is a single mama in the city, super-savvy editor, writer, video host and shameless shoe whore.
The lost week (or ten days)
Monday, March 5, 2007 
Here's the short story, the I'm-just-passing-by-your-cubicle-on-my-way-to-refill-my-coffee version, the down and dirty:
Jessie had an appendectomy and has been out of commission on pain meds and deliciously God-awful daytime TV for more than a week.
Here's the short-story-long, the down low, the let's-take-a-trip-to-Au Bon Pain-for-a-croissant-and-cappuccino expanded explanation:
Just when I was feeling balanced, good, in line with the universe, my appendix had enough.
Last week, after hours of thinking I had food poisoning and had already sworn off buffalo chicken sandwich indulgences for like ever, my appendix was already putting on his coat and groping the door knob at my large intestines. It was almost like my appendix got all inflamed and irritated, turned to my colon and said, "I am so up outta this joint yo." Just like that.
At 2:30 a.m. on Thursday morning, under the artificial lights of an operating room, at the hands of residents and attending surgeons I couldn't help but compare to characters on Grey's Anatomy, my appendix was removed. It was swift -- an hour-long procedure that left three small incisions on the left hemisphere of my belly to remove the pinky-sized appendage in the lower right quadrant of my tender, throbbing body. It was so quick that it was really like my appendix fled the premises more than it was scoped out by a camera, snipped and snaked through before I was stitched up with precision and sent back to my husband and foggy consciousness.
My surgery was an urgent appendectomy, which is probably redundant because no one schedules these things at a convenient time during weeks when they really don't need to lift their toddler or drive a vehicle or sleep without fourteen pillows and a nice narcotic.
Although it was urgent and the time from when one doctor told me in the uber-calm voice of a sixth grade social studies teacher, "Yeaahhhh, so the appendix looks inflamed and it seems like you might need surgery to pull it out" to the team of surgeons collecting my consent form and wheeling me to pre-op was under an hour, the whole ordeal leading up to it was days long. And that is rare.
It all began with that damn sandwich. And me missing most of Studio Sixty while I was puking and crying and in misery. Then a night of Bruce pouring over WebMD and being concerned that perhaps this could be something related to my appendix. Then a 3 a.m. sobbing jag when I was sure my ovaries were erupting and my hopes of procreation would be uncontrollably halted and Lil E would grow up an overly indulged only child as a result of all my guilt and heartache and dashed dreams in this one trajectory and...well, we all know middle of the night meltdowns are neither logical nor soothing to the soul.
Somehow, I got back to sleep. And until my gynecologist called me back a day and a half later, I was hunched over in periodic pain, unable to stand up or think straight. Something wasn't right but I worked some and pushed through just like I'd scold a friend for doing for mothering in pain and martyrdom.
My gyn called me in for an ultrasound. My dad dutifully read his Golf Digest in the waiting room for me.
I watched the screen where the wand was surveying my ovaries, I prayed not to see a heartbeat or a big splotch of medical mayhem. There was nothing and the doctor nearly sent me home and then decided I should probably walk over to the ER, just in case.
"It's not presenting like appendicitis, but it could be appendicitis. Let's rule it out, just in case."
So I cried into my dad's jacket (just a little bit) and we headed to the ER.
Ohhhhh, the ER.
If I was a sitcom writer with a block, this would be the place to hang. If I was slightly buzzed with my girlfriends, these would be the people who would send us into a fit of giggles.
Instead, my dad and I shared wide-eyed looks and scooched in closer to each other when the man in the hygienic mask started hacking up his lung all over the air in our row of seats.
Because it was the ER in the middle of downtown Chicago and because three hours had already ticked past since my doctor appointment, I was called up to the front desk and handed the telltale clear plastic cup. In order to be a dutiful patient, I had to walk it past rows and rows of other sickies back to the one women's bathroom. And because it was me holding my abdomen and the cup, I couldn't quite figure out how to lock the door.
It was clear I wasn't the only one. There was a sign on the door that said "Knock first" that told me folks like to lock themselves into the loo or the folks like to break the lock on the loo. Either way, I did my best to secure the door, turning every knob I saw.
Just as I unzipped my jeans and unscrewed the top of the cup, the door flung open. An older African-American woman wearing a turban and lots of make-up walked in confidently.
"Ummm, ma'am...," I said, "I'm in here."
She looked at me and kept walking until she and I were standing in the center of the single bathroom together, face to face, me holding my jeans together and my empty cup.
