A Retrospective Survey of Hart's Appendix Adventures in Photographs

The Saintly Mama who fixed Hart smoothies, beet salad, and chicken soup.

I am so glad that my appendix decided to fester with bacteria when I had my mama around to nurse me back to health. She took really good care of me. And she has also enjoyed this "bonus" 2 weeks of mother-daughter bonding time.

Hart recovering with the help of Puck, the mischievous black cat. How sweet!

Me in the hospital getting my IV removed before I was discharged. This was a very exciting day for me. First time that I had 1) showered, 2) farted, and 3) didn't have a tube sticking into my elbow in almost 3 days.

This nurse and all the other nurses were so nice to me. So when I returned to the clinic, I dropped off loaves of bread to the nurses and ER doctors as a thank you present.

The beautiful 5-cm incision in all its glory. All the doctors and nurses admired it when I showed it off. It will make a very elegant scar.

And this is the prettiest that it looked. Over the next week, it became nasty and inflamed as my skin cells protested the metal staples. Fortunately, the staples were removed yesterday when I visited Dr. Ong and Dr. Kelley in the "Surgical Ambulatory" Clinic.

Appendix Delay

Monday, Jan 19, 3:24pm:
I finished gathering all the gadgets I need for Costa Rica. Hooray! Also very excited about watching Obama and Biden enter the White House tomorrow.
9:13pm: Oh, tummy ache. Oh, its probably the typhoid vaccine that I'm taking. Among a slew of other side effects--diarrhea, headaches, vomiting--it lists abdominal pain.

Tuesday, Jan 20, 2:36am:
Crawl into bed with mama with an increasingly terrible tummy ache.

9:10 am: Tummy ache is still terrible. And its all in the lower right quadrant. Uh oh. Sounds like appendix trouble. Mama races sickly Hart to her doctor and then to the ER.

10:15 am: Allegheny General. Four doctors visit me and poke my belly. They all get the same answer: "Ouch. It hurts when you poke my right side. Ouch. It hurts on the right side when you poke my left side. Ouch. It hurts when you poke my belly and then let go and it hurts when you wiggle my right leg. Ouch!" The doctors keep poking me anyway. Apparently, "acute abdominal pain in the lower right quadrant" could mean a bunch of illness, including an egg implanted in my fallopian tube, twisted ovary, and urinary tract infection. A gross appendix sounded pretty great compared to the rest of the list.

My nurse, Kimberly, injects 8 ml morphine into my IV. For me, the rest of the day is just lovely. I think that worried parents should get the drugs instead of the sickly children. Long story short, the nurses put me through the usual battery of blood tests, CT scan, and urine checks to discover that (amazingly!) I have a high white blood cell count, enlarged appendix, and no pregnant hormones. And my appendix is also in an unusual place; its pointing up instead of squishing in sideways. Again, this confirms what my Mama has told me for years: I'm special.

5:46 pm: The doctors slit me open and remove my appendix. And I spend the rest of the evening drifting in and out of sleep on narcotics. My mama finally leaves the hospital once she knows that I am safe and sound.

Thursday January 22: Discharged!
After a few days of recovery, I can eat solid food, fart (hooray!), and walk around the hospital floor instead of waddling. When I get back home, my mama feeds me home-made chicken soup, beet salad, and organic fruit smoothies.

Now I am almost up to snuff. My right side still hurts a little bit and I tire very easily, but I am feeling better every day. I will go back to the hospital on Wednesday to have the five staples removed. After another week, I'll be off to Costa Rica! On the down-side, I will miss over a week of my program, but I know that the professors and students will get me caught up fairly quickly. And I am not allowed to lift heavy things for the next month. So dear Ben Iberle will be carrying my books. Oh how sweet. Don't worry--it will never happen again.