The good news is I’m gonna die.
The bad news is it won’t be today.
(well, it could be today…it could be at any moment, really…but broadly speaking, not today.)
This pretty much covers it:
Starting Thursday, two nights of curled up in bed in the fetal position with pain right above my right hipbone, I was utterly convinced it was a bowel blockage of some kind and some laxatives and patience would take care of it. (And, yes, I actually did think it might be Hirschsprung’s disease.) At 4am I drove to Walgreens to get some laxative suppositories and discovered that Walgreens didn’t open until six. Okay, fine. I pulled into a gas station, fueled up, and started to head for the house. As I was driving, I thought “You know, I’m already dressed, Im already driving, lets just go to the damn Emergency Room already.”
Walked in, told the folks “This is kinda embarassing but I havent pooped in three days, I’m in a tremendous amount of pain and discomfort, can you give me a bottle of whatever it is you give people to clean em out for colonoscopies and I’ll be on my way?” Nope, they say. Ya gotta get checked over by the doctor. Doc does a CT scan and comes back into the room. “Tell me its just a piece of unchewed, undigested pizza doing this.”, I said. Nope, she replies, you’ve got an appendix that needs to see daylight and needs to see it now – there’s a surgeon on the way. You’ve got a ruptured appendix.
“But..I’m in the Two Hour Parking!”
As they wheeled me in to surgery, the doctor looks at me and says “So, you’ve never had your appendix out?” (At which point I’m thinking…don’t you know??? Thats why youre here!) To which I replied, in perfect mimicry from the above video, “I’ve been meaning to, but who has the time?”
Fentanyl? Huge fan. Hydrocodene? Not bad.
And that’s the highlight of my week thus far.
It’s also as much detail as I’m willing to pass on at this point, so don’t ask any questions.
Those of you who emailed me and ordered up some mags, no delays..they’ll got out in the next day or so…business as usual.
And one less medical procedure for me to worry about after the apocalypse.
We’re glad you’re doing better. I had to get that critter removed back in my teenage days. There’s no discernible use for an appendix, other than to kill you. Some believe it used to do something for us, back in the caveman days, digesting raw meat or something. It’s best to get rid of it when the chance arises.
There’s a theory now that the appendix is a redoubt for healthy gut bacteria. Lets say you get cholera or dysentary, you’re entire GI tract gets full of bad bacteria and eventually gets flushed out. A small pocket of the beneficial bacteria are stowed away in the appendix and it repopulates your gut flora. Apparently people without the appendix have something like a 4x rate of recurrence of such issues versus people who do have it, thus lending some credence to the theory.
That’s my understanding also Zero!!
It’s also helps in the proper movement and removal of waste matter in the digestive system. It contains lymphatic vessels that regulate pathogens, and lastly, might even produce early defenses that prevent deadly diseases.
It is thought that this may provide more immune defenses from invading pathogens and getting the lymphatic system’s B and T cells to fight the viruses and bacteria that infect that portion of the bowel and training them, so that immune responses are targeted and more able to reliably and less dangerously fight off pathogens.
Yes most of that was a cut and paste but in short, without it your more likely to be ill and get food poisoning.
I hope this has not harmed the new job.
I’m glad you’re OK. In “Earth Abides” (one of my favorite books), Ish puts “had appendix out” at the top of his list for survival.
Now I’m wondering about the ache in my right side. 😉
Yeah..someone mentioned to me:
“This guy was so prepper…”
“How prepper was he?”
“He was so prepper, he had a prophylactic appendectomy!”
Glad you’re on the mend. Have an uneventful week!
Dian Fossey (The woman famous for studying mountain gorillas, they made a movie about her starring Sigourney Weaver), did that. She knew that she would be alone in the middle of Africa for years at a time, so she had a her appendix out before the went.
Interesting they gave you Fentanyl. It a 100 times stronger than Morphine. It’s normally reserved for terminal cancer patients only. Has a lot of side effects for non-terminal patients!!!!
Well, at the time they gave it to me I was curled up on a gurney awaiting a surgeon. Id guess the last thing they needed was me thrashing around in agony while waiting for this guy. Tel you what, though, once that stuff went into my IV it took about fifteen seconds and all of a sudden the pain was reduced (not gone) enough that I could finally, after three days, get some sleep.
