27 October 2006

Martijns late appendix


Here’s a very short quick update by me. I just spend the whole day in the hospital. Not for me, but for Martijn. He had had a stomach ache for two days and it had gotten really bad yesterday evening. When we woke up at 7 am, it still hurt a lot, so I suggested that we go to the doctor. We did go to his family doctor and she suspected it was probably an inflamed appendix. She sent us to the hospital and we went there immediately. They helped us very quickly and they took some blood and a urine sample. We had to wait for about 2 hours in this small examination room for the lab results. The surgeon wasn’t convinced that it was a really bad infection, so he also ordered an ultrasound scan. That scan clearly showed that his appendix was inflamed and they said he had to be operated. I was really upset when I heard this. I knew it was one of the possibilities, and one of the most likely ones, but I was very shocked that it had to happen. The most awful scenarios played through my mind. I know that general anaesthesia is always a bit risky and I was just too afraid that Martijn would die somewhere during the procedure. I know it’s a standard procedure, but people always make mistakes, even surgeons.
The surgery was scheduled somewhere between 4 and 6 pm. His mother and sister were with him, so I left him and went home to eat a bit and to gather his clothes and stuff that he needs so that I could bring it to him after the operation.
They didn’t do the surgery until 10 pm. That was a very tense hour for me. I watched some TV, and that helped quite a bit. After the TV shows I prayed the rosary and while I was in the 4th decade, the surgeon called me that the operation had succeeded and that there had been no complications. I was very relieved when I heard that. Martijns appendix wasn’t punctured, so they just took it out, did some self-dissolving stitches, put a band-aid on it and it was done. I was really relieved. Five minutes later I got another call from the (male) nurse of the intensive care unit where Martijn was that everything had gone all right and that the operation had succeeded. I pretended I didn’t know that yet, I just reacted to the information he gave me, and while he was talking, I heard Martijn talking in the background. So the nurse saw that he was waking up already and he handed the phone over to Martijn. I was so happy to hear his voice! He sounded really drunk, but he was happy the operation was over and that everything was done and we just chatted for a couple of minutes. He even told me one of the nurses in the operating room also has a ‘lazy eye’ like him. He sure hasn’t lost his speech abilities and his wit. I am so glad that the operation went well and that he recovered from the general anaesthesia. He needs to stay in the hospital probably till Saturday. I hate being here home alone. I’m going to bring him his clothes and belongings early in the morning and I can visit him for about 3 hours in the evening. I don’t know what I’m gonna do all day tomorrow. I got tomorrow and the day after off work. I’m very happy about that. I hope I can do some homework, or else I’ll just rest. I haven’t had a good night sleep in 2 nights and today was a very emotional day for me. I don’t know how many times I have cried or how many tears I have shed, but there were lots of them, but I’m very glad to say they were completely useless.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home

Profile for charda