“Appendibloging,” or: “Why I was Gone”

Okay so suddenly Tuesday I disappeared from the web completely.  And my concerned reader (notice the self-deprecating use of the singular) might wonder what happened.

Well, last Tuesday my appendix went defcon 2 and they removed it.  I believe it was intact.  I don’t want to downplay it too much, but I mean they are taken out of the time.  It’s as routine as surgery to remove an organ can be.  Since then I have been in “rotating hell” with severe abdominal pain every time I use my stomach muscles.  It hurt when I stood, I hurts when I sat, it hurt to laugh.  Yeah, I couldn’t even enjoy a good comedy, because my stomach muscles were wounded by the whole thing.  When I could finally laugh it felt so good.  Thank you “The Soup.”

And fuck, when I coughed, I felt like someone stabbed me in the stomach.  Oh, and the first medicine, um, well, constipation is a side effect.  Try dealing with that with weakened abdomen muscles.  When things finally, well, passed, I was like a little kid, calling my wife, “I made something.”  “You pooped!  I’m so proud of you!”  Mind you she is a CNA so this kind of thing doesn’t gross her out.  Between that background and the “food with faces” culture she has, let’s be honest: I am the squeamish one.  So I had enough of that by Friday and switched to Codine.  Which, it turns out, I am allergic to.  So now I have hives all over and on drugs to counteract that, and drugs to counteract the side effects of those drugs.  Yike.  My joke is if I start seeing locusts, I am going to run the fuck out of here, because officially I would have Job-like bad luck.  Actually I have had that for a while, although on the good luck side, I have a wonderful wife to help me through all this shit and recognize when I actually need to go to the doctor.

Oh, and don’t even get me started with my HMO.  For work reasons I won’t even name who they are, but every time I deal with them, they are complete idiots.  Tonight, a Pharmacist told me wrongly that ibuprofen was contraindicated for the steroid I was using for the hives (and to make me a stud, you know?).  He specifically said I should wait until the steroid was done before taking it again. Which was wrong.  And then when I raised high holy hell, because if true that would mean my doctor left me unable to take any pain medication that is likely to help, he tries to sell a story that he only meant that he thought maybe I should have something stronger.  That’s the giveaway that his answer was bullshit.  Then he claims also he was concerned the two would make me sick to my stomach.  Which you know, typically medicines don’t have that problem with me, including ibuprofen, and if he asked me I would have told him.

And that was only the latest fuck up with that HMO.  Before then I had a month long cough.  And talking to a advice nurse, as they call them, she says, gee, this is worrysome, you should go see a specialist.  Well, great, I said, so let’s set up an appointment.  When is the soonest available?

A month.

Yeah, no shit, a month.  They are concerned, but not so concerned that they will actually take a look at me in a reasonable time..  I mean at that point I was scared it was cancer or some shit (it wasn’t, but I didn’t know).  And they wanted me to wait a month.

And they alleged that I could go outside of the HMO to anyone who accepts their cards.  Except that they were such dicks about payment outside of their providers, non one accepted their cards.  So there were people who could see me the next week, but I would have to pay the several thousand dollars out of pocket.

Now you might rationally wonder, why the fuck are you telling us all this, especially since you are not giving us the highly useful information as to their actual name?  Well, the reason why is this.  Apparently the health care bill they passed, was significantly inspired by how “well” this company did the job.  No shit.  But remember, if you oppose this boondoggle, you are a racist.  Even if you are black, you know.  And probably homophobic, too.

Anyway, while you will get a nice light piece shortly, blogging will still be light.  I use mainly a laptop computer, and bluntly it hurts to pick the damn thing up and put it on top of my lap.  But the pain had been diminished enough that I felt I could jot these things down real fast.

And if you ever feel severe abdominal pain, I happily endorse web md as a source of information.  I had though I just ate something retched last Tuesday at 4 am when I woke up in pain.  I thought it was something my body was struggling to eject, and after throwing up like 4 times, and maybe some going out the other end, I would be fine.  Web MD didn’t tell me specifically it was appendicitis, but it told me enough to get me to realize I needed to go to the doctor and who knows?  But for all that, I might not be here.  Which might have really pleased the entire nation of Pakistan, heh.