The Anatomy of Pain That Gets Everyone's Attention

All day on Monday I just did not feel right.  I had this dull pain in my lower right abdomen.  It wasn't bad but I would explain it as annoying.  

After school was over, I had to go to Huntington for my first day of training from 4-6.  By the time it ended, I was feeling a little worse and the pain had advanced to uncomfortable.  Then, as I was driving home, I suddenly felt nauseated and had to pull over to throw up.  

When I got home, I googled my symptoms and 'appendicitis' came up.  Great.  Another symptom was low grade fever so I took my temp and ---99.8.   After a bit, nothing was getting better so I called my principal and told her I would probably need to see a doctor the next day.  Of course, she did not see the logic in waiting and tried to convince me to go immediately and I told her I would think about it. 

She contacted our curriculum coordinator whose son had an appendicitis a couple months ago and soon I had a text from her begging me to go to ER also. She had me so scared of a burst appendix that  I told her I would. And I was all set go but three things made me change my mind.

1). I had taken Tylenol and no longer had a fever 
2). I was no longer nauseated
3). As long as I lied still, I was not in pain so I knew I could make it through the night sleeping w/o pain.  

Every time I got up in the middle of the night, I hoped the pain would be gone but then I would move and my body would tell me it was still there! 

So first thing this morning, I headed for an urgent care by my house but it was closed.  I went to another and there was not a seat available to even sit down so headed in to the Emergency Room at Dr. Phillips hospital.  I had never been there for myself but had had good experiences bringing Zack there a couple times.  

As soon as I was in a room, an IV was started, I had blood taken and then they gave me a bag of fluids.  Hilariously, they thought my tiny veins were due to dehydration.  I laughed and said, "no, that is normal for me." But I got the entire bag anyway (and then had to use the bathroom every hour after that). 

The doctor came in and pushed on my stomach until he found "the tender spot" and I nearly jumped off the bed.  A CT scan was ordered...yippee.  I gotta say, I really felt stupid being wheeled to the CT scan room on the bed.  I could have walked just fine.  

An hour later, I had an answer.  Not an appendicitis but diverticulitis.  I had heard of this before but, to me, it always sounded like something old people get.  Needless to say I felt very old. 

The doctor explained that normally they admit people with this diagnosis overnight to administer IV antibiotics and monitor them but because I was local and all my other blood work looked good, he was willing to let me go home if I promised to come back for a second round of treatment tomorrow and if I was okay with all this. Oh gosh...heck yes!   I did  not want to spend the night in the hospital.  

I had to wait around for another hour to get a bag of IV antibiotics and then, armed with a prescription for two different antibiotics and a pain medicine, I was finally released...5.5 hours after walking in. 

I hope to be back to school on Thursday.