On This Year’s Surgery Number Two

So I’ve had my second surgery for the year.  This one came from totally out of the blue.  Thankfully, it is in no way related to the last, which means it doesn’t affect our chances of getting knocked up.

We are currently trying to get pregnant.  The longer I'm off the pill for the more irregular my cycle gets, so I'm using basal thermometer reading (plus monitoring other stuff) to work out when I'm ovulating.  This is the first month I’ve been doing this, so I’ve been hyper conscious of my body.  A few weeks ago I noticed some pain on my right hand side.  It was around the time that I was due to ovulate – so I thought it was that.  I had two nights of really bad gastro cramping and almost no sleep, so figured my IBS was playing up.  After getting home Saturday night after Sarah’s book launch, I was horrendously ill.  The next morning I noticed that the right side of my stomach was swollen.  After putting all of this together, I realised I had most of the symptoms of non-acute appendicitis, and went to the doctor.

My GP suspected the same, but the pain wasn’t acute enough to warrant hospital.  He gave me antibiotics, which often helps settle a rumbling appendix, and advised me to go to hospital if it got any worse.  I said ‘See, I told you’ to Murray - very proud with my accurate self diagnosis.

I didn’t go to work on Monday as I still had pain, and by Wednesday it hadn’t gotten any worse, but it also hadn’t gotten any better so I decided to go to hospital to be safe.  Antibiotics usually kick in within 48 hours so something was not right.

After a while in emergency awaiting test results, I saw a doctor.  Everything was fine.  Apart from my pain and gastro symptoms, my temperature was normal, blood tests normal - everything normal.  I thought they were going to send me home.  I told the doctor that I was very nervous.  The idea of a rumbling appendix was just like an ectopic pregnancy, like having a bomb in your body that could go off at any time.  She took me seriously, and after an ultrasound also appeared normal, said I should stay overnight for observation in the surgical ward.  I was extremely grateful.

After seeing the surgical registrar, the decision was made to pop a camera in there, and check everything was ok.  They didn’t think I had appendicitis, but agreed that something was not as it should be.  Again, I was so grateful.  I am very used to people thinking I'm crazy.  Even if they found nothing, my mind would be at ease, which would mean I might be able to get some sleep.  Every time my stomach cramped it pressed on whatever was hurting in my right hand side, and made me scared it would explode.  The idea of my insides exploding is scary.  I don't sleep when I'm scared.

The night in hospital wasn’t great.  I didn’t sleep, and in the morning, there was a drama.  

I'm good with needles, but needles aren’t good with me.  When I arrived at the hospital it took three attempts to get a line in.  The successful lure hadn’t been used for about 20 hours when the nurse tried to attach the drip pre-surgery.  She put the fluid through to clean the line and it felt wrong.  I've had this done many times, so know what it usually feels like.  I told her, and she ignored me.  Then she started the drip.  It got progressively more painful.  Then my arm blew up like a balloon.  I firmly told her she had to stop the drip, and she did.

I was amazed she didn’t take the line out.  My arm was huge.  The lure had popped out of the vein so everything had gone straight into my arm.  It felt very odd.  After an hour of looking at my blown up arm with the lure still in it I buzzed for the nurse.

‘Please can you take this out?’

‘Why, is it hurting?  I’ll get you another pillow.’ 

It seemed ridiculous she was questioning this quite logical request.  I completely lost the plot.  

‘No (sob) it (sob) doesn’t hurt (sob).  I just (sob) haven’t (sob) had any sleep (sob) and (sob) I got (sob) a really big fright (sob).’ 

It took half an hour to stop sobbing.

The nurse totally freaked.  She had someone take the lure out, and checked on me every five minutes until her shift finished.  Then she checked on me as she was leaving.  It was one of those things that is quite hilarious in retrospect, but is SOOOO traumatic at the time.

Another lure was put into a friendlier vein, and I was in surgery by 10.30am.  It always amazes me how many people there are in surgery.  There were at least seven in this one, and it was a simple, laproscopic procedure.  They told me they would take my appendix out regardless which was a huge relief – I never have to worry about it exploding, ever.  The anaesthetist held the oxygen mask on my face very hard, pushing his thumb up under my jaw.  It really hurt, but I just said to myself ‘Don't worry, you’ll be unconscious soon.’  And I was.*

I had the best wake up from surgery ever (last time I asked the nurses the same question over and over, and demanded drugs until I went blue cos my oxygen sats dropped).  I woke up 12 minutes after going into recovery and felt pretty great.  The procedure had taken 45 minutes – about 20 minutes longer than anticipated.  They had found a burst ovarian cyst which had put gunk through all my insides.  This is what was causing the pain and gastric issues.  They cleaned it all out and removed my (healthy) appendix.

Recovery has been physically more taxing than the last.  I think they had to move things around a bit as I have more bruising and swelling than with my last surgery.  I overdid things on Sunday (I washed dishes, tidied and hung up washing) which caused my surgical sites to bleed – I have been much better at resting since then.  A week on from surgery and I’m feeling pretty good.  Still a little sore and still tired but I think my stomach muscles have knitted back together as sitting up doesn’t hurt any more.

