Emergency appendectomy, Mine

When I had my hernia done (I had just got off General Surgery as a JMS [Junior Medical Student] and called my old boss to fix it), in Recovery, the nurse gave me 1 mG of Morphine. Next thing I know, she's yelling my name and reminding me I have to breath. I opened my eyes and my sats were in the 80's. (Doctor talk for O2 percentage, should be like 99%, not in the 80's). Why in the world anyone would want to abuse that stuff is beyond me, but drugs affect people in different ways.

Eric, you got 6 weeks down time. No wrenchin', lifting anything heavier than a gallon of milk, sports, etc. Just sit back and relax. Ahh, what do you mean by "stomach muscle"? The stomach does have some smooth muscle in it, but it is in your stomach, not below your belly button.

I think that he's talking about his abdominal muscles. Take your time healing. Don't do like I did and get the toboggan out with your friends. Thankfully, the staples held through that adventure (though the incision did re-open)

Here are the pics:

it is my inside so don't look if you are sqeamish:

http://s371.photobucket.com/albums/oo152/43577/appendectomy/

Cool!

Glad it all ended well. I remember reading somewhere or other that in a lot of cases docs find seeds and stuff like that in the removed appendix. Yuck.

I'm exactly opposite on Demerol and stuff like that, my dentist gave me a handful of pills for me to take before my appointment. They gave me a little bit of a buzz and that was about it. I walked into the office that morning and the dental assistant said 'Did you take your pills like you were supposed to?' and I said yeah. Her eyes got big, she called the dentist over the intercom and said 'We have a problem'.

Congrats on a good operation, and be thankful. When I had mine ten years ago, I fortunately had great doctors, because I really needed them! I had some discomfort, and my wife convinced me to go to the emergency room - lived in a small city back then, so no big wait.

The docs scratched their heads because I didn't show very much pain to the push test, but figured it had to be my appendix, so out it came. Well, that was the plan. When they got in there, it was gone - it had ruptured, so they had to do the big slice (maybe 8 inches) and go looking for all the little pieces. They didn't stitch or staple it up, just packed it with gauze (which they replaced regularly) to let it heal gently in case they had to go back in. Can't even see the scar today.

Then I developed what they call an Illius - which is your digestive tract shutting down. So here comes intravenous feeding, along with as much walking around the nurses' station as I could stand to jump-start the ol' digestive tract. That took another 3 or 4 days.

With all this trauma, certain, um, areas decided to swell up tremendously - like literally the size of a good grapefruit. Not fun..

In all I was in the hospital 14 days and off work for 6 weeks. The doctors told me that if this had happened 30 years previously I would not have made it. They also couldn't believe that I wasn't in severe pain. So these days I figure that I don't feel pain as much as most folks, and I am careful to pay attention to things.

Not trying to be gross or one-up anyone, just letting you know to be thankful, and everyone else - don't ignore the signs. If you think you may have an appendix problem, get it checked out.

I had mine out when I was about six or seven. I dont remeber a thing. I still have the scar.

EricM wrote: I got there at noon saw the triage nurse at 1:13 PM roomed at 3:30PM saw the ER Doctor at about 4:50. The did blood tests and a CT Scan of my Abdomen at about 8PM. THe CT Scan was emailed to Australia to be red, I am not joking, AUSTRALIA. The CT results came back at about 8:40 and the ER doctor said "we are taking it out, I am contacting surgery"

Holy E36 M3?!?!? Where are you, so I know never to visit. I've been the ER at least 5 times in the last few years (always for a family member) and never experienced anything near those wait times. The wait for the CT scan seems really excessive.

We never used to scan for an appy. Shoot a plain film or two, push a bit, CBC doesn't hurt but they do that to anything coming in the door, then off to the OR. Now, females, they're tough. You never know what they have wrong. Could be all kinds of things from STD's to ectopic pregnancy to endometriosis to appy, etc. so you have to start out with a pregnancy test, pelvic exam and go from there.

I wouldn't be surprised if they did scan more today. I mean, you have these scanners and they're just sitting there, so, WTF.

CrackMonkey wrote:

EricM wrote: I got there at noon saw the triage nurse at 1:13 PM roomed at 3:30PM saw the ER Doctor at about 4:50. The did blood tests and a CT Scan of my Abdomen at about 8PM. THe CT Scan was emailed to Australia to be red, I am not joking, AUSTRALIA. The CT results came back at about 8:40 and the ER doctor said "we are taking it out, I am contacting surgery"

Holy E36 M3?!?!? Where are you, so I know never to visit. I've been the ER at least 5 times in the last few years (always for a family member) and never experienced anything near those wait times. The wait for the CT scan seems really excessive.

One of my kidney stone episodes involved a hospital visit. The referring doc didn't know exactly what was wrong with me but suspected a spleen problem (recent motorcycle crash) so he called ahead for an appointment at 11:30. I walked (okay,staggered) into the hospital at about 11:25.

At 3:15 PM or thereabouts (and no that is NOT an exaggeration) they came and got me, took me in for a CT scan. It appeared the CT machine was having conniptions so they sent me to Xray, this took another hour. Then they kept calling me back in about every 15 minutes or so for another X ray but no one would tell me why.

At about 6:30 or so, I got up (the wife tried to stop me but my patience had reached its end) and went looking for the doc. I found him sitting in a office talikng golf. I stood there and sweated all over his desk and asked him 'WTF is wrong with me?' He says 'you appear to have a kidney stone' and says I just need to pass the thing. So I said 'gimme some pain pills' and he says 'can't do that'. He said I had to come back through the ER to get a prescription for pain meds. Yeah, like THAT is gonna happen.

By this time the wife had found me and I asked her if she still had the pain pills from her recent gum surgery, she said yes. I said 'we are going home' and the doc says 'you can't do that'. Oh really? Come on over to my house and try to stop me.

This all happened at Trident Hospital on Highway 78 in North Charleston, SC.

So you don't have the morphine pics?

You know I keep getting pain in my appendix and I keep ignoring it...I should probably stop doing that.

The ER was busy. Those were not normal wait times. All doctors offices had been closed since Wednesday (new years eve) so by Saturday the ER gets full.

I am in central Illinois.

that answers some f the questions posed by some of the posts.