I’m wasn’t sure how to title this post so settled on something that is essentially non-descriptive.
Anyway here’s my story of the last few days.
It all started close to the beginning of Dec. when I began to suffer from lower abdominal pain. Having suffered from a pinched nerve in my lower back for years I ignored it figuring it would go away in a few days as it always had before. Fast forward to this last Monday I was preparing for a 2 hour drive to Spokane when I received a phone call. I talked on the phone while lying flat on my back on my bed and noticed the pain got much worse. After the call I probed around my lower right abdomen and experienced a bad burning pain at a specific spot, which my wife said was the same place she felt pain when she had appendicitis.
I didn’t want to accept that idea so we decided to drive to Spokane anyway and I would visit a clinic there.
After the 2 hour drive I visited a clinic in Spokane and was told by the Dr. they found blood in my urine and I should go to the emergency room at Sacred Heart hospital. I head over there and wait for over 4 hours before seeing a doc who orders a CT scan which shows an inflamed appendix and I was scheduled for surgery at 7:00AM the next morning. By this time it was 2:00AM and I was feeling no pain as they had given me a significant dose of Dilaudid.
Needless to say the surgery to remove my appendix went well, it was laparoscopic resulting in 3 small incisions instead of one large one.
I’m out of the hospital now and feeling much better than I have in a very long time, even with the pain from the incisions.
I’m not sure what to extract from the experience other than to say don’t ignore “new” pain when you experience it. Also, don’t assume the docs or hospital staff understand how to handle your diabetes.
I discussed my T1 with 2 of my nurses, both of which admitted to be T2 and neither of which had a very good grasp on how I managed my BGs using carb ratios. The hospital uses a “sliding scale”, which I’ve never heard of, and one of the nurses seemed to be a bit hesitant to allow me to manage my own BGs. I think that nurse was just a control freak as the others were accepting of the idea I was going to take care of it myself.
I had removed my pump for the surgery and put it back on about a day later. After that, every time I checked my BG level I had to contact a nurse so they could enter the reading into their tracking system.
This story is a bit rambling but I wanted to share it. I hope it will help someone else to not wait to have new pain evaluated and not let hospital staff bully you into doing what they think you should.
It seems like they let you take the lead with your diabetes. That’s great. Sliding scale insulin is an archaic practice of hospital BG management that is constantly playing catch-up with high BGs. It’s very good at not taking any risk whatsoever of any hypos. I’m thinking 180-220 mg/dl kind of control. Glad to read you got through OK!
Pain is a diabolical thing. It’s nature’s warning that something is out of whack, but it’s such a vague and nonspecific indication that instead of resolving doubt and confusion, it can sometimes just increase them. Most pains do go away by themselves; the problem is, how do you tell the difference? Your story is a perfect illustration. Another involved a former coworker whose “minor” back pain turned out to be terminal cancer.
No one wants to be known as a hypochoncriac, but you don’t want to disregard a genuine danger signal, either. It’s guessing games like that that can drive doctors and patients to distraction.
I’m glad everything turned out okay and that you were able to manage your own diabetes. The times I’ve been in hospital, I’ve always been allowed to manage my own diabetes and, like you, when admitted had to call the nurse each time I tested or gave insulin so they could put it in their records.
Well, i have to update this and maybe relabel it to read Saga instead of adventure.
Thursday the 29th of Dec, about 1 1/2 weeks after the surgery I slipped on ice and twisted, didn’t fall, resulting in an extremely sharp pain in my right side just below my ribs. That evening I developed a fever (100.2) and generally didn’t feel well.
The next day (Friday the 30th and day before the holiday weekend) I called the doc’s office and talked to the PA, she advised me that the slip on the ice couldn’t have caused any damage to the surgical area, a slight fever was nothing to worry about and I should take it easy and call them back if my temp exceeded 101.5 or I experienced nausea or diarrhea.
Saturday I still had the fever but it hovered just below the threshold to call in, I was able to poop and it wasn’t diarrhea so I waited but still did not feel good.
Sunday the 1st, I’d battled the fever all weekend but not had nausea or diarrhea, that evening my fever suddenly spiked to 102.4 so I called the doc’s office again and talked to the on call doc, he considered prescribing me some antibiotics over the phone put then when I told him I’d been experiencing the fever since Thursday he told me to hold on until the morning, check my temp again and if it was above 101 to call again and we’d decide then what I should do.
Next morning (Jan 2nd, the observed holiday so everything is closed) my temp is still up so we head to the ER where I get a bit of a run around at check in when I ask how long I have to wait (the doc said he’d notify them ahead so I’d get right in).
He must have contacted them or put something in the hospital computer as I only waited about 15 minutes before being taken to a “room”. This is operating at light speed for this place so I’m not complaining.
After a wait of an hour or so I’m taken for a CT which reveals an almost perfectly spherical abscess with a diameter of 3cm right where my appendix used to be.
So, I’m admitted and after wait of another hour or so moved to a private room (much nicer than having a room mate).
A procedure is scheduled for the next day to insert a drain and suck out as much of the abscess fluid as possible.
They removed ~15cc of puss/fluid during the insertion and another 20 or so was taken later that day from the drain bulb.
That stuff REALLY smelled horrible!!!
Anyway, I spent the next 2 days in the hospital battling the fever and was not able to poop until late Wed night early Thurs morning.
Needless to say there was a LOT of pressure built up from gas and “other” things that made me very uncomfortable. But the simple act of pooping becomes very painful when your abdomen has several incisions in it that are healing.
I’m at home again but still have the drain in which has to be flushed twice a day and the output measured and logged. Have an appointment for Tuesday the 10th to finally see the doc who did the original appendectomy to determine if the drain can be removed.
So, the saga continues.
During this whole thing I’ve gained a lot of respect for others who’ve endured post surgery recovery and bounced back quickly, especially women who have C-Section births. The extreme nature of the surgery and how quickly those women are up and taking care of their children now astonishes me!!!
Your vigilance and quick communication with your doctors served you well. Am I understanding your situation? Your slip and twist on the ice undid the appendix internal surgery closure. Is that what happened?
Glad to hear you’re OK and now truly on the mend. I’m learning to live with winter weather for the first time in 30 years. I was much more sure-footed when I was 30 years younger!
No, the slip was just a coincident event and didn’t cause the abscess, at least that’s what all the docs say, plus there’s no evidence in the material removed from the abscess that the appendix surgery closure was compromised, thank God!!!
The abscess appears to be due to bacteria that escaped the appendix during the surgery and festerd for a little more than a week before I started to feel bad. The weird thing is when I went into the ER the blood sample didn’t show elevated white count even though I’d had a fever for days and finally started feeling nauseous.
This should be my last update on this, I hope.
The drain was removed, I’ve finished off the regimen of antibiotics and all the incision sites are either completely healed or are healing well.
I think I can say I’ve passed through the experience and am on the upswing now.
A couple things I’ve noticed as side effects so far:
My sense of smell and taste is dramatically improved, not sure why but suspect the antibiotics killed some other long term infection I’d been fighting.
I have a couple new patches of vitiligo, most likely caused by my immune system being kicked into gear and attacking things it shouldn’t.
Had to adjust my ratio from 15:1 to 12:1, seems I may have lost a little more of my remaining insulin production, again most likely due to my immune system kicking into gear. I suppose it’s possible my digestive system is simply working better now though, who knows??
I lost ~20 lbs due to the experience, leaving me at about 160 lbs which isn’t too bad for being 5’ 9" tall. The trick will be keeping it off while at the same time building my strength back up.
