On new years eve I had no energy and contemplated telling friend Emma to go to the new year thing herself but I had enough energy to go by the time we had to go. I stayed off the drink and had a great night.
Emma and I went to have tea with my parents on new years day and then she went back to her dad's. I stayed with my parents and was fine til the Saturday nite when I lost all my energy again.
Then on the Sunday I got bad sickness and diarrhea. Tht's when we called NHS 24 and I saw someone and they put it down to gasteroenteritis and sent me home from hospital with anti sickness meds and drinks to replace salts and sugars.
These didn't help and we called again at 10.30pm and the nurse came out and I was tachycardic and my blood pressure was dropping fast so I got rushed into hospital in the early hours of 5th Jan and after getting x rays and CT scans they discovered a burst abscess on my small bowel so I was rushed in to theatre to remove it and clean up the mess before it poisoned me.
The operation was meant to take an hr but ended up taking 3hrs and I spent 2 days on ITU. I escaped lightly though as I was warned that I may be left with a colostomy bag.
As things are I have a scar almost the entire length of my torso (35 staples which I have since had taken out and kept), residual headache/migraine (that lasted for 2 weeks after op) and backache from the epidural they gave me for extra pain relief when I was in ITU and my left foot has nerve pain and numbness for some reason (also due to Epidural but I still don't have full sensation back in it yet)
I got out on 12th Jan and am slowly getting stronger (almost back to normal now) but the drs are still unsure to what caused the abscess although I do know that if I had left it much longer before getting help I would've died
Scar after op (picture taken 12 Jan 09 - staples in)
Scar after op (picture taken 12 Feb 09 - without staples and dressings)