My Appendectomy experience.

Two weekends ago, I had acute appendicitis which was mitigated by laparoscopic appendectomy.  But before that, I suffered chronic appendicitis which was never diagnosed properly so no medical intervention was done.  Here are the chronological events that lead to the surgery.

About 2 years ago, I celebrated a friend's birthday at Black Angus steakhouse.  The next day, I suffered intense tummy ache which I attributed to food poisoning.  But none of my friends who dined with me had the same problem. They were all fine so I thought perhaps the steak I had were too raw.  The symptoms kind of resolved itself the next day and I was back to normal.

Then about 3 months ago, I had another episode of intense tummy ache that started from the belly button to the right lower abdominal quadrant.  I could not think of anything that I ate but I did think it was my glass of soda that may have been contaminated by flies.  The notion of appendicitis did cross my mind since I was not having the usual accompanying symptoms of rebound tenderness and fever.  My bowel movement was liquid in consistency but not completely absent.  I was able to take in food without vomiting so my doctor cousin did not think it was appendicitis also.  The tummy ache and low energy (from not eating much) lasted for about a week and I eventually fully recovered.  But I must say my bowel movement was never the same since then.  I would go 3-4x a day with diarrhea consistency almost after every meal.  I planned to see the GI doctor about it but then this acute appendicitis happened.

Two weekends ago, I woke up with a bloated sensation on my tummy and eventually turned into tummy ache.  I thought why am I getting food poisoning so often.  Do I have cancer of the bowel?  It is something else?  Appendicitis barely crossed my mind.   I put up with the pain until it became unbearable and I vomited the water I ingested.  I decided to take the Uber to the ER at Valley Presbyterian Hospital not too far from my house.  I thought I would at least get tested properly and I would get IV fluid to re-hydrate me.  CT Scan was performed and it revealed acute appendicitis.  It was a Saturday late afternoon when I went to the ER, I had laparoscopic appendectomy surgery early Sunday morning.

I stayed in the hospital till Tuesday.  At the hospital, I had IV fluid and antibiotics since my appendix was perforated.  I also was given IV push morphine as needed and Norco on a scheduled basis.  I have to stop taking those opiates prescribed by the doctor since the nausea side effects was worse than the pain.  We also tried Tramadol but that also gave me nausea.  So I refused them.  Upon discharge, I was just taking Ibuprofen or Naprosyn for pain.  The pain was there but I put up with it.  My drainage tube was attached still till it was taken out Monday (8 days post op).  That tube started to hurt more later and it was barely draining anything.  It should have been out earlier but it was the surgeon's decision.  Now that the tube is out, my wound feels better.  I am doing daily dressing changes to it.  It still drains very little but nothing that a dry dressing can't handle.  The only other problem that I have now is the left thigh tingling/numbness and shooting electrical pain when I move my hip a certain way.  Obviously a nerve was disturbed during the surgery since the Surgeon had to access one of his laparoscopic tool on the left lower abdomen.  The surgeon says it will eventually go away.  I hope he is correct about this cause this can be debilitating at times.  My energy level is slowly getting back to normal.  My surgeon sent me to the ER last Monday because of the night sweats that I was having.  He was concern that an abscess might have developed internally.  But at the ER, blood work and contrast CT scan were able to rule that out.  I am out of the woods and on to full recovery.  Now it is just a matter to time to be back to 100% normal.  I am scheduled back to work 2 weeks post op which I think is sufficient time.

This appendicitis/appendectomy was a disruption to my work and life but I am glad it is almost done with.  Now I do not have to worry about getting another episode of "food poisoning" which in hindsight were likely the manifestations of my chronic appendicitis.  I am sort of glad it happened and I hope to loose 10 pounds from this.