The sucky thing about this unexpected surgery is how it impacts on work.  The timing could not be poorer.  Well, it could.  We’re also heading to Melbourne for a holiday shortly, so I’m glad this didn’t happen then.  It means we won't have much to spend in Melbourne because excess money is covering my mortgage payments while I’m off work.  But in all honesty our flights and fancy accommodation is paid, we’re going to Armageddon for free thanks to our amazing friend Richard - so we’ll have a great time anyway.  And I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again; I am employed by wonderful people.  I am so grateful that after two unexpected surgeries and almost 6 weeks off work this year, I still have a job.

The other sucky thing is it’s mucked up my first month of basal thermometer reading.  And I have to be less smug about my (non)skills at self-diagnosis.

*Following surgery I had a cut inside my lip and a bruise under my jaw.  I should have said something, but it’s physically difficult to talk when you’re JUST about to go under for surgery, and someone is tightly holding a mask over your face.

On the eating below the poverty line challenge

So I saw this really fabulous idea via an article on Stuff.co.nz yesterday.  I have read about this before, but this time I thought actually, this isn't a bad idea.  So I decided it might be a nice thing to do.  I've lived in poverty before, but that was a long time ago, so it will be good for me to remember what it's like again.

After checking out the actual fundraising page I realised that this was just to fundraise for charities that do work overseas.  Although I absolutely understand that these charities need financial support, it made me quite sad that not a single one was a NZ based charity ie: none of those funds go to help other Kiwis.  Given that we have over 270,000 children living below the poverty line here, this made me quite sad, as everywhere I seem to see New Zealanders distancing themselves from this statistic.

It is sad because these children are our next generation.  They are the people who will financially support our parents, and ourselves when we are older.  They are the future of our country, and over 1/4 of them currently live in poverty.

Living in extreme poverty is defined by the world bank as living on less than $1.25US per day ($2.25NZ).  Children living below the poverty line in NZ is defined as: 'The proportion of children with equivalised disposable household income under 50 - 60% of the current median.'  And yet another definition I've read for poverty (which I think is quite apt) is: 'Not having enough money to go to the doctor, not being able to fill up the car or being able to pay for groceries or appropriate clothing.'

The Live Below the Line concept is to live on $2.25 per person, per day, for food and beverages.  This is not a reflection of what real poverty is like.  As my friend Gen pointed out, us middle class folk doing the challenge still get to live in our warm, dry houses, with decent clothing and bedding, shoes and jackets.  We can still go to the doctors if we need to.  Nevertheless, it is a small way of understanding what things might be like if we were in a different situation.  
 
Therefore, I am going to do my own Live Below the Line, and fundraise money for Kids Can, a New Zealand based charity that helps low decile schools by providing basics like food, raincoats and shoes for children in need.  This is a charity I have supported for some time, so have seen through their newsletters the work they are doing in our communities.


Murray is going to do it with me (as it's easier to buy and cook together than otherwise).  I will also (not sure if I can convince him of this stuff) forgo home internet, Playstation, use of our home phone and will treat my cel phones as if it has no credit on it (ie: you can call or text me, but I cannot text you back).  Aside from getting to and from work, I will not use the car, or public transport.  From memory, one of the hardest things about living in poverty is feeling trapped - having little options, and little ability to get support.

We will do this at the same time as all the other folk (from the 24th - 28th of September), so we have time to (hopefully) get some sponsors and raise some money for Kids Can.  I am lucky I have this time to map out how to get the most bang for our buck with food.  Any advice is welcome, although remember that most people in poverty would not easily be able to shop around.  I have our meals pre-planned (we will have leftovers from dinner for lunch), and although they will be simple, they should (hopefully) be enough to keep us going.

If you'd like to support us, please email me and I'll pass on the details.  I'm hoping to raise enough to help at least five schools out with food for a year - I only need to raise $500 to make that happen.
 

Grocery Budget Must Haves  
1kg white rice                  $1.85
12 eggs                          $3.00
2 x tins  tomatoes          $1.80
6 x potatoes                  $1.50
3 x onions                  $0.60
1 small bulb garlic             $0.60
4 x carrots                  $0.70
Bag of Pak choi          $0.79
1/2 cup pinto beans          $0.80
400g tapioca                  $1.50
1/2 cup chickpeas          $1.00
5 x button mushrooms      $1.08
Tea bags (30)                  $1.30
1 litre milk                          $1.90
Coconut cream (sml)        $1.06
6 x apples                  $0.90
seasoning from home       $1.00
Total                        $21.38
 
Extras (if we can afford them)  
Small piece of ginger        $0.30
1/2 cup banana chips       $0.40
1/2 cup popping corn        $0.60
2 Tbsp linseed                  $0.15
1/3 cup raisins                  $0.50
Extras total                  $1.95

Total Budget                 $23.33 
($0.83 over budget)    

Freebies


Oranges from our tree
Herbs from garden
Puha from side of road
Water*

* Blogger's formatting is being a bitch - sorry about the mess people.