I am fucking BACK, bitches!
Fucking 3 weeks and I still need home care until the weekend. Honestly, I barely remember all the details.
The pain started Monday, 4 weeks ago. Basically where the appendix is. It stayed relatively weak until Friday where I had the kind of food that upsets the intestinal tract. I barely slept that night. Saturday was weird, but over the course of the day I felt much better. I was even in shape to go out on Saturday, I barely felt anything. Sunday it was a bit stronger again, Monday no change. Monday evening I wanted to test if I can eat a certain type of food so I know my limits. In the middle of the night the pain woke me up and kept me until morning. At work it was still painful, but I was ok. Though at noon I told my boss I should probably go home. Good I did, the pain became stronger until about 4 PM. Then it was ok again. Usually I was able to milden the pain by crouching together or changing positions, but later on Tuesday it started to hurt again and this time it would not change in intensity whatever I did. I got scared and asked a friend to get me to the hospital. This is where the fun begins.
It took them about 2 hours to confirm that it was the appendix. During that time the pain became stronger, even so strong that they gave me a temporary bed where I could crouch together again. The pain was so intense that my whole body was shaking at times. On a scale from 1 to 10, I'd rate this a 9. I threw up 4 times because of the pain, the first time just before they took my X-rays. They also did an ultrasound check. After almost 3 hours I got a bed and everything.
The first week was horrible. The first day I was much in pain. Second day was better, but because I got a bit of a fever, it was messing with me hard. I also threw up from time to time. It was usually at the evening. During the nights I barely had sleep. Sometimes it was my own pain, sometimes it were the growls of pain from another patient in my room (who passed away on day 6 or 7), sometimes it was the stench of stool because of yet another patient. On day 7 and 8 I was able to eat and they did a CT on me. The antibiotics were obviously helping since I felt so much better, but then they said I would need surgery on Thursday.
Surgery apparently went fine, but when I woke up from the anesthesia, I was already feeling the pain. It was burning my whole abdomen. The surgery was at 11 AM or so and I have no idea how long it took. I only remember that I came to after 6 PM where the pain had finally resided enough for me to be able to pick up my cellphone and write a text. Between my waking up and 6 PM I was in a mix of pain, delirium and whatnot. I barely have any recollection of the events that took place except that I heard the doctor telling me that the surgery went fine. I only remember that I was growling of pain myself on that day. I'd rate that pain a 8/10, but I was already so exhausted physically and mentally that I could barely take it. I realized that I had a tube that went through my nose right into my stomach. Quite uncomfortable, but not painful.
Day 2 was a bit better. I realized that I had 2 drainage tubes in my abdomen, one on each side. Later that day a nurse helped me get up so I could go to the toilet and piss. At that moment I realized how much of an impact the surgery had on me. The rest of the day was in pain again, but the growling was at a minimum. At the end I became sick again and had to throw up (mostly just because of air trapped in my stomach which caused me the problems usually) and the tube in my nose wasn't helping. This is where I realized that potential throwing up will be very painful. Thank god they pulled the tube from my nose.
3rd day was a bit better yet again, but at that evening I felt horrible. I had to throw up again (probably also because of the soup during lunch). I had to prepare for some serious pain. I tried and tried, but couldn't do anything for half an hour. I went back to bed and slept maybe for half an hour (brushing my teeth and refreshing helped a bit). But at one point I just woke up, felt the whole shit in my stomach brewing up and got to the toilet quickly. I was yet another 8/10 pain, except that this time I was fully conscious and felt it all. At one point I almost lost consciousness because the pain was so intense and it was not continuous. After that I felt much better. I went back to bed and fell asleep. Somewhere early in the morning around 4 AM I woke up again and I was sick again. Somehow I made it until the morning (it was Easter), but in the morning I couldn't take it anymore. I went to the toilet and tried throwing up again, but it didn't work. Then I noticed red stuff (not just the usual yellowish-transparent liquid) in my drainage bags. The thoughts that rushed through my mind were that they messed up during surgery (since this country pretty much sucks and it truly filled with many incompetent people) and that I had internal bleedings. I thought that I might another surgery which would mean another bag of pain like 3 days earlier. At that point I thought I was going to die. Surprisingly I didn't panic physically at all. Mentally I was panicking a bit. I begged that if there is a god, that he please help me in any way he can, that I couldn't take it any more. After I calmed down after a few minutes, I thought drinking some fresh cold water might help me throw up like last night. I do not know if there is a god, but if there is one, this is the 2nd time in my life that he heard me. I went back to bed and the water made the sickness go away. The red stuff was blood that got out during surgery already. It just had to be drained out, nothing special.
