I know now a nurse in the ER wing by her first name. She was there when we took Craig to the hospital for his stitches, and she was there when Keith took me to the hospital for appendicitis.
That's right, this weekend has been an ER extravaganza. I spent most of the day on Saturday with a strange sort of pain that was miraculously revealed to me as appendicitis before I even headed to the hospital. Somehow, and I'm attributing this to a divine revelation from God, when I first started feeling the pain in a localized area by my right hip bone, I thought to myself, "Liz, you have appendicitis." I got online and looked at the symptoms for appendicitis and sure enough, there it was. The pain starts in the central abdomen, seeming to be in the stomach. Then it shifts to the right side of your abdomen by your right hip. You begin to feel nauseated, and you have a fever. You might even vomit or experience diarhea. Now, I had yet to vomit but that came later.
So after 12 hours of pain and suffering, I finally decided at 12:30AM on Sunday that I should go to the hospital. Keith drove me in my car. We were in the waiting room for 4 hours. When we finally got back there I was actually put into the same room that Craig was in the previous night. Ironically, I had the same nurse too. I was in that room for a while. I got a pelvic exam and an ultrasound. It was through the ultrasound that they saw that my appendix was inflamed. I was hooked up to an IV and they took blood. Around 10:00 or 10:30AM I went into surgery to get my appendix removed. I probably took about 3 breaths of oxygen and I passed out once they had me on the operating table. The initial incision they made had to be made bigger because my appendix was hiding behind my bladder. It had in fact been inflammed and it was good I had gotten there when I did.
I stayed over night on Sunday and had visits from my parents, Craig, Tod, Jessie, and Keith. I only took viocodin once during the night and I haven't had to take much else for pain the rest of the time. I'll probably take some tonight just to help me sleep. Walking is very slow. I am back on campus now. Got here about 11:00AM this Monday morning. I'm going to try to go to most of my classes tomorrow since they're in my dorm. Overall, this weekend has been quite the experience. With Craig going to the ER and me undergoing surgery, it's been a bit crazy. It's like everything we had planned had to be cut short by the ER. Craig couldn't be on the radio and he couldn't go to his family dinner for his Nana's birthday, because of his injury and my surgery. I couldn't go to church, lead our Bible study, or take the group to The Gathering. This was sort of my weekend to take over Craig's leadership position in those avenues of our GVSU family life, so it's strange how it all got fussed with. I'm just so thankful that it's over now. I'll continue to pray for a quick recovery and no infections. I'm just glad God was able to reveal to me in some way the extent of my situation and what I should expect before I went to the hospital. I knew, more or less, what I was getting myself into because I was somehow convinced of my appendicitis. Praise God for what He does in my life.