Listen to your body...

As I get older, nearing 60, I find a lot of body parts hurt once in a while for various reasons. But this past Sunday I started getting sharp pains in the lower right quadrant of my torso. The pain came and went Monday but by Tuesday night it was pretty constant and didn't seem to change regardless of what I did. Wednesday I had to attend a funeral for an old family friend. But Thursday morning I started to get a little worried that the pain wasn't going away and wasn't changing. So I drove over to my physician's office for a consult. Forty minutes later I was checking into the ER. At 4pm yesterday I had my appendix removed lapriscopically (sp?).

All went very well and I am home now recovering. Some lessons learned:

Don't ignore pain, don't be macho, go see your doctor. I got lucky and got help before the appendix perforated. And the fellow whose funeral I attended? He died from bone cancer. He thought the pain in his shoulder was from a fall and put off going to the doc. Not saying the outcome would have been different, but we'll never know.

Have your emergency room visits on a weekday, morning if you can. I got treated right away and got the tests I needed to diagnose my problem. The last time I went to the ER was on a Father's Day I spent 8 hours on a gurney in a hallway.

Listen and ask questions, write stuff down, especially doctor's names. If I had had a pen I would have written names on my arm. Cause in that situation your memory fails, at least mine did.

Don't get mad when you hear the same questions over and over again. That's for your protection. They actually caught me forgetting something I had taken. Make sure they are using a checklist and that doctors and nurses are communicating. If you don't like something you hear, challenge them.

Pray you get a nurse that can put in an IV needle correctly the first time. I had one yesterday and it made everything else such much more comfortable. Also, be thankful they put that catheter in while you're under the anesthesia.

Finally, a great big Thank You to all you professional care givers out there. I got great care from real pros. Y'all fall into that category of folks (like the police, firefighters and teachers) who do great things for the rest of us, often for little recognition and less money. I couldn't do your job and am grateful for those who do.

There is now in my area a website (and believe phone number) that updates real time the wait in local emergency rooms so people can decide where to go.

There is so many people in my area that is pretty hard at any time to get in fast.

Yes +1! Listen - see your doc - most things are easy to fix... go.


Teacher

PS and get your yearly check-ups

Yep, the body will let you know when something is wrong. I'm really glad everything worked out. Interesting that it was your appendix. I always thought that only caused trouble in kids. Thanks for correcting this misconception!

-Blast

I had not heard it happening to folks my age, but the ER nurse said that they had 3 other adult cases just in the past couple of weeks.

The darn surgery went so well that I had to go back to work yesterday.

A question for y'all is how you feel about using prescription pain medicine. They gave me an RX for Percoset/Tylenol which I didn't fill. Took some regular pain killers for a couple of days. One reason is that I don't like narcotics, the other is that I worry that if I don't hurt a little I may think I'm more healed then I am and do something I shouldn't, like pickup the dog...

Both my wife and I are the same way. We've thrown out a bunch of unused vicodan and other painkillers over the years. She had all her wisdom teeth out and never even took an aspirin! She doesn't like feeling loopy, and I'm pretty sure without some pain to keep me in check I'll just re-hurt myself.

-Blast

Pain is God's way of letting you know you're still alive.