Pethidine Pleasure

Far out! It was my appendix that caused me the problems in Melbourne! I started having similar symptoms but not nearly as bad on Tuesday night, but I also had this twinge on my right side. I thought I had giardia or something.

I just cruised along still going to radiology teaching on Weds and Thurs and then it got really freaky! I saw my GP at around 3pm and even then she wasn't convinced it was appendicitis so she gave me a letter to go into hospital if it got worse. Even on the drive home, I was starting to feel pain in the car everytime I went over a bump and I got the feeling something sinister was going on.... by 7pm I was chucking up all over again and I suspected my appendix was past its due by date. I then initiated ondansetron seeking behaviours and got Mum to take me to Auckland Hospital.

Good grief the agony. The nausea and vomiting made me want to roll around, but the pain was forcing me to lie still. No escape from the torture!! Then it was time for another 20g IV cannula! More stinging and this time they took bloods so it kept stinging as they sucked the blood out of my antecubital fossa!

I said that maxalon has been useless in the past and asked for my beloved ondanstron, but I only got cyclizine! NO GOOD! After a few more minutes of agony, I begged for my ondansetron and finally got it, but to my surprise it didn't help at all!!!! Oh no!! I'm in this stupid vomiting state for ever! The nurse then got some maxalon and surprisingly enough it actually worked!! OMG the drug that's supposed to be useless actually worked! Oh well, at least I got my taxes back in anti-emetics.

After being sufficiently poked and prodded by a House Officer and Registrar the diagnosis of appendicitis was confirmed. Apart from behaving from an excellent patient giving a good history, other evidence included spiking temps, WCC 15 and ESR 8. Also had K+ 2.9 due to the vomiting. I signed the consent for the execution of my appendix.

Due to an emergency case taking up most of the night, I wasn't operated on until first thing on Friday morning. My gosh it was a weird experience. Just a week earlier I was in Melbourne seeing other patients given the talk about the risk of post-op nausea/vomiting/confusion, heart attacks, strokes, death... or even worse... the dreadded chipped front teeth!!! Suddenly I found I was in Auckland operating theatre admissions bay receiving exactly the same talk from an SHO. There was even a 4th yr medical student to complete the picture!

I get wheeled into theatre, slide myself on to the table and in the process of being connected up to the montoring. Then I'm told that my parents are coming in! W T F!?!?!??! Somehow someone decided it would be cool for them to get changed into the hat and shoes and gown and come in to see me before the operation!!! Of all the time I've spent in theatre, that has to be the weirdest thing ever!!!! Like in paeds, I can understand that parents go in and stuff, but this was just absolutely bonkers!!! I'm just having my appendix out!!! It's not like I'm having a chunk of my brain removed!! (even tho some of you might think that's a good idea)

So anyway, with that ordeal over, it's time to get preoxygenated by the medical student. Then I had the fentanyl followed by the propofol went in which didn't sting at all! OMG that was such an awesome feeling those split seconds before my eyes closed. The experience was quite surreal. I felt so perfectly relaxed and happy. Wow....

My next memory is in recovery which is a shame because I wanted to know what it felt like having the tube pulled out just for the sake of curiosity. I had 16mg of morphine on board so I was pretty drowsy. I have vague memories of the PACU nurse handing back to my ward nurse but my next real memory is seeing my classmates visit me on the ward. Thanks for coming!! I really appreciate it! Sorry I wasn't very good for conversation!! Later that afternoon I also had a visit from mi² which was really nice although I still had a lot of morphine on board and probably looked absolutely terrible.

Part of the reason why I probably looked absolutely terrible was that I couldn't pee! OMG that was the weirdest experience. I was fairly sure that my bladder was full, especially because I hadn't been for almost 10 hrs and received tons of IV fluids, but it was quite hard to tell because of the pain. When I went to the loo, nothing happened! Absoultely nothing! It was quite bizzare! The intetion was there, but there wasn't any cooperation from down below. I even tried walking around... different positions.... ok, so you don't need to know all the details, but basically I just couldn't pee. Fortunately, the nurse threatened me with a catheter and after a couple of hours the water works kicked back into action again.... phew!!

The next couple of days were pretty dull. Every few hours the nurses would come and bug me for my "pain score", often waking me up in the process. This is supposed to be a number between 1 and 10 which represents a range from almost no pain to the worst pain imaginable. This "pain score" really started to irritate me! How on earth am I supposed to know what the worst pain imaginable!! This is the worst pain I've ever had, but I'm sure being in the middle of a nuclear explosion is much more painful! Even more stupidly, it seemed to be used to indicate what pain meds I was given, so I ended up trying to second guess what number I had to say in order to get the drugs I wanted. They also asked what my pain score was when I moved, but I often felt like saying, "I have no freakin idea but I was pain free while I was sleeping!!! Now give me morphine so I can go back to my blissful slumber!!!"

Over the weekend, I also had problems with nausea. Man that tramadol is really nasty stuff. I hated it!!! I'm sure the IV metronidazole didn't help either cos I always felt much worse after it had gone in. The other thing that didn't help was the food! YUCK stupid lite diet!!! Every time I lifted the lid off the plate, I had to suppress the gag reflex. What's with the melted vanilla ice cream! It tasted like chilled animal fat!! So disgusting!!! The beans were boiled to a mush and the bread had been stale for at least 2 days. Even the jelly tasted yuck!! Like how can you mess up jelly!!!

By Monday morning I was well and truly sick of being in hospital. I was still really really sore and quite nauseous but all I wanted to do was go home. I felt I could cope with regular panadol and I had stopped spiking temps for 24 hrs so I could take oral antibiotics. So even though I was still nauseous and not really eating properly, I felt there was nothing much more the hospital could do and I might as well be miserable at home than in the hospital.

Once I got home, I felt immediately better. It's funny how the hospital promotes sickness behaviours. Just being in a more normal environment made me feel more human. Having Mum's food also helped a lot.

So that's my hospital experience!! So many words I could use to describe it... unexpected... scary... interesting... educational... I wouldn't say it was fun, but since it had to happen, I'm glad to have experienced being a patient for once. I have a whole new respect for what patients have to go through. Even for a "simple" appendicitis I found it a pretty hair raising adventure. Imagine what it's like for patients with really serious conditions and have no idea what's going on!

One last comment before I finish this extremely long post - a huge thank you to all of the visitors and people who sent cards and txt messages. I really did appreciate it all even if I wasn't able to reply or say thank you properly!!!