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| Day 2 - still pretty drugged up |
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| Day 5 - My first real meal and moving out of bed!!! |
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| Day 6 - I CAN WALK |
I will never forget the basic thanks I owe the world for allowing me to live each and every day. Today is my last day at the hospital after staying for over a week. Through my experience the three biggest lessons I’ve learned are not to take things for granted, to appreciate the little things, to realize how lucky I am to have such a solid community here in France. Just writing this I feel overwhelmed with thankfulness – to the point of tearing up! I’ve had so many people helping me this past week it’s incredible.
I guess I will start with the straight up facts of what happened. Don’t worry, the first part is overwhelming and scary but it gets happier.
Two weeks ago today I began to feel stomach pains. They were very strange pains, starting in the morning when I woke up. Each day I had a strong urge to pee extremely early in the morning. After I would go to the bathroom, my stomach would hurt so bad that I had a hard time walking back to my bed. It felt painful as soon as the pressure in my stomach changed. As the week progressed, I began to feel these pains randomly throughout the day and then I felt them localize on the right side of my stomach. My earliest memory of sharp pain preventing me from my regular daily movement is two Sunday’s ago when Emma and I went for a short jog. For the first 5 minutes I couldn’t run because it hurt so badly. After a 5-minute warm-up, however, I was good to go. All these symptoms seemed super minute and I thought they were just in my head – that is until last Thursday.
Last Thursday the pains came on stronger. I lay in bed twisting and turning on Thursday morning for a good hour before getting up. I stupidly tried to go for a run that morning yet could not even jog down the stairs. I consistently felt the pain throughout the day. After hiding it for over a week, I finally decided to tell my friends Molly and Elita. Their concern and the progressive severity and localization of the pain gave me enough alarm to get some help. I finished the classes for the day and decided if the pains didn’t leave by tomorrow, I would ask my host mom to set up an appointment with her physician. That day classes were a struggle and I could barely concentrate. That night, I did not have an appetite and couldn’t even participate in dinner conversation, because I felt so terrible. So, I went to bed early, slept for 10 hours, woke up the next morning, felt the same pain, made an appointment for the afternoon, and then went to class.
I spent lunchtime on Friday looking up symptoms and possible causes for my problems on webmd. The specificity of my symptoms and the timeline seemed to fit closest with appendicitis, but I was very unsure. The specific nature of morning pain and hurting to pee threw me off and did not seem to fit in any category. So, after writing a list of my weird problems in French, I took off with Robert and arrived at the physician’s office at 2:30 for my first appointment.
As much as I love my host family and really appreciate all their support here, that day I couldn’t help but wish I had my true family at my side. The level of support is on an entirely different playing field when your own child, sister, niece, nephew, relative, or lifelong friend is in trouble. Logistically, my host parents helped me get me everywhere I needed but emotionally I felt entirely alone.
Like I was saying, Robert took me to the door of my appointment right at 2:30 and drove off. I didn’t know when or even if he was returning to pick me up. I was completely alone in a French doctor’s office praying to God he had brought me to the right place. After saying my name I quickly realized he had and they sent me to the waiting room (which is completely blocked off from the secretary’s office – weird difference from the states!). I was finally called into the office and started telling my tale to the doctor. I ended up forgetting my sheet of vocab and had the most difficult time describing my symptoms – knowing in the back of my head that they didn’t perfectly fit any disease I could find. The same problems of going to the bathroom and experiencing the strongest pain in the mornings threw her off.
This whole time I was so embarrassed by my low level of French and felt as if I could not say anything right or understand what she was saying at ALL. She barely knew any English. So after awkwardly figuring out that my insurance wouldn’t pay for the appointment I used all the cash I had to pay for my visit and then she sent me to another office to have an URGENT ultrasound. She thought whatever I had was serious. At least I understood the word URGENT and NOW.
So, I went to the main part of the office and ask the secretary if my host dad was around. We spend a good 5-minutes looking for him because he apparently told her he would be waiting outside for me. He wasn’t. He arrived soon thereafter in his big white trash van with two grandchildren screaming in the front seat. She explained the situation to him and he drove me to the other office to get my ultrasound (although at this point I had no idea what test was going to be done to me because how the hell am I supposed to know the word for ultra sound in French???? Fyi it is écographie) Then, once again he dropped me off with no specifics of if he’d be there when I returned (or maybe I just didn’t understand because I was so overwhelmed.) Oh and another fun fact, we got completely lost trying to find this office and Robert was swearing up a storm. I was freaking out so hardcore.
I arrived at the building but there were no signs inside as to where this place actually was. After searching for the office and climbing up and down the stairs to make sure I didn’t miss it, I found it on the third floor in a random hallway on the right. Why on Earth did no one tell me this information? I gave them my name and they sent me to another “isolation room”. Fun times. A man called my name, brought me to a small stark room with merely two seats and an ultrasound machine inside, told me to take off my clothes, and said he would return. He did and checked out my tummy on the screen, which was hurting increasingly more and more. When he touched it with the little handheld device, I would flinch in pain. He apologized and just kept saying “TRÈS TRÈS TRÈS GRAND! Similaire d’une balloon.” Aka your appendix is freakishly huge and looks like it’s a balloon. Then he kept emphasizing how I needed to get operated on tonight. Ahhhhh! He left, and I began to wipe off my stomach and cry in the corner.
Eventually a woman came to the door and told me that I was supposed to have left this room and gone to another room to wait. So I went back to the isolation/waiting room and then walked back to the front office to ask if I could call our program director. She said yes, so I went outside to call. Unfortunately, I had the wrong number so I couldn’t get a hold of her. So, I texted a bunch of my friends explaining what had happened and they immediately called me back and pretty much saved my life. I was a mess at this point. I was bawling. Thankfully, I could finally talk in English with them and actually discuss what was happening. All I knew is that I needed surgery. That night.
They got the results back and told me I needed to pay 76 euro and then make my way over to the emergency room. Considering I had no money and no mode of transportation, this was a problem. They told me there was an ATM right next door, so I went back down the three flights of stairs and tried to get some cash money. Unfortunately, the ATM wouldn’t take my non European credit card. I was so angry, upset, and emotionally drained at this point. I had no idea what to do. Luckily, Robert appeared at this exact moment. I started bawling and tried to explain what had happened in my broken French. He figured it out, said don’t worry and paid for the bill while I waited in the car with his screaming grandchildren. Literally the most hyper kids I’ve ever seen in my life. Then, Micheline (the program director) called and said she was on the way to Paris for a meeting but told me she would come back to Echirolles to help me. She asked me a bunch of questions which made me realize I had no idea where I was now, where I was going, or what was going to happen to me. I just kept repeating, “I have appendicitis and need an operation tonight, but I have no idea where I am or what hospital I am going to. I’m sorry, please find me!”
So Robert brought me to the ER at Le Clinique des Cèdres in Echirolles (bear in mind, I didn’t know this info at the time). He helped me fill out paperwork and then just left. All I could think about was how badly I wanted my mom and dad. All I wanted was someone to be there in the hospital with me. I was literally all alone in a hospital where I could barely understand anything. I journaled it up until the time when they called my name. So much was going through my mind!
