Sunday, May 26, 2019

Appendix Or No Appendix?

It’s a while ago, but It stands out as one of my life’s stories I will never forget.

We’d been invited to a sumptuous BBQ event with friends. Quite a group of neighbours had gathered around, sitting at folding camping tables taking in the marvellous odours from the barbecue. After consuming a few healthy-sized pieces of meat, with likewise good-sized portions of potato salad, the hostess broke out the cakes. This was back in Norway where people are in the habit of eating cream cakes and drinking coffee into the late evening.

I have always been a sweet-tooth and cream cakes are topping my list of favourites. And just to be clear, in Europe cream means whipped cream, not some of the calorie-and fat-poor replacements from spray boxes.

I dug in, had several pieces of the various sorts, then leaned back to enjoy the conversation. About another 45minutes later I was jolted by a terrible pain in the general area of my lower abdomen. I leaned back further to ease the pressure, but the pain wouldn’t go away or be more bearable. I leaned over to my better half and told her I needed to go home and that she would have to drive me.

So we left the party.

The ride home was short but I suffered through great pain. What was going on?

Arriving home, I put myself to bed immediately. My wife thought it might just help to stretch out and relax.
The night was terrible, I tossed and ached and at first light I still had the same relentless pain. “This gotta be my appendix” I told my wife, “I better call the doctors office, tell them I’m coming in”.
With no breakfast I got in the car and drove myself the few miles to town.

The doc’s examination was short. When my pain caused me to shed some tears, he rushed to the phone and asked for the ambulance. 3 minutes later I heard the commotion of arriving ambulance staff in the hallway, and before I knew it, they had me placed horizontally in the rear of the car. A staff member drove my car home and it sure caused raised eyebrows in our village when the ambulance was coming to our place to pick up some necessities for a stay at the hospital.

An hour later, we arrived and I had to endure some questioning and several more examinations and tests, before I was put to bed in a room with 2 other guys.
Image result for appendix pain cartoon
The pain persisted through-out that day and was still there the next. Doctors, nurses and assistants came and went. They looked at me but the diagnostics remained uncertain. When the head honcho of all docs came to see me I told him to start removing that darn appendix and relieve me from that pain. His puzzling answer was that it wasn’t my appendix troubling me, yet he wasn’t sure what else could be the reason.

The 3rd day ran up and I could feel the pain slowly subsiding. When the doctor came to see me, I told him about the improvement and he just nodded. They wanted to keep me for another night for observation.

The morning of the 4th day I woke up and my pain was gone. I told the morning nurse and they signed the release. Bea came to town to drive us home.

So what had been the cause of my 3-day stay at the hospital? Not my appendix, for sure. Rather, it was the result of me eating way too much at that BBQ. I am not sure whether I ever was the only person spending time in a hospital for eating too much, but I was too ashamed to ever tell the doctor.

2 comments:

  1. That sounds horrible! Glad to hear it was not something more serious!

    ReplyDelete
  2. What an interesting story with a good ending, overeating sure can cause problems.

    ReplyDelete

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