I started a new job last week and was pretty fatigued come Wednesday. I chalked it up to the floods of information coming at me, meetings, trying to find my desk, navigating the halls and learning so many new names. By the time Jay picked me up from work the exhaustion was obvious and I backed out of our fat bike ride during the drive home, opting instead to hit the grocery store and make dinner while he rode. Walking through the grocery isles, a dull ache settled into my stomach which through me off guard.
Me to self: I guess I've been eating a lot of tangerines and acidic foods lately.. maybe it's just super acidic.
I returned home with the fixings for some flatbread pesto pizzas with roasted veggies and didn't think much more about it. As the night waned the ache returned but again I made up some idea of the cause (maybe too much garlic now on my pizza) and went to bed. But I found myself unable to sleep for most of the night as the ache grew stronger over the night.
By morning, the pain hadn't subsided so I took a few Tums as I prepped for work and went about my day. Today was my Getting To Know You lunch with my team and I was so excited to play games and meet everyone. But, with my stomach bothering me so much, I couldn't stomach the idea of eating so I grabbed a banana and plain yogurt to get me through. By the end of the lunch, the pain was increasing noticeably and I started to have an impending feeling that something was wrong.
I went down to our in-house medical clinic to request an appointment but they were full. When I told the nurse my symptoms, she asked me to go to urgent care. I texted Jay asking him to take me after work but, by the time I made it up three floors I knew I couldn't wait. I called him back and he quickly jumped in the car to pick me up as I paced along the windows of my new desk holding my stomach as it had been swelling beyond belief over the course of the last few hours.
He took me to Urgent Care and they began taking some tests and palpating my abdomen as I was no longer able to sit still from the increasing pain. After a few tests, they had me on my way to the ER to have my appendix checked. Jay flew down France and through red lights (sorry) as I was dry heaving out the passenger window. They quickly ushered me into Triage when I hobbled in and something about knowing I was going to be safe seemed to break my ability to control my vomiting or my shakes any longer.
We quickly moved into a room where I could gown-up, hooked up to an IV and monitors, and started donating blood to start narrowing down the likely suspects - Appendix? Gall Bladder? My hubby returned after dropping the puppy at home and my dad, stepmom and stepsister were all by my side as I fought through the pain and nausea. The blood tests came back healthy but, luckily, the CT showed that it was after all my appendix. Thank heavens I followed those instincts so we got there before it burst and there I was, 5 hours after asking Jay to take me in, I was headed off to surgery for a laparoscopic appendectomy.
My medical team was amazing (thank you tons to Dr. Laguna and the entire team at Southdale Emergency Hospital)!!! By 10:30 my family was allowed back into post-op to see me and the kind nursing team had me dressed and ready to head home to bed. I couldn't believe how quickly they were able to treat and diagnose me and how much worse it could have been. I am so grateful for everyone's help, their recommendations, and to Jay for getting me to the hospital so quickly.
Now, it's just settling in for a longer-than-I-wish recovery and focusing on a comeback once I can exercise again. For now, guess I just get to heal up and be a super fan for the next few weeks!
One organ lighter, another adventure survived,
Kristy Kreme, bloated post-op machine ;)
