This 1 Weekiversary

I went to sleep on Saturday perfectly fine — my stomach was full from a delicious dinner with friends and I felt like I knew what to do for my upcoming assignment.

Flash forward to 8 hours later — I woke up on Sunday morning feeling like something had gone wrong in my right side and painfully dragged myself to the washroom, only to shuffle back and curl up in pain. I thought it was a bladder infection; after all, don’t painful urination and a pain on the side (I assumed it was my bladder, since my rudimentary knowledge of reading anatomical diagrams didn’t cause red flags to be raised) indicate something with the urinary tract? I called my parents who insisted I check it out, except it was a Sunday and everything was closing / had already closed.

I got it checked out on Monday instead. During lunch, I went to the local walk-in clinic and had my urine tested. Except much to everyone’s surprise and slight horror, it came back clear; this meant that the pain in my side had to come from either an ovarian cyst or an inflamed / ruptured appendix. I was advised to get an ultrasound at the hospital because this was clearly out of a general practitioner’s scope.

And so it began — my journey to the depths of the ER.

Instead of waiting for a friend to drive me there after class, I decided to take a cab to the hospital. In hindsight, this was much smarter because I arrived at 2:30, got checked in at 4, and finally managed to see a doctor at 9PM. If I went after class, I assume everything would’ve been pushed back by at least 3–4 hours. My parents came in from Toronto and graciously spent the evening with me, after hearing I went to the ER.

But HA. The ultrasound staff wasn’t around on Monday night, so I had to schedule an appointment for Tuesday morning. At that point, the ER doctor believed I had an ovarian cyst — otherwise harmless, but potentially very painful — which would clear up on its own. I didn’t have any appendicitis symptoms — no nausea, fever, lack of mobility, etc… But thankfully, my father insisted I still come in the next morning for the ultrasound, so we could finally diagnose that awful pain.

And good thing he did.

Because I ended up having appendicitis and went in for surgery mere hours after my ultrasound.

The surgery itself was small. Or I assume it was, seeing as it’s a fairly common procedure and I hadn’t ruptured my appendix yet. I blacked out gracefully, or as gracefully as one can whilst lying on a metal table and attached to an IV. I also experienced drug allergies apparently — very fun and also equally terrifying stuff when you start developing a rash and your face starts locking up for no reason. But other than that minor issue, everything went according to procedure; a decently smooth procedure.

My parents, who went back to Toronto on Monday night, came rushing in at my second SOS call in under 24 hours. I’m very grateful for their care and for their wisdom, because while I was delirious for a good chunk of the time, they were there right before I was wheeled in and the brief moments I was lucid, post-op.

The surgeon told them that my appendix had swollen to ping-pong ball proportions. I later found out during a check-up with my family doctor, that my appendix actually started to curl in on itself, making it seem puffier and more inflamed than it really was. The doctors feared that it had already ruptured and was leaking fluid, but were in for a pleasant surprise when they cut into me. Pleasant, as in they were able to extract it in one whole piece. The only downside however — I had a laparoscopic appendectomy — was that one of my cuts had to be doubled in size to accommodate my ping pong appendix. And as a consequence, I now sport a nice red scar above my belly button, which I feel was sewn smaller during the surgery.