September to Remember

On September 2, 2006, Teri and I set off to go back to Myrtle Beach for our 10th anniversary vacation. It started off okay, even though it was raining in MD. But after about 2 hours of driving, we got a call from our house alarm company. Gram triggered the alarm because she knocked the phone off the hook. My brother Chuck arrived soon after and all was fine. Then the adventure began...

On the ride down, we stopped and I reach into the back of our van to pull something from the luggage. I had a back spasm. No big deal, I would take it easy the next day. I did, but on Monday, we hit the driving range. This did my back in. We went to find a chiropractor on Tuesday. This was a Chinese chiropractor and in addition to the normal chiropractic adjustments, she did a Chinese technique called cupping to relieve the inflammation. This seemed to work ok, but left circles all along my back side. It looks bad, but it didn’t hurt or anything, and did seem to relive the inflammation. The picture with the glass jars is the cupping procedure.

The next day Teri and I had a golf lesson and went out on the Dolphin Adventure, which we went about a mile out in the ocean, followed shrimp boats and watch the dolphins come up to feed. All went well.

Thursday we went Gulf Stream fishing. This was a 3 hour ride out the Gulf Stream, 5 hours of fishing, and 3 hours back to port. On the way out, I got sea sick BIG TIME! And stayed that way the entire trip. Teri did okay, and I managed to get about 90 minutes of fishing in. We ended up catching about 30 pounds of fish. Once on shore, I was okay, just know to take caution (and Dramamine) next time.

Things were fine for the next week and a half. Doing the work thing, and getting into golf a little more. On Monday, September 18 I watched the football game. They discussed the appendectomy that the Pittsburgh Quarterback underwent (with computer animation). It was informative; file it for long term info. Went to bed and had some stomach pains. I thought it was something I eat earlier, but it didn’t settle down with Tums or Pepto. Uh, oh, feels like it could be another kidney stone. Took kidney stone pain pill, no use; off to hospital.

They got the pain under control and I received a CAT scan. Around 5:00am I’m informed that it’s my appendix. My first thought, “I’ve got a busy week coming up, can we schedule this for next Monday?” I’m informed that I’ll be the first surgery of the morning at 7:30am. That really messed up the week.

It took a little longer then they thought, but got it out via Laparoscopic surgery. I woke up in my hospital room Tuesday morning around 9:30am. I recovered in the hospital until Thursday afternoon, and was discharged. Everything went fine Thursday, I eat normally. No BM yet, but that was normal for this operation.

Friday, I wasn’t able to keep any food on my stomach. This was cause for concern, and back to the hospital Friday evening. They ran a bunch of tests, but found nothing wrong. All is well on Saturday. Everything is functioning properly.

With this surgery, I did miss a big concert Saturday, the Virgin Festival. These things happen. I’ll probably be out of work another couple weeks.