This year I'm thankful for....LIFE!

I'm writing from the hospital and feel very lucky to be alive!

Early Sunday morning I started feeling ill but didn't think to much of it. I went to church and started vomiting, so decided it was best that I go straight back home. I spent the entire day puking and resting but just figured I must have a 24 hour bug or something. My stomach hurt really bad, but I still didn't think much of it.

I realized later Sunday evening though that I wasn't getting any better and it probably wasn't good for me to be throwing up so much. I thought I would wait it out and go to urgent care in the morning but figured that for the heck of it I would call the nurse help line from our insurance company to see what they had to say, and the nurse advised me to go to the ER.

Reluctantly, I decided she was probably right. After getting a cat scan, I was immediately prepped for surgery. I woke up in the recovery room at 2:00 am and was told that my appendix had ruptured and had been that way for quite some time. The doctor told me that had I not come to the the ER that evening I probably would have died in the night. Wowsers, I feel so incredibly blessed to be alive!

I'm so bummed though because I'll probably be here for another few days, which means we had to cancel our plans to fly to Montana for Thanksgiving. I was really looking forward to seeing my family. We had even planned our trip around my brother coming to town as well. Oh well, these things happen and I'm just grateful to be alive.

As soon as my white blood cell counts go down (right now they're at 14,000 and they need to be at 5,000) I can go home. The pain feels very similar to what recovering from my c-section was, although maybe not quite that intense. Hopefully I will be able to go home before Thanksgiving.

In the meantime though, if any of you ever have severe stomach pain around your belly button and on the right side, please go to the ER immediately! I wish I had known so I could have spared myself an entire day of horrible pain at home.