Darn appendix..

[JTK]

It's been a rough week. My darling bride wasn't feeling well most of last week. It started with a stomach flu of sorts, then abdominal pain. While I was at work Sunday, she called me.. "I think I need to go to the hospital". We've been together 25yrs and have 4 young kids. She's never asked this before, even when she was in labor, and two of those kids came so fast, she had them with zero pain meds.

Long story short, her appendix "perforated". She's shown such minimal sign of infection, other than lots of pain, that they're leaving it as-is and treating her with antibiotics and pain meds, rather than disturb the surrounding bowel tissue. Doc says, when the appendix ruptures, there's no appendix to remove, just infectious material if need-be. You always heard those horror stories of ruptured appendix, and what people went through. I guess it varies! I had mine out 30yrs ago and have a huge scar from it. They don't do that anymore either.

Not fun. She's got to stay in the hospital for monitoring. I'm attempting to hold the position of Mr. Mom and having a rough go for sure.

 

[Trav]

Sorry to hear that. Hope everything will be ok with her. Prayers sent.

 

[MolaKule]

Wow.

Please tell your wife we're praying for her fast recovery.

Hang in there Mr. Mom. Ms mom probably needs a little rest anyway.

 

[OneEyeJack]

Remember, it's 220, 221, whatever it takes (line from the movie Mr. Mom).

 

[440Magnum]

My thoughts and prayers for you and your wife. My daughter's appendix decided to go bad 2 weeks before she had to head back for her junior year at college and while I was out of town. No rupture, so they removed it the same day and she has 3 small scars from the laproscopic procedure. Two healed within days, but the biggest one (still only about 1/2 inch) is thru the navel and was pretty uncomfortable.

 

[Mr Nice]

Glad to hear she is doing better.

Same thing happened to my older sister last year.

 

[dailydriver]

I had mine removed about 38 years ago, exactly one week before I drove cross-country for my junior year at the University Of Arizona. (The drive was NO problem, as I was much younger AND fitter back then.

).

My older cousin had hers burst, and all the doctors could do back then, (almost 45 years ago) was to open her up, clean out all they could, dump some topical antibiotics in there, and keep her on antibiotic pills for a while.

She was lucky, and made a full, healthy recovery.

 

[javacontour]

I feel you man. oilBabe was in the hospital last week. I had to drive her around, wash her hair, etc. (A real issue for someone follically challenged as I am.)

Glad she is ok and on the mend. She's now driving and can wash her own hair.

We take our health for granted, and when things go a little sideways, they disrupt our routines.

 

[JTK]

Thanks everyone!

They let Momma come home after 2.5 days in the hospital. She has to take huge antibiotic pills for awhile and was given 2 days worth of strong pain pills. Gotta meet with the doc in 1-2 weeks for a follow-up, or sooner if things act up. Apparently there is a chance they'll have to go in after it anyway. Ugh..

Now to brace for the bills given my lovely high deductible health insurance. Good bye healthcare spending account. It was nice to know you. Hopefully that will cover a chunk of it.

 

[Mr Nice]

Why didn't they remove it to avoid future complications ?

 

[JTK]

LT4- We were told they wanted to avoid the potential of having to take out and patch up a section of her large intestine, where the appendix resides. We were also told, that's how they handle appendicitis these days. Even if your appendix is bad and you have abdominal pain due to it, if your body isn't showing massive signs of infection like fever and a high white blood-cell count, they'll leave the appendix and treat you with antibiotics.

I wonder how much of this is health insurance driven. Hmmm..

 

[Nick1994]

Originally Posted By: JTK
I wonder how much of this is health insurance driven. Hmmm..
I believe a lot of what our doctors due is mostly decided on what'll bring in the most money and give you the run around. Send you from specialist to specialist, give medications and don't really try to hunt down the root cause of health problems. Why should they? Your insurance will pay for all those unnecessary tests that the doctor performs, takes 12 weeks to do 6 tests and none of them come up with anything. Doctor sure did make lots of money.

 

[Srt20]

Originally Posted By: Nick1994
Originally Posted By: JTK
I wonder how much of this is health insurance driven. Hmmm..
I believe a lot of what our doctors due is mostly decided on what'll bring in the most money and give you the run around. Send you from specialist to specialist, give medications and don't really try to hunt down the root cause of health problems. Why should they? Your insurance will pay for all those unnecessary tests that the doctor performs, takes 12 weeks to do 6 tests and none of them come up with anything. Doctor sure did make lots of money.


You don't seriously believe that do you??
There isn't enough doctors out there to be doing something as ridiculous as this. Maybe the doc was over worked and tired and just was wrong. It happens, they aren't superhuman. I would get another opinion if it was me.

I had my appendix out 1.5 yrs ago. Had a hernia fixed at the same time, that I didn't know I had. I went in with abdominal pain that I had off and on for 6 month. Threw me in the CT scanner. Surgeon came in and told me it had to come out that night. No scars, gave me a 30 weight restriction for a while. I had a snowmobile trip to the Rocky Mountains 7 days after the surgery. I went and had no problems.