On Thursday, April 27, I took the kids to school, filled up our van with gas, and was planning to go look for a dress to wear to my niece (Becca)'s wedding, which was coming up in only two weeks. But I wasn't really feeling well, so I decided to go home and lie down for an hour first.
When I got home, my mom called to see if I could take her grocery shopping, and I explained that I had a bit of a stomach ache but would be fine after an hour or so and would come to pick her up.
Before an hour had passed, though, I realized I wouldn't be going anywhere except maybe the hospital. When I tried to call and tell Jason this, I could hardly pick up my phone because my hands were shaking so badly. I wondered if I was having a seizure--a feeling I'd had almost five years ago when I'd had sepsis.
In the ER waiting room things got even worse. I couldn't sit or stand, but Jason had to go back to work. He told one of the nurses how non-functional I was, and she said I could just "put up my hand" when someone called my name. But when someone called, I couldn't even raise my head. Luckily, another person in the waiting room who'd noticed my situation pointed the nurse in the right direction.
The next few hours revolved around tests to see what was wrong. My blood pressure was very low, and I was so nauseous I couldn't move without being sick. I had abdominal pain and crumpled to the floor when the technicians tried to stand me up for a chest x-ray.
Jason brought Ben to stay with me at the hospital, and Ben fed me ice chips from a spoon because I couldn't even do that. He reminded me later that I'd asked him if he "thought I was going to make it."
A doctor told me there was some inflammation around my appendix and that they were going to remove it as soon as possible. This confused me, because I'd heard about other people having their appendix removed, and my symptoms didn't really match up.
Soon I was up in the OR, being lifted in a gurney onto the table. The surgeon told me that the infection seemed to be around the appendix, rather than in the appendix itself, but that they would remove it.
I woke up hearing nurses talking about sepsis. My blood pressure was even lower than before surgery (around 70/40), and I was on a strong IV antibiotic to try to clear up the infection. The surgeon confirmed that my appendix had only been "an innocent bystander" and not the source of infection; however, even though they'd explored my entire digestive tract, they weren't sure what had caused the problem. Their best guess was a ruptured ovarian cyst.
I was in the hospital for six days, on oxygen, too sick to eat or walk around, despite all the anti-nausea meds they injected into my IV. Finally the infection cleared up enough to stop the antibiotics, and after that I started to feel a bit better.
Coming home, it was several days before I could walk very far. I just sat on the couch with a heating pad and tried to eat bland foods.
But, the day before Becca's wedding, I was able to go to the mall and find a dress :). When I told the salesperson that my niece was getting married the next day, she said, "You left it kind of late to find a dress!"
Yes, I guess I did.
But all things considered, I'm pretty lucky I got to be there at all.
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