Nothing Says “Vacation” Quite Like a Hospital Bed

June 10, 2009

Our plan for the vacation was pretty straightforward: Julie would drive to Dallas with Carson and Alana, arriving on Saturday morning; Benton and I would stay in Dublin for his three baseball games and then fly down to Dallas on Saturday night; we’d spend Sunday and Monday morning visiting friends and family, and then drive to Austin for the remainder of the week.

The best laid plans…

Everything proceeded nicely through Sunday, except my stomach was bothering me — it seemed tight and achy. Self-diagnosed as travel-related constipation, and I’ll steer clear of TMI for the remainder of this post. Sunday night, I did not sleep well at all. Monday morning, Julie headed out and got some…stuff…on the more extreme self-treatment front, which I tried. Things were marginally better, but I still didn’t feel all that well, and I had a couple of bouts of up-chucking, which seemed odd. So, I stayed at the Bones house while Julie took the kids to Unc and Gigi’s (my great-aunt and great-uncle) for a visit. I felt bad about not getting to see them, but figured I was doing everyone a favor by not exposing them to whatever bug I had.

Within an hour of Julie leaving, I was feeling decidedly worse — to the point that I called Julie and asked her if she could cut the visit short and get me to the ER. Within a couple of hours, I had a diagnosis of appendicitis, which is what I suspected. I had my appendix removed late Monday afternoon and was almost released that evening. But, due to what I’m pretty sure was a faulty thermometer read in the recovery area, I got put up for the night:

The casualties of the hiccup in our plans:

• I didn’t get to see Unc and Gigi at all, and the rest of the family’s visit was cut short
• Benton and I did not get to attend Game 3 of the Texas-TCU super regional in person (Texas won and is headed to the College World Series)
• I missed a lunch with one of my former bosses in Austin on Tuesday

Julie, as she is prone to do, took the lemon and made a vat of lemonade with it:

• Bonus visiting time with the Bones (as they hosted the Wilsons for an extra night)
• A trip to Pump-It-Up with the kids (while I was awaiting surgery):

• A trip to Gattitown (while I was waiting to get checked out of the hospital):

I finally got released from the hospital late Monday afternoon (spent all day just waiting for the surgeon to come by and spend 60 seconds saying, “You’re good to go.” He also passed on that the appendix was seriously inflamed and burst as soon as he had it out.) and we headed to Austin after that. And, we’re back on track!

Posted in Tim