My brother recently had to have an emergency appendectomy with his appendix close to rupturing. That reminded me of our experience more than 20 years ago when my husband's appendix really did rupture. So for the sake of family history and not one-upmanship, here it is.
One Monday night in the fall of 1993, I came home from an orchestra rehearsal and my husband told me he felt some pressure in his abdomen and he might be getting sick. Sure enough, the next day he started vomiting. He decided he needed to go to the doctor and made an appointment for himself. I happened to be gone with our only car when he did that, so he actually got on his bicycle and rode the two miles or so to the appointment! Incredible, but that's how he is.
The doctor told him he had a stomach virus and that's what we thought for the next 6 days. On Wednesday, he spiked a fever and had chills and threw up rather violently. His pain moved to his lower right abdomen and we thought that must have been due to his violent vomiting perhaps straining a muscle. Yes, we were completely clueless.
He continued to feel terrible and was unable to eat for the next five days. It did seem like he was starting to feel a little better, which is apparently common with a ruptured appendix. In retrospect, I realize he must have gotten horribly dehydrated and I should have taken him in. But when we called our doctor's office (an HMO), the nurse assured us that he just needed to eat the right foods to get better.
Finally, on Sunday night, very late, he told me that it felt like a knife was stabbing him in the stomach. So we called the doctor who said he should go to the ER. When we went to the ER, they could not figure out what was wrong. His white blood cell count had actually normalized, high normal because his body had probably walled off the infection. Additionally, his pain had become generalized and moved more to his stomach area. The surgeons could tell something was wrong but didn't know what. However, in classic surgeon style, they knew a surgery could fix it. Nowadays, they would probably take a CT scan but I don't think they had those then.
He went into surgery and I went home because we had two little boys I needed to take care of. When I came back some hours later, they told me that he had a ruptured appendix and he would be in the hospital for a while. I really had no idea how very sick he had been and still was. He had an Anderson tube draining his stomach of all fluids including his stomach acid to allow his intestines to heal. He wasn't allowed to eat anything for more than a week. He had a lot of pain meds thanks to his huge incision and barely remembers anything about the hospital.
Meanwhile, I was trying to figure out how I could take care of our two little boys (ages 3 and 9 months) and still get to the hospital pretty frequently to make sure my husband was doing okay. He wasn't very coherent in the hospital. He doesn't even remember me visiting him although I went every day. I asked our neighbors to babysit sometimes and sometimes I brought the boys with me. It was a challenging time. Fortunately we lived just 5 minutes from the hospital and he had excellent care.
After 9 days, Scott was allowed to go home. He had lost 20 pounds and he frankly looked terrible although he was feeling much better than he had. His very large incision (6 inches or so) was still open. Because his abdomen had been full of infection from the ruptured appendix, they couldn't sew it up so he had to clean it out every day as it slowly healed on its own. It was a sight to see and sadly, I don't think I have any pictures of it.
Fortunately he healed well and people were very kind to us. He was in graduate school and his research adviser told him to take as much time as he needed to heal. After three weeks he had some intense pain and we ended up going to the ER two different times to see what was going on. But they could never find anything, so the conclusion was that scar tissue was floating around and causing some pain.
After six weeks he was fully recovered and life got back to normal. I had been feeling a little sorry for myself because our 9-month-old was at least 25 pounds and not walking yet, and he hadn't been able to help me at all. Looking back, I should have been tougher.
I am incredibly grateful for antibiotics that helped his body overcome this massive infection and competent surgeons that could fix the problem.
P.S. I was looking around on the internet and found this interesting article here that talks about how appendicitis treatment is changing, even with a ruptured appendix.
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| Family picture taken right before the appendix difficulties |
One Monday night in the fall of 1993, I came home from an orchestra rehearsal and my husband told me he felt some pressure in his abdomen and he might be getting sick. Sure enough, the next day he started vomiting. He decided he needed to go to the doctor and made an appointment for himself. I happened to be gone with our only car when he did that, so he actually got on his bicycle and rode the two miles or so to the appointment! Incredible, but that's how he is.
The doctor told him he had a stomach virus and that's what we thought for the next 6 days. On Wednesday, he spiked a fever and had chills and threw up rather violently. His pain moved to his lower right abdomen and we thought that must have been due to his violent vomiting perhaps straining a muscle. Yes, we were completely clueless.
He continued to feel terrible and was unable to eat for the next five days. It did seem like he was starting to feel a little better, which is apparently common with a ruptured appendix. In retrospect, I realize he must have gotten horribly dehydrated and I should have taken him in. But when we called our doctor's office (an HMO), the nurse assured us that he just needed to eat the right foods to get better.
Finally, on Sunday night, very late, he told me that it felt like a knife was stabbing him in the stomach. So we called the doctor who said he should go to the ER. When we went to the ER, they could not figure out what was wrong. His white blood cell count had actually normalized, high normal because his body had probably walled off the infection. Additionally, his pain had become generalized and moved more to his stomach area. The surgeons could tell something was wrong but didn't know what. However, in classic surgeon style, they knew a surgery could fix it. Nowadays, they would probably take a CT scan but I don't think they had those then.
He went into surgery and I went home because we had two little boys I needed to take care of. When I came back some hours later, they told me that he had a ruptured appendix and he would be in the hospital for a while. I really had no idea how very sick he had been and still was. He had an Anderson tube draining his stomach of all fluids including his stomach acid to allow his intestines to heal. He wasn't allowed to eat anything for more than a week. He had a lot of pain meds thanks to his huge incision and barely remembers anything about the hospital.
Meanwhile, I was trying to figure out how I could take care of our two little boys (ages 3 and 9 months) and still get to the hospital pretty frequently to make sure my husband was doing okay. He wasn't very coherent in the hospital. He doesn't even remember me visiting him although I went every day. I asked our neighbors to babysit sometimes and sometimes I brought the boys with me. It was a challenging time. Fortunately we lived just 5 minutes from the hospital and he had excellent care.
After 9 days, Scott was allowed to go home. He had lost 20 pounds and he frankly looked terrible although he was feeling much better than he had. His very large incision (6 inches or so) was still open. Because his abdomen had been full of infection from the ruptured appendix, they couldn't sew it up so he had to clean it out every day as it slowly healed on its own. It was a sight to see and sadly, I don't think I have any pictures of it.
Fortunately he healed well and people were very kind to us. He was in graduate school and his research adviser told him to take as much time as he needed to heal. After three weeks he had some intense pain and we ended up going to the ER two different times to see what was going on. But they could never find anything, so the conclusion was that scar tissue was floating around and causing some pain.
After six weeks he was fully recovered and life got back to normal. I had been feeling a little sorry for myself because our 9-month-old was at least 25 pounds and not walking yet, and he hadn't been able to help me at all. Looking back, I should have been tougher.
I am incredibly grateful for antibiotics that helped his body overcome this massive infection and competent surgeons that could fix the problem.
P.S. I was looking around on the internet and found this interesting article here that talks about how appendicitis treatment is changing, even with a ruptured appendix.
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