Doctor: "Symptoms?"
Me: "Fever, naseau, flu-like feeling"
Doctor: "Sounds like the flu"
Me: "Are you sure it's not adult-onset Still's Disease? Because on yesterday's episode of Mystery Diagnosis......"
Anyway, two weeks ago, I developed dibilitating abdominal pain that felt like impending doom that lasted for 2 days. But each day after I felt better and better. So naturally instead of going to the insta-care I decided to diagnose myself on WebMD. After I listed all of my symptoms and used their model to locate my pain, WebMD suggested that I had one of three things: appendicitis, cancer, or a peptic ulcer--all of which are very serious, all of which further scared me away from going to a doctor. I was mentally preparing myself to live with the pain for the rest of my life because I really didn't want to go to the doctor because then he would tell me I had to have surgery or take medicines or both! Finally Isaac locked me out of the house with my purse and car keys, and it was cold so I went to the insta-care seeking shelter. While I was there I thought I might as well see the doctor. Two days later I ended up getting a CT scan. When I showed up for the appointment, I had to gag down a QUART of barium which is exactly like Mylanta, and I laid on this table that slid through this giant ring. Well two hours later a nurse called me and said I needed to get to the American Fork hospital immediately--they had a surgeon on-call and I needed to have my appendix out.
When I got to the surgeon's office, he said he didn't think I had appendicitis. He said that you know when someone has appendicitis because they are in excruciating pain, but I looked fine. He had four different radiologists look at my scan, and based on the scan alone, they all said it was appendicitis. But after the doctor told the radiologists that I was walking around and showed no apparent discomfort, no one thought I had appendicitis. My first thought when the doctor told me this was "Oh no! I'm going to wind up on Mystery Diagnosis!" Based on the scans alone, it looked like I needed to have surgery so I went under the knife. And it went well I guess. The surgery got rid of the first pain and replaced it with another kind. The worst pain wasn't even the incisions--it was the air bubbles under my ribs and collar bone. They say they fill your abdomen so full of air to do the laproscopic surgery that it looks like your pregnant and when they push it all out it sounds like a deflating balloon. Gross... and awesome. I know Isaac loves me because he didn't want me to have to use my stomach muscles in order to get up out of bed so for 3 days he lifted me out of bed and stood me up every time. That's true love.
And I decided to include a picture. This isn't mine. I vaguely remember asking the nurse if I could take mine home because Isaac told me to ask (which is true) but when I found a urine cup in my belongings bag, all I found were my earrings. So I guess the nurse said no. It would have been cooler if I had found my appendix. Good news though--they say an inflamed appendix weighs about half a pound.
I knew I felt trimmer.
