Jennylee's Story

Hi my name is Jennylee and my story is short and sweet. It all started on Sunday the 14th of July 2002. I had just arrived home from church with the children and while walking across the kitchen floor I heard an almighty crack in my back, I have had a bad back for 20 plus years but I was in a really bad way this time. On Monday night I went to bed in extreme pain and had nothing but aspirin for the pain ( I only had that because my little Musk Lorikeet needs it for his bad shoulder), since I don’t like taking any medication I didn’t take the aspirin. I managed to sleep on and off through the night until about 2am when I woke with extreme pain in my stomach, this had often happened before when I had severe back pain over a few days, so I wasn’t worried but I did resort to taking some aspirin for the pain. At 4 am I woke up and the stomach pain was much worse, I thought that it must have been an allergic reaction to the aspirin as I had had similar cramping when I became allergic to codeine.

My husband had to go to work at 6.30 am and told me to call him home if I got worse. I dozed on and off until about 8 am. I crawled out of bed at 8.10 am and fortunately my daughters were on school holidays so I sent one next door to see if my neighbour could take me to the doctor, as I was in too much pain to drive myself. My doctor was booked out and said she could fit me in on Wednesday so I rang a different clinic. The earliest appointment was 11.00am but I said I was in sheer agony and could they squeeze me in earlier, she moaned but brought it forward to 10.00am.

My dear friend and neighbour Jane came and took me to the doctor, who said he didn’t think I should be in as much pain even if I was allergic to aspirin, so promptly sent me to hospital. I called my husband who made his way home but Jane took me to the ER rather than waiting for David to get home. David met me a short time later at the hospital. Jane and her daughter Sally took control of the kids for us while we waited in the ER.

We waited from 10.45 am until 4.00 pm to see a doctor, finally they sent me for x-rays and an ultra sound, where they discovered gallstones. The doctors said “you will need you gallbladder removed tonight”. Then another doctor walked past and asked if they had done the “rebound test” on me yet, they hadn’t so he DID and I hit the roof, “nope, it’s the appendix” he said. So I was having my appendix out now not my gallbladder.

The nurse was instructed to give me pain relief, about time, but I didn’t know if I was allergic to anything except codeine as I don’t take anything for pain, I suffer through most things as I figure it will sort itself out. She tried 2mm of morphine and I broke out in a rash and was burning in my joints and ITCHING, as if I wasn’t feeling YUCK anyway. The doctor said I could still have the morphine if I wanted as I had a “reaction” but was not classed as being allergic to it. But as if I needed the itching and burning to put up with as well as the pain.

The nurse gave me some other pain killer and luckily there was no reaction. The nurse turned and walked towards the nurses station and ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE. My stomach started cramping extremely badly and although I am not one to swear I said s**t, the nurse said “not here, I will have to clean it up”, so I said SUGAR, she said I will have to clean that up too, so I replied, “it will give you something to do”. Seven minutes later (according to David) it seemed like a lifetime to me the pain eased off and I had all sorts of doctors and nurses standing around the bed. “Well those appendix are definitely coming out tonight”, they said.

I was taken to a ward to wait for a theatre to be available, it was about 8.00 pm by now, so David headed home to rescue Jane and Sally from our daughters, after all there was nothing else he could do now anyway.

The anesthetist came and checked the heart etc but discovered I had a murmur so wanted to wait until the next day when he could have some tests done, but after a few minutes decided we would be in a worse state if the appendix ruptured.

So at 10.15 on Tuesday the 16th of July, I was wheeled into theatre for what was meant to be a half hour operation. When the surgeon went in through my navel he got one hell of a surprise….. a belly full of puss, so he had to open me up where he discovered that my bowel had ruptured and everything was everywhere, no wonder I was in so much pain in the ER. Doctor Chu was so funny as he described what he saw with his hand actions over his stomach. So that is how I ended up with my colostomy. While he was there he also discovered an ovarian cyst so called for a gynecologist to remove it. He also checked the gallbladder and left it there, and checked the appendix he said “I picked them up and it was a beautiful specimen so I placed it back where it belongs”. So the dear old appendix are still there, I am just missing about 30 cm of bowel. I have been diagnosed with diverticulitis which the doctor said was unusual in someone so “young”, I am 41 but my grandmother was diagnosed at age 33 and she is now 88 years old.

I ended up being on the operating table for 4 hours. When the doctor came to see me he simply explained what happened and said he was glad he didn’t wait until morning as he would have been fighting an uphill battle if he was fighting at all, so I was very lucky I went to hospital that day and I was obviously meant to go, any other time if I had the pain as I had in the hospital I would have just gone to bed especially when it all died down.

When I ended up in the ward everyone can hear what is going on and so they all kept asking how I could be dealing with it so well and was I in denial, my response was and is simply “I could have been six feet under, so I just need to get on with life”. I am never sick, I don’t even get colds and I only ever had tonsillitis when I was six, now here I was with a colostomy and my back was in a bad way, so I was in tears only because my back stopped me from being active, I was literally on my back for 2 weeks.
I had been in the hospital for a week when a lady in her mid to late fifties was brought in, she was quite upset and asked everyone what they had had done, she was in for bowel cancer so was having her bowel and her rectum removed, she didn’t think she could cope with the bags etc. Her name was Kathleen and she asked me what I had done and we talked for about an hour and at the end she thanked me for putting her mind at ease. I had assured her that our stoma nurse Jill was brilliant and that with the support of the doctors and nurses, who were great and her family she would be fine. Although I realize that what she was about to go through was worse than I had been through I believe this happened to me so that I could be in the hospital to talk to Kathleen and help put her mind at ease, well as much as she could be before such an operation, God works in mysterious ways.

I ended up being in the hospital for two weeks, because of the infection I ended up with an open wound for 9 weeks then I had a week of heaven until I started having severe sharp stabbing pain constantly, I now have a peristomal hernia, thankfully the pain has subsided so I am getting on with life. With a bit of luck I will have a reversal in January or February 2003, but if not life is good anyway.

Jennylee

Previous

Stories

Next