Well folks, this blogger is officially back at it! Too many blog-worthy things happen to slack like I have been (not like I have a good excuse or anything, right?) I suppose I will begin with the most recent "big thing" that happened in our household.
To start this story, let me give a little background. We have had a handful of visitors this summer which, as always, has been so fun. My best friend, Caitlin, came at the beginning of August, my parents came the day after she left, and Andy's mom and sister cruised up from Vancouver and arrived the last day of the month. Andy's tour schedule would allow us to pick them up from the cruise ship on Friday morning, but he would be on a 7 day tour starting on Saturday. We arranged hotel rooms and other logistics for the three of us (Paula, Claudia, me) to "follow" Andy on his tour which would start in Fairbanks, come through Anchorage, and end in Seward.
I told Andy that rather than have to leave Anchorage really early (like 5am early) on Friday morning to pick his mom and sister up from the ship in Seward (2.5 hours away), we should go down on Thursday and spend the night, pick them up Friday, and mosey back to Talkeetna via Anchorage and the State Fair by Friday evening. A funny circumstance (which I will blog about later) allowed us to spend all of Thursday in Seward on a Kenai Fjord Tour with a stay at the Seward Windsong Lodge, all at no cost to us. Awesome, right? My plan was to study for my national certification exam on the drive down, on the boat, and that night at the hotel. Wellllllllll...let's just say that didn't happen.
One thing I didn't throw into the story yet is that Andy had told me earlier in the week (Monday or Tuesday) that he had this feeling in his stomach that had kinda been bothersome. He told me it didn't really hurt, per se, but it was uncomfortable. On a scale from 1-10 (since I ask that now of everyone to help me understand their pain) he said it was maayyyyybe a 1. And that was it. No other symptoms. Continuing on...
We drove down to Seward on Thursday morning to get on a Kenai Fjords Tour (KFT) that would depart at 11:30. It was a 6 hour "extended tour" that neither of us had ever done. We got there and it was pouring rain, in fact, it was the rainiest day I had seen all summer. (To my family, it was nearly identical to the weather you had when we did the KFT a few years ago.) We checked in, snagged a good spot on the boat, and we were off. The boat was packed! I was surprised as Andy has been on several of the shorter boat tours this year where his group of people have been the only people on the boat leaving it mostly empty. He has also had spectacular weather. Go figure the few times we have done a boat tour on our own and/or been paying customers (versus it being part of our job) it has been horrible weather.
I don't often get seasick/carsick/airsick but the combination of me trying to read/study and the waves were just not agreeing with me. I decided to just put the study materials back in my bag and enjoy the...scenery (I'm being facetious since the visibility sucked). As we made our way toward the Gulf of Alaska, the waves started to increase and so did the number of people asking for barf bags. We got outside of Resurrection Bay and people were throwing up left and right. Oh, I felt so bad for them. What a horrible horrible way to spend the day! The waves continued to increase and the rain and wind did as well. The captain came on and told us that the weather report said to expect winds at 10 knots; he was clocking 30-35 knot winds that were on the rise at which time he apologized and said that he was going to turn around because it was clear the weather was worsening and getting more dangerous.
Andy and I were talking, laughing, and ultimately trying to take our minds off of the waves and seasick feeling that could have affected us as well as the people who were sick around us. The waves were killer. I suspect they were about 15' and were kicking our butt. We finally made our way back into Resurrection Bay which is known to be a safe spot and headed back to shore. It was still stormy, but the waves were smaller. I plan on blogging about the good parts of boat trip and will include photos because what we saw made the entire trip worth it!
We made it back to the harbor and headed over to the hotel. We checked into our hotel room and were greeted with a card, an "Alaska" picture frame, and a box of truffles. Very nice! I told Andy I absolutely had to get some studying in, so that I did. In the meantime he got ahold of his friend, Steve, and we set up a time to meet for dinner. We headed over to the hotel restaurant for some yummy nachos and then went back to our room where I studied some more and then we hit the hay as we had an early morning ahead of us.
At 4am I woke up to Andy saying my name. I responded very groggily and confused, I'm sure. He told me that this "uncomfortable feeling" in his stomach had woken him up when he rolled over and that he was pretty sure that it wasn't normal nor was it going away. I questioned him for a good twenty minutes, trying to narrow down what could be causing this "pain" and while I tried to decide how urgent it was for him to get checked out. The "pain" was located in the exact area of his appendix and though it didn't really hurt, he said it felt like a tortilla chip was stuck in his intestine. Cool description, yeah? It helped me to understand!
Because of the nature of touring, I told him I would feel better if he got checked out before he went on tour again and he agreed. Andy doesn't ever complain about anything nor does he get sick, so the fact that he had mentioned this feeling a few times to me was part of the reason I wanted him to be seen. If it was his appendix, then it could rupture at any time and it would not be good for that to happen in Denali or Talkeetna where the nearest hospitals are 2+ hours away by ambulance (or upwards of $10,000+ by helicopter). When we were in Haines we actually bought a special insurance that covers transportation in an emergency, so cost wasn't really an issue. (You should consider buying this insurance, especially if you live in Alaska! Check them out here.) I was more worried about the time it would take to get from either of those places to a hospital.
