I woke up the morning of William and Kate's wedding with my lower abdomen just generally hurting like hell. It had hurt intermittently for about ten days before that -- I'd been to the doctor and she'd declared it a bladder infection. But that morning, the pain was enough for me to be scared. When my ob/gyn couldn't find anything (I live almost across the street from her office -- yes, it's convenient as hell), I went to the emergency room. I started drinking contrast liquid for a CAT scan at 2pm. I had the CAT scan at 5pm. At 5:30, the doctors told me that my appendix had already burst and obviously, they'd need to operate as soon as possible.
Most appendectomies these days are laparoscopic -- they make several small holes and pull the appendix out of one -- and the patient goes home the next day. In my case, that wasn't going to work -- they couldn't find my appendix on the scan. "The surgery will probably take about an hour," the surgeon said. "You'll be in the hospital for four or five days, and recovery will take four to six weeks."
I'd never had surgery. I'd always been afraid of it. Do you remember that dumb horror movie with Hayden Christensen where people under anesthesia are just awake enough to hear voices and feel pain, but not awake enough to let anyone know? Thinking about that has kept me awake nights. So much so, in fact, that I couldn't even fake bravery when I realized I'd be dealing with that possibility. I told everyone who would listen how scared I was. I called my husband and asked him to come to the hospital, even though I knew he'd likely have to bring our ten year old daughter along. Even though I knew she would be very upset (she was), and that I'd catch hell from certain quarters for a spectacularly bad parenting decision (I did, and probably will for a while). One of the nurses told me something that helped me keep my cool a little more around my daughter, though: "It's like getting into a plane. The fear is all about losing control."
I tried to remember as many email addresses as I could, for letting people know and cancelling things and just generally pushing through daily minutiae. I rely very heavily on Gmail, so remembering addresses was a challenge. There were omissions, and there were weird information channels. If you learn nothing else from this blog post: Create a publicly or at least semi-privately accessible list of email addresses and contact information in case of not just emergency, but general notification.
I went into the operating room at about 7:30. I remember putting my left arm on one armrest, and being told to put my right arm on the other. Just a moment passed, and I opened my eyes. "Hello," I heard someone say, and I croaked back "Hi." The surgery had taken four hours -- the surgeon had cleaned up a messy explosion that he estimated had happened a week previously. He sent the mess to Pathology. The day before I was released, Pathology found all the pieces of my appendix.
* * *
I stayed in the hospital for six days. I have all kinds of notes from the experience. Most of them are bitching, which is unfair because the surgical ward staff at my town's hospital were incredibly patient and kind. But I was exhausted and loopy and had been in pain even before the surgery, so that's what came out. I wanted a glass of water. I wanted the room to be cold. I wanted it to be time to click the morphine button again. I wanted a shower even though I was afraid to stand for that long. I wanted my various seventysomething roommates to be released within ten minutes of their arrival, because they came very close to making me lose my temper more than once. I wanted to sit up without having to use the adjustable bed. I wanted my mom. The day I went to the ER was exactly one year after she went to the ER, and my current "full recovery" date is the first anniversary of her death.
I did eventually get the water, the cool room, the morphine, the shower. These days, I get back little things very gradually...often enough that the bitching has dropped off considerably. But I'm not brave, and I love to complain. I adore complaining. Soon enough, it will piss me off that I can't drive or sleep at night without meds or move quickly or wear pants that actually fit me. Even though the people around me are extraordinarily kind and patient.
* * *
Although mine is now exorcised bioshrapnel, I've been thinking about what it would mean to write from the appendix. It's not particularly salacious -- the closest I can get is telling you that I now know firsthand about the existence of Tylenol suppositories. It's not about anyone wresting control from me -- it's closer to the less fashionable You Did This To Yourself. But it's not low stakes, either. When my appendix burst, life could have gone one of several ways. Had peritonitis set in instead of an abscess, I would not be writing this blog entry. When I learned that my appendix had burst, my life didn't pass before my eyes. But I thought about all of my half-finished stuff, lying around. I also thought about how I wanted to know what happens next, in every possible way. When I was wheeled into the operating room (which looked more like my father's workshop than anything I've seen on TV), I wondered if I would be a different person when I was on the other side of that tiny, one-breath, hello moment. Part of me wants to say that it's too soon to say...but in truth we all change, all the time. So just like the pain pills and endless sweatpants and terrible television and enormous antibiotics, I need to just suck it up.
