Early Friday morning Michelle had a laparoscopic appendectomy. She had called me home early Thursday afternoon because she was having unusual pains in her abdomen. She originally thought it just might be something she ate or a stomach bug. Around midnight the pain had localized into the lower right corner and I took her to the hospital.
Thanks to the generous assistance of friends like Paul, Rita, and Russell, I was able to juggle getting Michelle to the hospital and caring for the children. Besides the helping hands, I was especially grateful for the opportunities to take a couple of catnaps. Four kids is hard enough; it's harder if you didn't sleep the night before.
Laparoscopic appendectomy (LA) has a major advantage:
"LA is of special benefit in women in whom the diagnosis is difficult and gynecological disease (such as endometriosis, pelvic inflammatory disease, ruptured ovarian follicles, ruptured ovarian cysts, and tubal pregnancies) may be the source of pain and not appendicitis. If LA is done in these patients, the pelvic organs can be more thoroughly examined and a definitive diagnosis made prior to removal of the appendix."Also the recovery is pretty quick. Michelle was home by Friday evening.
Tomorrow morning Michelle has a followup blood test. Tomorrow afternoon our current house has it's buyer home inspection. The inspection is about the only remaining issue in the contract for purchase of our current home by the buyer.
This upcoming weekend my mom, dad, youngest sister (Suzanne), and nephew (TJ) drive out for a visit. We are all very excited about the upcoming time together. It will help us have some fun before the stress of the move kicks in.
I'm following up on my own post because this entry gets about 3-5 hits a week from search engines like google and yahoo from people researching laproscopic appendectomies.
It's been over a year since the operation. We were worried at the time because while they were discerning the cause of the pains and the surgury options, it was simultaneously discovered from the preliminary blood tests that Michelle was in the earliest stages of pregnancy, barely beyond implantation. I'm happy to report that the pregnancy went fine (see pictures of Timothy in the photo albums) and that Michelle recovered quickly from this surgury. She has three small scars between a half and three quarters of an inch long. I believe two are near or below the bikini line and the third is in her navel. It's certainly a lot less than years ago. There were no major complications and certainly less recovery time than the Caesariean sections she's had. The laproscopic surgury was also useful because it allowed them to assess what the cause was. They suspected appendix inflammation but weren't certain. It might have been a cyst or tubal pregnancy.
Certainly all surgury is serious, but in the scale of things, this was pretty minor. As in all things, "your mileage may vary". Discuss it with your doctor.
Posted by: Scott at July 31, 2003 02:17 PM