Appendicitis, Part Deux

The events of this past week either prove that Adam and I are destined to be together, or that God has a very, very dry sense of humor. Or both.

Wednesday night, Adam came home feeling a bit sore and queasy, but honestly, for a teacher that's nothing new. So we went to sleep, and at about 4:30 in the morning I wake up and Adam is shuddering and groaning next to me. "What? What's wrong?" I say.

"My stomach...my whole stomach hurts."

"Your whole stomach? Are you sure?"

"Well, mostly on the lower right hand side."

"Oh....no....get up, we have to go to the hospital." So, completely disbelieving that all this is really happening, we calmly get dressed and pack a bag with books and iPods, and I quickly locate a hospital in Manhattan that fits my approval. Beth Israel Hospital on the lower east side.

After being up for about 10 minutes, Adam says, "You know, I'm feeling better...maybe I'm OK?"

"Does it still hurt when you press on that spot?"

Presses. "Ugh. Yes."

"Then we're going!" So, we walk down the street and take the subway (yes, we took the subway to the hospital) into Manhattan. Once it drops us off we walk into the emergency room and are quickly ushered in in record time. Within 20 minutes Adam has had his vitals taken, his blood drawn and a urine sample done, and is lying in a bed with IV fluids. Pretty astounding. A host of fabulously attractive doctors and nurses attend to us, and immediately verify what we'd been thinking all along: Adam probably has appendicitis. They have to do a Catscan to see if they'll need to operate or not though, so they start loading him up on this contrast fluid. What was most surprising to them was the minor amounts of pain Adam was in and the total lack of other symptoms (vomiting, nausea, dizziness, all of which I was lucky enough to experience with my appendicitis) he has. Maybe he won't need surgery, we thought.

After two hours or so of waiting and listening to the melodic sounds of a woman dry-heaving on the bed next to us, he gets the test and almost instantly we're informed that Adam's appendix needs to come out of there, stat. As per usual, Adam blinks and says "OK" and I spontaneously burst into tears. It was going to be a long day.

Now, the irony of both of us receiving emergency appendectomies within the same year doesn't escape us for a moment. After all, not only does this not happen very often, but it's not at all contagious. We immediately started joking around about our matching scars and how we have to do everything together, and it occurs to me how much better Adam is faring than I did. It's not surprising, really, he's a much more resilient sort, but it's amazing how people's bodies react so differently to the same thing.

So, a couple doctors (young guy and young woman) come by later to use an ultrasound to check him for internal bleeding. They're examining him, and he's got his shirt up to his neck and they start commenting on how "textbook" Adam's organs are. "You've got great anatomy," the guy says.

After only about one beat, Adam replies, "That's what all the ladies say." The woman doctor's stares at Adam and starts laughing.

"That is so something he would say!" she says, pointing at the male doctor. Adam is blushing at this point, sort of in disbelief that he would say such a thing in the emergency room while half naked in front of a strange and attractive female doctor. Well, desperate times call for desperate humor. Later, Adam would make eyes at one of the other dreamy doctors in the ER, who seemed to take a shine to him and kept shaking his hand goodbye.

At about 2:00, they transfer Adam to the prep room in the OR. I follow, lugging our bags and trying not to freak out. It was quite difficult, considering the heartfelt "If I don't make it, just be happy" entreaty Adam gave me before that and the removal of his wedding band to my finger until after the surgery. Horrible, horrible, and horrible. After a grueling hour or so, as Adam's cheery constitution begins to wilt, mostly from starvation and exhaustion, they finally take him in. I spend the next two hours in the waiting room, trying to avoid thinking negative thoughts. Finally, the surgeon comes out to inform me that it all went fine. After another half hour, I head up to the recovery room for the worst part of the entire day (I think I can safely say that for both of us).

Adam was there, looking pale, sweaty and barely conscious. He was deliriously asking for pain medication, and when I told the bitchy nurse who was there she barked at me: "I'm already getting it!" Mild mannered as I am, I swear I almost throttled the woman. She was so rude! And I was so stricken! So I stood there helplessly for a few minutes and then she kicked me out. "Come back in an hour!" she spat. I swallowed my anger and left.

When I came back later Adam looked better, but still in a lot of pain. Luckily, he was going to be taken to a room soon. His happiest moment at this point was probably the ingestion of the nasty hospital tea that they gave him. It was the first thing in his throat (other than medicine) for about 24 hours. My happiest moment, by far, was when I pushed his wedding band back onto his finger. The worst was over. Finally, finally, around 7:30 p.m., we went up to his room. When he was safely installed there, I kissed him goodnight and stepped out into the cold. But the night wasn't over for either of us. Nope.

After I stepped into the subway station after a cab ride, something occurred to me: Do I have house keys? As I replayed our exit that morning in my mind, I suddenly knew, no, I don't have house keys. Adam locked the door. They're in his jacket pocket. Then, another thought came into my mind. The thought was this: Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.

It was now 9 p.m. I was screwed. My only hope was the landlady, who had spare keys. If she was home, awake and interested in answering the phone, I was saved. If not...well, let's not think about that. I reached our street and stood on the doorstep, calling. Cell phone? No. Home phone? Nothing. Ok....ok....buzzer then.

BUZZ.

Nothing.

BUZZ!

Silence. The wind was blowing and I was getting colder by the second. She wasn't going to answer, I thought. Ok, one more time.

BUZZZZZZZ!

I stood there, and stared out down the street. It was hopeless, and I was sort of paralyzed with no idea of what to do next. And then, like a miracle:

"Hello?"

"ROSA! This is Michelle! IhadtotakeAdamtotheemergencyroomthismorningandhe'sinthehospitalandthekeysarethereand Can you let me in????"

"....sure!"

Relief. She headed down a few minutes later and I filled her in, feeling absolutely terrible about getting her up. She sat on the ledge in the entranceway, and said, "Man, you were lucky to wake me! I felt like I was in a dead sleep...I've had this flu..." And I felt even worse. Strangely enough though, when I gave her a gift bag of OJ, tea and chicken soup, she told me that she was thankful that I got her up because she had been in such a strange, deep sleep. "You might have saved my life!" she said. Well, maybe everything does happen for a reason...

Adam's night was, as you can imagine, worse than mine. As it often happens after major surgery, the normal processes of the body become quite mixed up. Possibly one of the most important things one must do after surgery is pee. Peeing is king. If you do not pee, you cannot be released into the world. It's a mandatory gesture of good health. So, all night, Adam was struggling with the complicated act of peeing. Unfortunately, it hurt quite a lot and was virtually impossible. Evenutally, (after a dose of percoset), he decided that the solution to this problem was to stand up. So he did. And after about two seconds, and the realization that he had been lying down for the past 24 hours and was on hardcore painkillers and had three knife wounds in his belly, he swooned and sat down again before hitting the call button and passing out cold. Luckily, there was no harm done, and Adam's male nurse Steven scolded him tenderly after Adam regained consciousness. A very tumultuous evening indeed.

The next day, after spending a couple hours at work, I went back to the hospital to take Adam home. After a arduous journey, we finally arrived home. Thank goodness!!!

We spent a very lovely weekend with my friend Dar who came in from Long Island, and Adam has rested and is feeling better. He will probably take most of the week off to recover, and I'm looking forward to a relaxing week myself. When his bandages come off, I'll be sure to post a photo of our lovely matching scars for you all to see.

Appendix's...who needs 'em?