Life with Chronic Illness

This past Friday morning, I woke up later than usual, and also felt very tired.  My chest hurt, and I had some minor abdominal pain.  Once I got to work (about 1/2 hr early), I decided I should probably go to the ER.  I dropped Huck off with my dad and headed to the closest ER.  I was taken in almost immediately, there are not so many emergency patients at that time of day.  I had my own room and had lots of labs and exams throughout the day.   My dad joined me when he got out of work, and finally, at 5pm, had a CT scan.  My appendix has been noted to be mildly enlarged on every CT, MRI on my abdomen in the last 5 year.  It was 1 mm bigger this time.  It was also harder to visualized and harder for me to feel pain because it was behind my colon, not in front. The surgeon decided waiting could be more harmful to me than having surgery on Friday Night/Saturday morning.  We did not want to risk infection or rupture.   When they opened me up, they found my appendix which definitely

Four years ago, I had a bilateral adrenalectomy.  When talking to other Cushing's patients who are contemplating surgery, I often tell them I would choose this 100 times over, I wouldn't ever make a different decision, but that's easy for me to say because I didn't have another option.  I was probably 300lbs, or close to it. The last weight I recorded was 285 at my last endocrine appointment, I knew I did not want to see 300, so I did not weigh myself for the weeks before my surgery. I was close to having a stroke, or heart attack, and either would be hard to recover from in my fragile state. My blood pressure was always very high, the morning of my surgery it was 160/100.  The radiation oncologist who I had a consult with mentioned that he didn't think I would live long enough to wait for radiation therapy to work (3-5 years).  I failed the test to get into some last minute medication trials to buy more time.  I literally had no choice but to have this surgery.  So