I had a bit of a medical adventure last week. I snuck down to The Bahamas for a long overdue research trip when they decided to open to travel starting July 1. I arrived on the 18th and on the 19th the Prime Minster decided to shut travel down to the country again because they had a spike in Covid case. All international flights were canceled from the 25th including my flight home. We hear rumors the country was headed towards a lockdown (as in police monitored don’t leave your house lockdown) so I got on a charter flight direct from Cat Island to Ft. Lauderdale on Friday 24th. We were right about the lockdown and I am so glad I decided to get home ASAP. Keep in mind I wasn’t supposed to come home until Aug. 1, this past Sat.

Last Wed evening I started having horrible abdominal pain. It was centered a couple of inches above my belly button. Around 3 am I woke up from the pain and had terrible nausea. I had Mark drop me off at the ER and I went through the battery of tests including a CT contrast and a Covid test. They gave me pain meds, said they didn’t see anything wrong, and sent me home with a note to make an appt with a GI for an endoscopy. Told me to come back if I got a fever over 101.4.

I slept all day Thurs thanks to the pain meds. I woke up at 1 am with extreme pain in my right side, nausea, and a fever. Mark takes me back to the ER. See a different doctor, do more bloodwork, and another CT contrast. I spent several miserable hours in the “covid” high vent room dozing in and out. Doc harasses lab for covid results which were negative then comes in and declares my body is in freakout out mode and all signs point to appendicitis. My appendix was twisted in the CT scans so they had a hard time seeing the inflammation but all signs pointed to that being the culprit. 

By 8:30am I was in surgery and by 11:00am I was cleared to be discharged and call Mark to come pick me up. Luckily it hadn’t ruptured and they were able to do laparoscopic surgery to get it out. I asked the doc to call Mark when the surgery was done and Mark said he told him,” I got your wife’s dead appendix out so she should feel much better now!” 

I am 5 days post op and feeling better but and am still struggling to recover. I still can’t do anything other than lay on the sofa and I have zero interest in food. I keep running a low grade fever which the doc said was normal and just overall feel blah. They said 1-3 weeks recovery time but I hope it is closer to 1 than to 3. Luckily the boys are excellent at taking care of me and are thrilled for all of the take out they get to eat right now 

Oh and since I had to come home early, I had actually planned to take the boys camping last Wed-Sun and Mark would have joined us Friday after work. All of the campgrounds were full when I called Wed morning so we put the trip off this this week instead. I can’t imagine having been in the mountains, with the kids, and out of cell range and having this happen. 

I don’t know who was watching out for me but I am so grateful I was home when this happened. Otherwise I would have been in Nassau where they are currently running out of hospital beds. Or been in the mountains with the kids. I am also really glad I listened to my body and went back to the ER on Thurs and didn’t dismiss my pain. Then I might still be in the hospital recovering from a ruptured appendix. 

Pretty crazy eh?