Goodbye appendix and A10.

So, this is something I only have in books now.

This past Wednesday night, I came home from work and made one of my favorite dinners: gnocchi with homemade pesto cream sauce and fresh green beans. The basil and spinach I used for the pesto were a little past their prime, but they looked okay and tasted fine, so I thought I was okay. After dinner, I went to the gym for Group Power and a short run. It felt way harder than usual and I wasn't feeling so hot, but I chalked it up to being overfed. I went home intending to get a few things done before a very busy Thursday, but wound up going almost straight to bed.

At about 3am Thursday morning, I woke up to horrible abdominal cramping and nausea. My first thought was that the pesto was bad, and I cursed myself for making a double-batch. I took some Advil and managed to fall back asleep. When the alarm went off at 5:30am for boot camp, the nausea was gone, but the cramping was still there. At that point, I thought I might have re-pulled my abdominal muscle at the gym. I decided to skip boot camp and go into work a little late. I went to work around 1pm and immediately knew I had made a mistake because I felt awful. I felt so awful that I actually bailed on my last night of counseling at the Wendt Center- something I had not even considered that morning. I postponed my counseling appointments, made sure payroll was done at the office, and went home.

Thursday night, I talked to my mom about my symptoms and spent a great deal of time with my favorite doctor, Google (see previous post). My symptoms sounded a little like food poisoning, a little like a hernia, and a little like appendicitis, but not a lot like any of those. All I had was a dull pain and some fatigue. No nausea, no loss of appetite, no fever, and my belly wasn't tender to the touch. I considered going to the ER Thursday evening, but decided to wait one more night and see what happened.

Friday morning, I woke up to no change, so I called the doctor. He was able to take me right away, so I headed in at 9:30am. Apparently, doctors don't mess around with possible appendicitis. I 've never been seen so quickly before. I literally did not have time to sign in before they took me back. The doctor did a quick exam and sent me over to the ER just in case. He thought I probably had something fairly mild, like a UTI, but wanted to rule out appendicitis.

So, off to the ER I went. I had just signed in and taken a number when I ran into two friends from my church, one escorting the other who had terrible nausea. I felt awful for the sick person, because she looked terrible, but I was very touched to see her being escorted by a non-related church member. Its always great to see church people caring for one another like we should! The escort immediately took me under his wing as well, and sat with me while I waited and got my tests done.

At the ER, I spent several hours undergoing testing. I had to have a CT scan, which meant spending two hours drinking nausea-inducing contrast fluid while also being filled with IV contrast fluid. The big downside of this was that I had eaten nothing but a cereal bar all day and couldn't eat or drink in case it turned out I needed surgery. Being hungry did nothing for my pain or my nausea. The upside was my first experience with IV-delivered pain and nausea meds: that stuff works! I got the scan around 4pm and was told I would have to wait an hour for the results. By 4:30, though, a doctor came and told me I had acute appendicitis and would have to have my appendix removed ASAP.

By this time, my mom had come to join me. This was great because I've only had surgery once before and it definitely makes me nervous. I met my surgeon around 5pm and she put me right at ease: warm, laid-back, funny, and totally understanding about the fact that my first questions were about whether I could run my marathon on Oct. 31. The answer to that question is maybe; the surgeon thinks I can ease back to the gym in about a week and see how things go from there. So, there's a chance, which was a big relief to hear.

I had to wait a couple hours for an OR to be open, but once the surgeon got a room, the actual procedure was very fast. They gave me some valium at 7:30pm right before they wheeled me in to the OR. Thanks to the quick delivery via the IV, I hit the OR just loopy enough to speak my first thought aloud: "This looks like the morgue. I used to work there." They knocked me out after that.

I woke up in recovery sooner than anyone expected, feeling a little sore, but otherwise okay. By the time I got up to my room, I could walk around with fairly minimal assistance. I made it through the night with only one dose of pain meds and no real trouble except the after-effects of a catheter used during the surgery (yikes!). In the morning, I was able to eat some solid food and the surgeon told me I looked good and could head home. I was leaving the hospital by 10:30am.

So, now I'm home and doing pretty well. I have a pain prescription, but haven't needed it, and I was even feeling well enough to cook myself dinner. I am very dissapointed about not running my first A10 tomorrow or hosting my Jock Jams party. My buddies from a former job have been running the A10 every year since 2001 and this is the first year I've been fit enough to join them. Its a big milestone for me and I hate missing it. Still, I can't complain. I caught this thing before it got really bad and I'm so grateful for the fact that I'm fit enough to recover quickly. I am also very grateful for everyone who has called, texted, and emailed over the past two days! I hope to see you out on the roads again soon.  Finally, I'm grateful that neither pesto nor Group Power was the culprit in this illness, because I couldn't imagine my life without them.