From here on things slowly improved. I had to fight the sickness several more days. I usually tried getting up so I would burp out the trapped air, but the air was bad in the room. Yesterday I realized it must have been the other old guy who passed away 2 nights ago as the air was fine yesterday. Worst thing, because of the 2 guys next to the window, the window couldn't be kept open. They claimed how it was freezing. It was quite hot in the room actually and I'm usually a person who gets cold quickly myself.
Aside from that, they opened me up vertically, next to my belly button. The cut is about 15 cm long (6 inches). They butchered me up badly. When I saw the wound the first time they took off that big white thing it looked very unprofessional IMO. And it look like it was as there are 2 "defects" (that's how the doctor called it) during the heal process through which now more of that yellow liquid leaves my body still (it was bloody in the beginning, but switched to yellow again). These two things basically look like flesh indents without skin. This is causing me pain where I cough, sneeze or laugh hard and it still prevents me from walking fully upright without any pain and having to hold my hand on my abdomen. Fucking butchers.
Now I am here, finally out of that... I don't know what to call it. That's all that matters. At least the staff there made the place more bearable. There were a couple of really, really nice and caring people who took care of me. In the earlier days it also helped me a lot that loads of my friends were visiting and my mom came by on an every day basis (except for Thursday when I had surgery until Tuesday since she was out of town). I think it was better, because I have no idea how she would have taken it when she saw me in that state with all those tubes and shit.
Misc. stuff:
- Food was generally crappy and I am talking from an absolute point of view here. A few times the food was so bad that the tastiest part of the meal was the piece of bread I had. It was that bad and tasteless. There were 2 or 3 times where the food was decent, though.
- There were a couple of cute young nurses. I was working one of them pretty well. Yesterday I made a comment on how she's trying to keep me there for herself and she was laughing. So I said that I should probably take her number for the effort. She asked me where I lived and she told me where she usually goes out. That was cleverly transmitted information, because when I told her to give me her number this morning, she said she isn't allowed and I when I asked if that is because of the codex, she said yes. Even though surprised that I had the balls to actually ask, she liked the fact that I did. Well, she's already given me the info I need to find her. I'll see what happens since I usually don't go to those clubs often but to a few other clubs in the same neighborhood. She had a nice piece of ass. I'd love to see how she looks like in a dress.
What I learned?
- Two deaths and even though I was obviously sympathetic about it, it didn't even phase me. Two people died next to me and I was like nothing happened. Everybody who visited me afterwards and who I told what happened were a bit shocked. I was surprised that they were shocked and I wasn't.
- There were a few moments where I asked myself "Would I prefer death now so the pain stops?", but the answer was always no.
- Another patient in my room had a surgery yesterday. It was a really very simple one, but he seemed to be in a quite a bit of pain. That is, he wasn't in that much pain, his pain threshold was just low. This is where I realized that my pain threshold had to be insanely high. A ruptured appendix is supposed to cause crippling pain (which I would obviously rate 10/10 by the sound of it), yet the pain that I had on Friday and Tuesday before the hospital I'd rate 7/10, maybe, just maybe 8/10. Plus the only moment where I almost gave in was when I panicked about internal bleeding. Everything else was... manageable.
- I learned to appreciate life even more. Was it worth it? Hell, no. I paid a ridiculously high price for a little bit of experience and finding out that I'm mentally quite strong (which I already knew because I trained myself in the past 2 years) and appreciating life just a bit more. But what is done is done and I'll make the best out of it.
- I might have been 2-3 days prior to death if I hadn't been hospitalized. I thought about it a little and it gave me a bit of a new perspective.
- I used to have an almost-phobia against needles when I was a teenager. As far as I remember it was still there a couple of years ago. This time, nothing. It's gone. And it didn't disappear during my stay in the hospital, no, I realized that it must have been gone for some time already when I got my first injection at the hospital.
Summary: If pain in the lower right abdomen persists for more than a day, GO SEE A FREAKING DOCTOR IMMEDIATELY! Appendix removal is a simple surgery and you should be out in 2-3 days. If you let it rupture and the infection spreads, you will probably have to go through the same shitload of pain and stress that I had to. Don't be stupid. The chances are very high that it's the appendix and this will not go away by itself. Do something before it's too late.