No, I’m an anesthesiologist. Fentanyl used on essentially every surgical patient in the US. Short term use=no problems.
It’s also short-acting, with less addiction potential than other opioids.
Great for acute pain.
It’s not 10-100 times stronger by net weight… they don’t give an actual dose that’s 100x stronger
Your right three grains of Fentanyl the size of salt is a lethal dose. Its a lot more toxic by volume than morphine!!
“Fentanyl is a powerful synthetic opioid analgesic that is similar to morphine but is 50 to 100 times more potent.”
https://www.drugabuse.gov/drugs-abuse/fentanyl
Getting off topic of the original post though. Glad everything is good with you Zero!!
Better have a bilateral mastectomy while yer at it…………never can tell…………
Glad to hear you’re doing better. Thank fentayal for my survival and codene/Tylenol combination from so much pain.
Good thing it didn’t leak out more badly. My next door neighbor’s kid had hers rupture and spent just under two weeks in the hospital to completely kill the infection that ensued. Poor kid.
Get some rest and heal – we’ll deal with the down time . . .
Apparently, there is an apron of skin/fat/muscle called the omentum which hangs over your guts. When your appendix starts getting funky, the omentum kinda wraps itself around the appendix and when the appendix pops the omentum acts like a guy throwing himself on a grenade – the damage is contained in a smaller area. As a result, the could clean it up a it easier. Otherwise theyd have had to gut me like an elk and lavage all my innards by hand.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_omentum
Was hoping that was all it was! I had mine out 3 days after it ruptured 20 years ago, it was a mess lol, but I do remember thinking afterwards, well after Y2k this coulda been a real PITA! Get well!
Doc B
Mazel tov, Zero.
Easy peasey, no more appy for you.
But you’ve got a high pain tolerance; most folks notice things long before it ruptures.
Glad it’s a problem behind you. Without anesthesia and antibiotics, those things’ll kill ya! Mortality in the wild for an untreated ruptured appy is 66%.
(The other 33% wall off an abscess inside, and walk around for years without any real trouble after it heals. Darwinian selection right there.)
Hooey! Take away here being unmitigated pain in guts needs an official review. Though, to be honest, you were probably the only laugh they had with your pizza wish. I hope you will treat yourself to a very fine pie soon, though. You do make me wonder if I should get mine out before long. After all the dentistry, of course…priorities…
Glad you are on the mend. Maybe that 5-yr old chicken didn’t go down so easy after all. 😉
I knew it wasn’t food poisoning. I’ve done that to myself before and it presents much differently and is usually 100% history after a good round of puking and a good nights sleep. This….not so much.
How do we know you are the real Zero and not a vat grown replacement?!?
Ding ding ding! And there’s our first winner !
“It’s also as much detail as I’m willing to pass on at this point, so don’t ask any questions.”
I don’t believe crowofthedead was asking an actual question, CZ. Besides, if you WERE a vat-grown replacement, I doubt you would reveal that little nugget. Get better. Drugs are good. My doc misdiagnosed my appendix back before them fancy lookin-inside-you machines existed- technology is good, too.
My wife had this happen 2 months ago while working in north Dakota. 15 hour drive for me to Minot from Missoula. You’ll be back to normal in a week.
Jason
“Back to normal in a week” – so nothing good is going to come out of it.
Glad to know you’ll be with us among the living for at least a little while longer! I wonder if, as you went under, a tiny part of you maybe hoped to wake up days later in an abandoned hospital surrounded by zombies.
yup had a family member go thru this as well. St Pat’s did good job. you get three little scars, 40 yrs ago they left me with a 3″ Frankenstein scar. heal up, chicks did scars. yup anytime after crunch…you’d be dead. check mark that long term prep off the list.
Nice reference to HST in the title of the post. Get well.
From somewhere on the edge of the desert,
Unbreakable AZ
“There he goes. One of God’s own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die.”
― Hunter S. Thompson
There’s a story somewhere about a doc who had an attack and was driving himself to the hospital but got stuck in traffic so he cut himself open and removed the offending organ. If that story was true, the guy probably clanked when he walked.
Good god, man. I’m glad to hear you’re okay. What a nightmare! After reading all these comments I’m very glad you were in civilization when it happened.