My Plans All Changed

Friday was another snow day, which meant no work, or school, or leaving the house.  Instead of moping, I decided to use the time finally get familiar with my new Singer sewing machine which Mr. B very thoughtfully gave me for Christmas last year.  I really dislike learning new tech of any kind, so even though I've watched a tutorial on how to thread it, and have read the user manual, I haven't yet sat down to really work with it.  But, as I had nothing else to do and no where else to go and couldn't stand the thought of another day on a screen, I decided to bite the bullet and learn the tech, especially since Mr. B was also home to walk me through it. 

After some more videos and some fiddling with it, I got the hang of the machine and managed to finish two sewing projects that have been sitting on my sewing table since the fall when my sewing woes began.  After that I did some cleaning and organizing of my fabric bins and the day was very productive.  Since I knew this would likely be our last snow, and since I had freshly finished a couple of dresses including the final autumn Selkie dupe dress, I put together a couple of outfits and planned to go out the following morning into the snow for a photo opportunity.  Oh, the foolish plans of mortals.

After dinner, my stomach started hurting.  At first I thought my dinner just didn't agree with me, but as the hours passed and the pain intensified, I changed my diagnosis to a stomach flu.  More hours passed and the pain felt unlike any stomach flu I'd ever had.  A stomach flu comes in waves and eventually leads to.....something.  But this was just unwavering, ever intensifying pain. I lay on the floor for several hours balled up from pain and alternating between feverish nausea and clammy chills.  I even cried a little from the relentless pain.  

For some reason my medical emergencies never occur during regular business hours, so it's always the struggle to know if this is actually an emergency (i.e. worth the staggering ER bill) or merely an overreaction.  But, by 11:30 p.m. the pain was so intense I was ready to go to Urgent Care.  Mr. B went outside to clear the car of snow and ice while I got ready.  All the moving around made my nausea worse and I headed to the bathroom to throw-up (finally!).  After that I could tell that the nausea subsided.  I hoped that maybe I could rest now and asked Mr. B to cancel the trip to the doctor, crawled into bed and white-knuckled it until morning, hoping this was a virus and it would pass. 

Morning came and the pain had spread from my stomach to the right side of my abdomen.  I looked it up and given the position of the pain, it could have been my gall bladder, my appendix, or nothing at all because it wasn't in the exact right position for anything.  Hard call.  I had a couple of bites of breakfast and the pain began again.  So, I made the decision and we went to the nearest urgent care, who then sent us to the nearest emergency room.

Well, a few hours later, I was wheeled out of surgery missing my appendix but with three fresh incisions on my abdomen.  I think it's safe to say that after this my days of swimsuit modeling are well and truly over, and obviously today's post photos were taken well before I began feeling ill. I was given a prescription for opioid pain killers, but I refused them since they're so highly addictive and the post-surgery pain has been far more manageable than the pain I was in before the surgery.  

It's been a rough couple of days, fighting not just the pain and discomfort but depression as well as I've spent most of this recovery time alone, hobbling around, grieving for my lost appendix.  I hope to be back on my feet in a week or two.  Although I am still holding out hope to be ready to go out and take some photos in the spring flowers next month, I'm not making many plans because I don't know how long it will take me to get back to life as normal.  Just taking it a day at a time and trying to rest as much as possible. I suppose this is all a good reminder that everything can change at a moment's notice and all our plans amount to nothing.