital, I had ready access to thermometers and never had a fever. When at one point the belly pain was severe enough to have me rest on the floor of the office, I finally started to palpate my belly and sure enough I had slightly more pain in the right lower quadrant. The thought that I might have appendicitis then entered my mind.

After much debate, and consultations from Sue over the phone and the hospitalist on duty, I figured I might as well get it checked out before heading home. So I finished my work, signed out and then headed to the ED. Sure enough it was acute appendicitis, confirmed by CT scan.  

No pain meds, just my kids is all I need.

Around 10pm or so I was being wheeled into the OR. The surgical resident would tell me the next day that if I sat on it, it probably would have ruptured that night. If I wasn't working that day, that's exactly what I would have done. But since I was already in the hospital, I figured I might as well get it checked out. Working saved me from a whole bunch of complications, and maybe even saved my life!

Anyway, I was out the next morning and took two days off before returning to work. I doubt that I have a high pain tolerance so I'm left to think I was lucky to have a skilled surgical attending because the pain hasn't been that bad at all. In fact, I started going back to the gym earlier this week and even did abdminal exercises yesterday.

So anyway, sorry for the delay, I'll get back to posting soon!