We picked up Claudia and Paula and told them of the situation. I had decided that this probably didn't warrant an emergency room visit, so I called the clinic where my primary care provider works. She wasn't working, but another doctor I knew was. We set up an appointment with him and were on our way back to Anchorage. Though I had a hunch he would be going in for surgery, I was still on the fence. His symptoms just didn't convince me that it was his appendix, and he didn't even appear sick. Because of this, we stopped at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center on the way to town. I guess that tells you that we weren't really that worried, right? PS. For all my medical minded amigos, I told Andy he couldn't eat or drink anything until after he'd been seen by the doc in case he had to go to surgery. He was soooo hungry that he did eat a muffin, but remained NPO after that. :)
We rolled into the clinic right on time and got Andy all signed in. The doctor, who I had met only once before, came in and immediately recognized me, thank goodness. He was awesome. I kind of felt silly taking Andy to the doctor because again, he didn't really have any symptoms outside of the tortilla chip pain. I hadn't done an exam on him, though, because I didn't want to be 2.5 hours away from a hospital if I needed one. Dodging what I knew could be bad? Maybe! Anyway, Dr. L (not sure he wants his name used in my blog) did an exam and Andy totally had a positive McBurney's point test! Ding ding ding, appendix! He agreed with me that though he had no other symptoms, we better rule out the appendix as being the cause of his pain before heading up the highway. Labs were drawn and Dr. L scheduled an emergent CT scan. The labs came back completely negative (no white blood count at all!) so we headed across town to get scanned.
We decided to drop Paula and Claudia off at our house so they could nap or watch TV rather than spend their first day with us in waiting rooms. I waited as Andy was scanned really hoping that it was nothing. He came out and looked at me and said, "I guess I will have my first ever surgery today." If you know Andy at all, he is sarcastic and joking like 99% of the time. I looked at him and asked, "Are you serious or kidding because I really can't tell." He said, "I'm serious. The radiologist called Dr. L while I was on the table, and Dr. L is calling the surgeon at Providence right now. We need to go to the ER to be admitted." Welllllllll, you can imagine how this changed our plans for the day and week!
Andy called work to tell them he was going in for emergency surgery and that he wouldn't be able to do his final tour of the season. I called my mom just to give her a heads up. Andy then called his mom and sister and told them the news and said I'd come pick them up after we knew when the surgery would take place.
We headed over to Providence where we checked in and sat in the waiting room for maybe a half hour. They pulled us back to one of the rooms and we just sat. And sat. And sat and sat and sat. No doctor, no nurse, no nothing. Very typical of an ER but fortunately I had our phone chargers and Andy was in good spirits. I am still surprised to this day that he wasn't feeling or acting ill at all! Finally the ER doc came in. He was really friendly, which I appreciated. After he left, we waited some more and finally the surgeon came in to introduce himself. Neither of us were impressed with him and because of that, I won't list his name here. I know a lot of awesome surgeons, but this guy fit the stereotype of a surgeon...arrogant and condescending. We were told Andy would head into surgery at 6.
So we chilled some more.
Because I didn't let Andy drink anything, he was kind of dehydrated and it took a couple of tries to get his IV in. This nurse was not very nice to begin with, but we finally cracked her shell.
Aww, look how cute he is in his gown. He slept and played games on his phone while I texted a handful of people to let them know what was going on. I loved working in the ER when I was doing my rotations, but I totally do not like being the family member of a patient there. I feel like the communication is horrible and they are too busy for their own good, therefore a lot of time is wasted.
We were taken back to pre-op at exactly 6pm. Andy looked around and said to me, "This doesn't seem very sterile??" He totally thought it was the OR. :) His nurse was from the South, had a thick accent, and is a traveling nurse up here. However, she said she has fallen in love and is going home, selling everything she doesn't need, and moving up here for good. I told ya! There is a bug that bites you that makes you want to stay! Anyway, this was the last I was able to see him. He was taken back to the OR and I headed home to pick up Claudia and Paula.
I'm not gonna lie, I was kinda freaking out at this point. I love assisting in surgery, but I don't like people I know going in for surgery. Surgery carries a good list of risks, but I guess we didn't have a choice.
We returned to the hospital and waited for him to come out of surgery. The surgeon came out at about 7:30pm and told us that his appendix had ruptured and actually walled itself off! This caused the surgery to be a little longer and, because of the rupture, Andy needed to be on IV antibiotics and would need to stay overnight. Before the surgery, Andy reallllllllllly wanted to go home afterward, so the surgeon was basically asking for my permission to admit him. Of course my answer was yes!
The recovery room nurse came to get me and told me Andy was having a hard time coming out of anesthesia. She asked if I would like to come back or if I wanted to wait until he was more with it. Having working in surgery and the recovery room (and wanting to see my husband), I went with her. Andy was soooooooo drugged. I guess when he first woke up he was trying to get out of bed and it took four people to hold him down. He was reallllllly nauseated as well which is a bummer. He couldn't really figure out what was going on nor where he was. The nurse asked me if he drank alcohol or did drugs and my answer was no. She said, "He must be a Mormon!" She said that Mormons tend to have a harder time coming out of anesthesia because their body has never experienced any alteration in their senses (that is not the technical explanation at all, but it is true). The two things that he said that were my favorite were: 1. When the anesthesiologist came by Andy said, "Yoooooooooooooooo," and that was it. The anesthesiologist said, "I am pretty sure you are still stoned." It was funny. And 2. He said multiple times, "I'm perrrrrrrfect" and then would smile and close his eyes. He made for some good laughs that night.
I was glad that the doctor wanted to admit him because he was loopy even three and four hours after surgery. I felt bad for him because he had to have his vital signs checked every half hour for two hours, and every hour for four hours, and then occasionally after that. Sleeping in the hospital is no fun! Claudia, Paula, and I actually came home to sleep and slept in til 9. That is late for all of us!
I got a text from Andy just after 9 who said he would be discharged in an hour. Yahoo! I ran to pick him up, brought him home for a quick shower, and then we went to lunch. Wanna guess where?
To be continued.
