The beginning of Change

Continuing on from my previous post......

So there I was minding my own business, a Friday, end of January, a day off work, child at nursery, myself and my pregnant wife down the shops.
Oooohhh, feel like I'm getting a stomach ache.....what did I eat last night....will have to get home soon....

Stomach ache continued a bit over the weekend but not bad enough for me to think anything major, just my body getting over it.  By Monday stomach was paining a bit and not much was coming from the rear and what was was watery.

Got myself down to my Doc and saw a different doc than my own as it was an emergency appt.
Told to drink lots of water as probably constipation. Visited Doc on next two consecutive days, by 3rd visit, senior doc takes a look and ships me off to A&E with a letter.

A few tests later they decide to keep me in overnight for observation and next morning an egotistical consultant with a gaggle of junior docs comes to visit and in his loudest and most "I know exactly what is going on here" voice tells me after a quick check of my stomach, that I have appendicitis and that it is standard procedure nothing to worry about, be back out within a couple of days and flies off to see the next product on the production line a few beds down from me.

They duly took me down to surgery a little later than planned, a week since I was first at the shops with my twinge.  I was lying on the trolley outside of the surgical room in a state of mild apprehension...never been in surgery before...never been put to sleep...wife, child and child on the way....all sorts of thoughts going round my mind.  Nurse gives me something to help calm my nerves.  It sure did!
Woke up in the hospital ward with that ileostomy bag and some wires coming out of me and hanging off me.

I am told that they opened me up went for the appendix, took it out, saw that it was healthy and then had to open me right up, take out the intestines to find out where the infection site was.  Diverticulitis was the name and giving me an ileostomy was the option.

I do view that as the beginning of the days over which my outlook on life changed significantly.  By the end of that year I had gone through a lot of change both physically and emotionally.

If these last posts have kept you interested from either a personal or other perspective, then feel free to come back for further follow up posts.