Post by Nittanylizard on Oct 10, 2007 8:59:59 GMT -5
My family (parents, sister, and 2 nephews) were up visiting us this weekend for my older son's birthday. They came on Saturday, and were staying until Tuesday, since my sister's kids were off from school on Monday and Tuesday. It's about a 5-hour drive for them.
So on Sunday my sister starts feeling a little sick. Over the past year or so she was getting a lot of "stomach viruses", where she would get bad stomach pains that would progress to a dull ache, and end several hours later as tenderness in her right side. She'd been to the doctor a few months ago about it, but they didn't feel that it was anything unusual. By the next day she would be fine. Well, she felt really sick on Monday and ended up spending most of the day lying down and sleeping.
Overnight on Monday, she was in a lot of pain, so my husband was thinking maybe it was something more like her gallbladder, especially after she woke him up at midnight for more medicine when she was only halfway through the first dose. She took several Advil during the night and was still in a lot of pain, and considered waking Rich up a second time at 2am when she woke up and threw up, but by morning it was tapering back down to the dull ache.
They all left yesterday morning at 9:30, and her plan was to try and get in to see her regular doctor just in case it was something other than a stomach bug. She didn't even take any medication in the morning because she wasn't in that much pain anymore.
She gets home, her doctor's office gets her in, and he tells her it probably isn't her gallbladder because she isn't having pain there, but he wants her to go to the ER for a CT scan just to rule out appendicitis. So my sister drives back to my mom's house, and my mom takes her to the ER, who already know she's coming. Once they finally get her in and she gets looked at, she has to drink some junk for the CT scan, and then has to wait 2 hours for it to process before they can do the scan.
In the meantime, they do the bloodwork and urinalysis, which come back normal. So by midnight, after the scan is done, AnnMarie (my sister) and my mom are waiting around for the nurse to come in and tell them that she's got a stomach virus and can go home. Not.
She had appendicitis. My mom called me at 12:14 this morning to tell me they were trying to determine if they were going to do the surgery then, or wait until morning. At 1:20, my brother-in-law calls to say they've got her in surgery (the surgeon decided that they'd better do it right away after talking to radiology, so he went right over to the hospital to do it). They were done by 1:45am. It wasn't ruptured or perforated, so she will be in the hospital until tomorrow morning.
I just talked to her, and they've got her on some decent drugs. The nurse was just coming in to give her more when I was getting off the phone.
Moral of the story: If somebody tries to tell you that appendicitis doesn't come and go, don't believe them! I had a doctor rule out appendicitis for me once because 1) the bloodwork was okay, and 2) I was feeling a little better a few hours after arriving at the ER. I actually had a hernia at the time, but if the doctor last night had used those criteria to make the diagnosis for my sister, she would have gotten sent home with an inflamed appendix.
So, that was my family's long night. I slept from about 4:30 to 6:30am, when I had to get up to make lunches and all that good morning stuff.
Have a good day, everybody
.
Liz
So on Sunday my sister starts feeling a little sick. Over the past year or so she was getting a lot of "stomach viruses", where she would get bad stomach pains that would progress to a dull ache, and end several hours later as tenderness in her right side. She'd been to the doctor a few months ago about it, but they didn't feel that it was anything unusual. By the next day she would be fine. Well, she felt really sick on Monday and ended up spending most of the day lying down and sleeping.
Overnight on Monday, she was in a lot of pain, so my husband was thinking maybe it was something more like her gallbladder, especially after she woke him up at midnight for more medicine when she was only halfway through the first dose. She took several Advil during the night and was still in a lot of pain, and considered waking Rich up a second time at 2am when she woke up and threw up, but by morning it was tapering back down to the dull ache.
They all left yesterday morning at 9:30, and her plan was to try and get in to see her regular doctor just in case it was something other than a stomach bug. She didn't even take any medication in the morning because she wasn't in that much pain anymore.
She gets home, her doctor's office gets her in, and he tells her it probably isn't her gallbladder because she isn't having pain there, but he wants her to go to the ER for a CT scan just to rule out appendicitis. So my sister drives back to my mom's house, and my mom takes her to the ER, who already know she's coming. Once they finally get her in and she gets looked at, she has to drink some junk for the CT scan, and then has to wait 2 hours for it to process before they can do the scan.
In the meantime, they do the bloodwork and urinalysis, which come back normal. So by midnight, after the scan is done, AnnMarie (my sister) and my mom are waiting around for the nurse to come in and tell them that she's got a stomach virus and can go home. Not.
She had appendicitis. My mom called me at 12:14 this morning to tell me they were trying to determine if they were going to do the surgery then, or wait until morning. At 1:20, my brother-in-law calls to say they've got her in surgery (the surgeon decided that they'd better do it right away after talking to radiology, so he went right over to the hospital to do it). They were done by 1:45am. It wasn't ruptured or perforated, so she will be in the hospital until tomorrow morning.
I just talked to her, and they've got her on some decent drugs. The nurse was just coming in to give her more when I was getting off the phone.
Moral of the story: If somebody tries to tell you that appendicitis doesn't come and go, don't believe them! I had a doctor rule out appendicitis for me once because 1) the bloodwork was okay, and 2) I was feeling a little better a few hours after arriving at the ER. I actually had a hernia at the time, but if the doctor last night had used those criteria to make the diagnosis for my sister, she would have gotten sent home with an inflamed appendix.
So, that was my family's long night. I slept from about 4:30 to 6:30am, when I had to get up to make lunches and all that good morning stuff.
Have a good day, everybody
.Liz
