Further adventures in medical land. Part 1.

 

“Mistake will be repeated until lesson learned”, Tall Boss used to preach to us.  And so it came to pass that I needed to learn again.  The hard way.

Picture this.  Wednesday evening.  Indigestion.  Fairly bad. A bit of pain.  I’m ignoring it.  Very Hemingway. I also did something you shouldn’t do.  I Googled symptoms of inflamed appendix, because of a pain lower right.   Turns out according to the web, I had such a thing.  No worries, we all know you shouldn’t Google symptoms.   Else we will always have every disease on earth.  But my gut told me (and as it is quite substantial, I normally listen, Or at least give it a hearing.) don’t eat or drink anything.  Because of the operation. For the thing I probably don’t have.

I dressed for work, drinking some stomach cramp pills to help.  Pills didn’t last long inside.  Called in to work to say I might not make it.  As I lay in bed again, checking more boxes of the symptoms, I wondered which is best local hospital?  Phoned a colleague.  And also, by the way, what is the ambulance’s number?

“Should I come and get you?” 

No, No.  If it gets worse, I’ll call.  Turns out a few voices in heads at office prevailed and I get a call.

 “I’m coming to get you.”, Millwright-Engineer says. 

By now even I realise this is the better option. Thinking myself very smart I pack a powerbank, phone charger and bizarrely one extra pair of underwear.  I am hospital ready.

So we hang around at casualty for a while. Blood tests, urine tests, discuss symptoms, get asked about pain.  (Shouldn’t we discuss the scale first?, the scientist in me ask) Anyhow, I’m OK.  Don’t need pain meds.  Still staying off the water.  Just in cases.

“You need a scan.” 

Desperately I hope I fit into the human machine.  Because the one for rhinos is at the zoo and 80km away.  Luckily I fitted.  So now we can only wait for the results of the scan and those blood tests. The urine test revealed nothing.

Enter stage right a very young doctor.  Surgeon it says on his shirt.  So maybe just good looking and not so young. 

“What are you here for?” 

We agreed it is my appendix. Which has started to “leak”.  The interweb was right! I start looking for the nurse who made the painkiller offer.  Offer still valid?  Poor Millwright-Engineer, having stayed all the time, got my credit card, paid for a few admin things, earphones and filled in forms. He stuck around until I got taken to ICU for operation prep. Left his number. He was now my next of kin.  By now, in what will become a theme, the first of many nurses was trying to get a drip in me, struggling with veins hidden beneath the fat.

Part 1 ends with me hunch backing my way to ICU clutching an IV drip stand.

Lessons up to this point. You can’t do it on your own.  People are good. Fat doesn’t help.