The Good, The Bad and the Just Plain Ugly...

Long blog hiatus, I know. I promise I have a good excuse though. A really good one.

Let's start with the good news! Benjamin's deployment was postponed for one week! Yay! The bad? Well, it's because I'm a complete cripple due to a major health issue I had pop up. And the just plain ugly? Well, my brand new scar.

It all started a little under two weeks ago. I felt like I had maybe pulled a little muscle in my abdomen. I noticed that I felt sore in one little area when I tried to do things like sit up in bed or stand up from the couch or get in/out of the truck. I shrugged it off. After a few days of that, I started having a radiating pain under my navel. I didn't pay much attention to it and just figured I must have a touch of the stomach bug that's been going around Guam lately. Plus I had my hands full with a very active little toddler, so everything I was feeling I put on the backburner.

I went golfing on Monday and Wednesday of that week even though I wasn't feeling exceptionally well. GOLFING! I'm taking lessons from a very wonderful and patient instructor with a group of the other wives. Er, I was. Anyway... at golf on Wednesday, Kristina, also in my class, asked how I was feeling and I told her I felt like I had rocks in my belly. I wasn't super comfortable, but not uncomfortable enough to not enjoy some golf. I figured I'd shake the stomach bug soon.

The next morning I woke up and had the same radiating pain that had been under my navel for days. I can't say that the pain hadn't been bothering me -- it had -- but it wasn't unbearable and I had a lot of other things (mainly the aforementioned toddler) that kept my mind occupied. On that morning though, I became frustrated with the pain because I had been enduring it for a while and it obviously wasn't relenting any. Benjamin had asked me the day before to consider going to the doctor and I felt he was right. I called my doctor, explained my symptoms and they told me they were simply too busy to see me. Not only that, but they couldn't even refer me out to someone else on island. They told me to call the appointment line for a referral, but the appointment line was hopelessly busy and I never once got through to a person. Frustrated, I hung up and called Benjamin at work to ask what he thought I should do. He called his flight surgeon, who normally just works on the pilots and not their spouses. The flight surgeon told him to bring me right in to him and he'd see me right away. True to his word, I walked into his office and they swept me back into a room.

The flight doc listened to my symptoms and had me lay back so that he could examine my abdomen. I showed him where the radiating pain was and he went to work feeling around my abdomen. When he pressed on my lower right quadrant, I noticed for the first time that I was actually pretty sore there. He decided to run some bloodwork and urine and send me to the hospital for a CT scan. After the appointment, Benjamin brought me home while we waited for the lab results. They came back almost completely normal, but the flight doc still wanted me to go in for the CT scan. I didn't want to go honestly! The hospital is almost an hour away and I knew the scan would take hours and hours. Plus I felt I'd be wasting resources because I honestly didn't think anything was wrong with me. But I knew Benjamin wouldn't let me refuse.

To make things even more frustrating for me, it was Kristina's birthday and I really wanted to make the day special for her. Her husband is deployed, so it was up to me to see to it that she had a great dinner, cake, presents, etc. And her husband had asked me to deliver some gorgeous roses to her, which I was so excited about. So going out for a CT scan on the one day this year that I really wanted to be celebrating was frustrating. But again, Benjamin wasn't about to let me refuse, so off to the hospital we went.

After several hours of waiting for the CT solution to be absorbed into my body, it was time for the scan. They hooked me up to an IV, started the spinning donut beast machine and then it was done! I could go home they said and the radiologist would let the flight doc know how things were in a while. I rushed Benjamin out and we were off to run a series of errands. I wanted to pick up Kristina's birthday cake and flowers and enjoy dinner with her!

After picking up the cake, we were very close to base when the cell phone rang. I picked it up and to my surprise, it was the flight doc. He asked how I was feeling and I told him I actually felt a little better. Then he asked where I was. I told him I was just outside the front gate to base. He told me to turn around and immediately go to the hospital and made sure Benjamin was driving instead of me. My first thought was that I must have left my ID card at the hospital or something. But it turns out... my appendix had ruptured and things looked awful on the CT scan. I insisted that I had to at least drop the cake off to Kristina, which I did. Then it was off to the hospital!