"I tried to lock the door but..." I stumbled over my words.
"Well, why di'in't you lock the door then?" she said through missing front teeth and accusing eyes.
"I tried." I said, getting weirded out.
She stood there silent. That moment did it for me.
"Can you leave, please?" I managed my best tough ass white grrrl voice for the turban lady.
She did, leaving me there feeling vulnerable and unsure about whether to try to pee in the cup while pressing my body up against the big metal door or just taking my chances on the toilet.
I chose to take my chances. The ER was full of germatic kookies but surely some of them might actually knock. Right? Of course not, so I peed into the cup as fast and furious and spill-free as possible. Then I paraded my respectable quarter-cup on a walk of shame back up to the front desk for the snippy triage nurse to test.
From there, I was escorted to second tier emergency room that I chose to think of as the VIP lounge. I had sort of a private room there, with a TV and wardrobe for my clothes and automatic glass doors just like (and here it is again) on Gray's Anatomy.
There, Bruce and I watched American Idol while the nurses prepped me for tests. Teenagers crooning Celine thankfully distracted me from the IV of antibiotics and a palpitation-inducing CAT scan just around the corner. Bruce stroked my hair and when I had to drink the seeming gallons of nasty ass berry-flavored barium, he shook it up like a cocktail to make me laugh and make it do down just a bit easier (sidebar: it is much better over ice).
When the time came to CAT scan my belly, my thoughts raced back a year to a panic attack I had while attempting to have an MRI. After that anxiety and several distressing dizzy spells, I ended up in therapy rather than holding photos of neat little slices of my brain. I haven't made it back to the MRI yet but the very idea of the CAT scan took me right back there.
I just happened to be reading a wonderful book that is about how a woman uses meditation as a way to move through her own pain and fear. The book was in my purse in my VIP ER room and the meditation that came to mind was one I'd read only hours before.
I used it. I closed my eyes as they wheeled me toward the CAT scan and said my meditation over and over. When something over the intercom or a patient passing by on crutches would distract me, I would just breathe in and out and go back to the meditation.
I wasn't sure I could make it through the CAT scan procedure, so close to my head and to last year's experience. So I closed my eyes and said the meditation some more. I made it through.
And that is how, a few hours later at 2:30 a.m., I prepared myself to go into the surgery that all the tests confirmed I needed. I breathed and meditated.
Oh, and I got a double dose of goodie meds (or whatever the cute anesthesiologist resident called the anti-anxiety drugs he pumped into my arm) for the moments before being knocked out and cut open.
I had a laprascopic surgery with three little incisions to fit a camera into my abdomen. They even checked out my ovaries while they were in there, just for good measure. Once that bugger of an appendix was safely removed, though, I was all good.
Or as good as you can be coming off of anesthesia at four in the a.m. I spent a couple of days in the hospital and a couple more days at my parents' house before I went home to my boys. Everyday since, I've felt a bit better, a little less pain and some more mobility. I've had a few more meltdowns in the witching hours when I need to take more pain meds and feel like someone has gut-punched me...again. Overall, though, it has been an OK recovery.
The cards have helped. And the flowers from my dad and my in-laws, my friend Megan and my buddy the Paper Boy have made me smile and feel better about the chaos of laundry and mail that has exploded in our apartment since I've been couch-bound and Bruce has been my nurse and primary caregiver and lifter of Lil E.
I'm grateful -- my parents came home from a month-long vacation only hours before the whole ordeal began, I was in good care with great doctors, I have insurance and am assured by my loved ones, I was able to take the time off from work I need to just disappear while I heal. It has been a challenge to put myself first -- more of a challenge than I dreamed it would be -- and I am grateful for every friend who has IMed to remind me to keep putting myself first.
I am grateful that I trusted my instincts to go to the doctor rather than ignore my pain (which is sadly something I have often done). It is oogy but I guess it is a good thing that I didn't get to see my dislodged appendix in a little sterile pan (although when I imagine it, it is in a tiny glass jar) and so I am grateful for swift and sanitized surgery. And I am grateful to have a toddler who has adapted to cuddling on my lap while I hold back from picking him up. I am grateful for a sweet hubs who has slept on the couch many nights so I can stretch out in bed for a restful night's sleep in complete stillness. And for my parents who do things daily just like concerned parents do.
Mostly, I am grateful I found my meditation. And many, many deep, deep breaths.
I know, I know....this photo is bugged out. I couldn't help including it.
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