Appendicitis & Surgery

I guess it wouldn’t be right to start off the month without a hospital visit.

It all started Monday night. It was 8 o’clock and Jeff was eating mini wheat’s when he felt sharp pains on his side. Around 10pm, we went to the bedroom to lie down. Hunter cuddled up next to Jeff and put his head on his stomach. Hunter would not leave Jeff’s side which is really unusually. Usually, he’ll cuddle for five minutes and then he is done. So I went to bed while Jeff was struggling to fall asleep. He thought it was really bad gas but at midnight he just knew it was his appendix. He got me out of bed (I had only been asleep an hour) and told me we were going to the ER. The drive was nerve-wreaking not knowing if Jeff was going to pass out before I got to the hospital. His face was so white! When we got to the hospital, they admitted us immediately. We had to wait two hours after Jeff starting drinking some gross liquid before he could take a CT scan.While we were waiting, Wally and Jim came to the hospital to give Jeff a blessing and kept us company for a while. At 2pm, Jeff went in for the first CT scan. At 2:30am, the doctor came back and said the test was inconclusive. Jeff had to take another test at 4pm which came back positive for appendicitis.

At 5am, we were sent to a room upstairs where we were able to get about an hour of sleep. At 7:30am, we went downstairs for pre-op where we met the anesthesiologist. They went over the surgery information. At 9am, I walked with the surgeon, anesthesiologist, the nurses, and Jeff towards the operating room. The waiting room had a screen that showed the progress of the procedure which was really nice. After the procedure, the surgeon came out and told me that everything went smoothly. So I went back upstairs to the room to wait for Jeff to come out of recovery.

At 11am, the nurse brought Jeff back to the room. Jeff was very loopy. When the doctors asked if he knew where he was, his response was, “Tacoma”. It was because the room smelled bad. He also asked the nurse, “Do I get a video? I want a video. Can I see my appendix?” It was pretty funny. When I asked him if he wanted his wedding ring back, he said, “Yeah, I don’t want any of the cute nurses thinking I’m available.” It was pretty cute. The rest of the afternoon he slept until he was discharged at 3pm.

When we got home, we both slept. I had been awake since 7am Monday and only got two hours of sleep at this point. I woke up around 8pm so I went to the store and bought food for Jeff. We both went back to sleep at 10pm. I woke up this morning exhausted but decided to go into work. While at work, I tried calling Jeff but he never answered. Finally, at 5pm he called me and said that he had woken up for the first time today. Poor guy….at least he’ll never have appendicitis ever again.