My Easter Weekend

Easter weekend sucked....Actually the last seven days have been pretty bad. Holy Wednesday night we read all of Mark at the Wesley. At about 8:00 I felt some pain that I thought was hunger pains. When we finished I went to the kitchen to get some food. I had a few bites but it wasn't any better. A few minutes later it got worse, so I assumed it was something viral. I told people I was going to bed and left the Wesley. I went to bed and slept for 1-1.5 hrs or so and woke up in a lot of pain. I went to the ER (NOT something I normally do). They asked me what I'd eaten and the doctor did a shoddy compression examination and they said it was my food producing a lot of gas and gave me two things for abdominal cramping. I woke up Thursday morning with severe pain in my right side. I ate a Poptart and the pain spread to my entire abdomen. I went to the Wesley and lay on the couch hoping that resting would make things better. I called Ashley about going to see her doctor daddy, and he said that coming at 1:00 would be good. He had to round and do other stuff. I went at one and he did compressions and started to guess it was my appendix based on where I winced the most. He ordered blood work and my white count was 11k - high, but not high enough to say anything definitive. He made me a follow up appointment for Friday at 1:00 with a surgeon to do some re-checking. On the way out I grabbed a fun sized Three Musketeers and ate it. We took will to his grandmother's house, with my pain coming and going. As we came back into Troy I started feeling barfy. As we pulled into the Wesley I opened the door and threw up my candy in the parking lot. I immediately went into the Wesley and got under a blanket. Despite the temperature being in the upper 70s I was shivering. I stayed under said blanket until my friends Ryan and Erin came to pick me up to go to Maundy Thursday service. I took my blanket with me and went in. I stood for the processional hymn and I think the reading of the Gospel. After the homily (during foot washing) I felt sickly and went to the bathroom. Before the service I'd talked to our deacon about please serving me in my pew because walking hurt so much. When I came back from the bathroom a lady asked if I needed to leave, but I told her I could make it. I passed peace and sat back down. When Fr. Jeff and Deacon Withrock served me I got half a host hoping that a small serving would stay down. Wrong. Ten minutes later I threw up communion outside the church. I went to the Wesley and got back on my couch. I decided to sleep there as opposed to my room because the couch was closer to the ground than my bed, and I knew I'd be getting in and out of bed all night. Emily and Krista went and got my prescription and some Gatorades for me. I slept fitfully and had weird dreams that were half awake that involved the parts of my body taking into account how the rest of the objects in the room would feel about my laying a certain way on the couch (like whether the stands or the piano or Altar would like certain positions more or less). Friday came. I was miserable. I took my magic potion (Belladonna Alkaloids/Phenobarbital Elixir, which is a "green, elixir"). Mom called far more stressed than I was about it and asked I if I wanted her to come for my appointment with the surgeon and I said she could if she wanted to. She called every 15-30 minutes to see if anything had changed. Brandon and I had a good conversation and he told me some things to do to see if it might be appendix (like just coughing). Mom came and took me to the appointment..and man am I glad she did. My appointment was at 1:00. I met with the doctor for less than half an hour before he told his nurse to get me on the schedule for operation at 3:30. In our talk he told me that he figured it was acute appendicitis and I might get to go home as early as Saturday. As soon as he gave orders I was in a wheelchair across the parking lot to hospital admissions. From there I got to my room and got two bags of fluids and two bags of antibiotics (one in each arm). By the time I got to surgery my white count, rather than being 11k was 19k. I went out with the anesthesia and woke up as a tube for drainage was being shoved down my throat. I found later that my appendix had ruptured sometime Thursday night and that there was so much infection in me that it had gotten into my blood stream...and was making me crazyish. Mom said that the doctor was really puzzled that I hadn't come back to the ER in the night but I guess I just have a high pain tolerance. The surgeon said that I would get worse before I got better and he was right. Holy Saturday was HORRIBLE! People came to visit me for brief periods, but mom said it was painful to just be in the room with me. I had some good time and then a really bad down turn. I've gotten sick at least almost once each day, and sometimes it's the turning point about how the rest of the day will go. I'm sooooo much better than I was. They're transitioning me from injections to oral meds and I'm making good progress. Thoughts and prayers are much appreciated.