It's amazing how having a ruptured appendix gets you treated at the ER. They swept me to the back right when I walked in and started getting me hooked up to an IV and antibiotics. They kept asking if I was in pain and couldn't believe that my appendix had ruptured with as calm as I was. And really, the pain wasn't bad at all -- I was very lucky. They said I was the absolute hands-down best appendix patient they'd ever had. Oh and random but great -- the ER nurse who stayed by my side the entire time was someone I had gone to college with in Corpus! He was such a helpful distraction and it was really a comfort to run into someone I knew.

The only surgeon they had on hand was busy in a very complicated surgery and wouldn't be able to operate on me until the morning, so they moved me into a hospital room. They pumped me full of fluids and antibiotics and I waited nervously, reading to distract myself. At around 5am, they came into my room and told me it was time! I was so nervous!

The surgeon spoke to me just prior to being anesthetized and told me how serious things were. He said that the CT scan showed some pretty bad news and he let me know that he was pretty optimistic that while he could repair the damage, I would have a huge incision. I almost cried and asked if it was at all possible for him to keep the incision as small as possible. I was still young and beautiful I joked. He said he would try to do the typical appendix incision (which is three small incisions nowadays) but that he gave a 95% chance that that wouldn't be enough. And I'm positive he must have rolled his eyes as soon as he turned around, haha.

Sure enough, several hours later, I woke up long enough to realize that my whole abdomen had been opened. I cried as I fell back to sleep.

When I woke up in my recovery room, the surgeon let me know that he had made the three smaller incisions, but it just wasn't enough. He needed to be able to put both hands inside of me to fix things. So the incision begins about an inch above my belly button and goes down a good 8 inches or so. It's awful. But he was optimistic that he had removed the appendix and surrounding damage. And he was happy that he didn't have to remove part of my colon or intestines because I came very close to needing that due to the damage. So I did luck out there I suppose. He wasn't sure how well I'd avoid infection but did say that my body had done an excellent job of walling off the worst of the damage that comes from a ruptured appendix, whatever that means. He also said that I likely only had a couple of days before becoming septic, truly ill, and close to death. Oh, and that the level of pain tolerance I must have is astonishing. So... that's nice I guess.

Right now I'm trying to mentally cope with having such a big scar. I made it through a pregnancy without having a c-section and now here I am with a honking scar even bigger that that one would have been. I live on a tropical island and have been so proud of my post-baby bikini body. And now I feel like that's been taken away from me. I know that in the scheme of things, it's a ridiculous thing to be sad about, but it's still hard.

It's been almost a week since my surgery and I've been home from the hospital for a few days now. The recovery has been rough, even for wonder-pain-tolerance-girl. I hobble around like I'm 85 years old and I always ache. I'm covered in bruises from IV's and constant blood draws. My incision is sore, swollen and bruised. It's covered in tape right now, so I can't actually see it, which is probably a good thing. When I move, I feel like my insides are swimming around, trying to readjust. I know that recovery is going to be a bit long, but at least I'm getting better every day!

I've been completely of pain killers for the last couple of days now, which I'm very proud of. I'm on a smorgasbord of other medications to help my body get back to normal.

The hardest part of all of this for me was not seeing Caroline. I didn't want her to come see me in the hospital because I felt like she was too young to understand that I couldn't hold her or love on her. Plus it's a hospital -- not the best place to have a youngster. I was in the hospital for 5 days and to say I missed her just doesn't do it justice. My heart hurt more than my body did! And knowing how close I'd come to losing my life and missing out on seeing my beautiful girl grow up was very hard to take. I almost cried when they wheeled me out to car after releasing me! And when I saw Caroline again... wow! Talk about overwhelming emotion! That little girl has my heart!

So that's the story of what's been going on lately! Benjamin's squadron was gracious enough to postpone his deployment a week since I am incapacitated. They'll never know how much I physically needed that... it is very appreciated. My little sister was also such a huge help to us throughout my hospital stay! Without her or Benjamin, I don't know what I would have done. Poor Kristina, she would have had to do everything... on her birthday no less.

Anyway, I'm hoping to continue to get better and hopefully soon return back to life as normal. Benjamin will be deploying very, very soon, so I am counting on my body to do some tremendous healing this next week. I can't wait to be well enough to be able to hold my baby again! And hang out with friends! And go golfing! And maybe, maybe, maybe... someday... have a scar that has healed well enough to get back in those swimsuits of mine!