I’ll take a delicious break in the south of France – with a side of appendicitis, s'il-vous-plait.
Things have been a little quiet here on Bambi Jane for the past couple of weeks, so sorry about that. But it hasn’t been without good reason. A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post about
not feeling well while travelling.
Little did I know the true reason why I felt so shit! (More on this shortly.)
I decided to take a couple of weeks off, to fully enjoy a two week family holiday we’d had planned for almost two years. A chateau in the south of France with my parents, sisters and all of our boyfriends with nothing to do but swim, eat and read books – it promised to be peaceful, idyllic and restorative for the soul. I wanted to switch off completely and come back refreshed and with a renewed vigour for all things work and blog.
That’s what I
wanted
to happen
.
Life had other plans.
But first, the holiday. After a bit of a trying journey which involved a two hour wait for our rental car and an unforeseen £200 charge, (not cool Europcar, not cool), we finally arrived at our gorgeous old chateau near the Bastide town on Monflanquin as the sun was setting, casting a gorgeous pink and orange glow over the old stone, glorious swimming pool and sprawling grounds. So typically French, it was rustic in style and decorated beautifully. (
, if you’re interested.)
We spent the first couple of days soaking up the early September sunshine, visiting local vineyards like Chateau Monbazillac and lunching on rich cheese and wine in nearby towns like Bergerac.
It was after a particularly big lunch in Bergerac in fact, a few days in to the holiday, that my stomach started to hurt. The best way I can think to describe it is that my stomach felt like a painful shell. It was bloated and painful all over. I put it down to eating too much – I’d followed up my lunch with a healthy (or not) scoop of gelato, and some local beer. The pain came and went throughout that evening, and I remember feeling distinctly “weird” – a bit off, not myself. But that didn’t stop me enjoying a few gin and tonics around the fire with everyone, before heading to bed around midnight.
I woke a couple of hours later feeling incredibly sick, and with a really painful stomach. It was one of those horrible nights when you’re constantly waking up from that awful, interrupted sick-sleep where you can’t tell what’s real and what’s not and have really messed up dreams.
I got a bit of sleep but by the morning wasn’t feeling any better. I was actually throwing up by this point and felt like I had really bad period pains. My first thought was that I’d drank too much, but I’d only had 3 drinks at most over the course of about six hours. My thoughts then turned to food poisoning, so I resigned myself to a couple of days in bed and feeling rubbish. Not ideal, but it happens.
I managed to venture out by the pool a bit during the day, but was regularly being sick and the pain in my stomach was only getting worse. I explained to my mum that whereas previously the pain had been all over my stomach, it now seemed to have moved lower down in my abdomen.
“It doesn’t sound good,” she said, eyeing up my pasty face and swollen stomach. “Could it be appendicitis?”
I didn’t really know much about appendicitis, except that it’s not good, and needs surgery. It wasn’t something I wanted to have, let alone on holiday.
“No, it can’t be”, I reasoned. “I’ve just eaten and drunk too much. I just need a good sleep”.
But when night rolled round again, the pain only got worse. I stopped being sick but the pain in my stomach intensified and started to focus in on one area of my abdomen. The lower, right hand side. In the middle of the night, I googled appendicitis to put my mind at rest. A quiz of nine symptoms revealed that I had all nine. I started to feel a bit anxious. I knew something was wrong when a sleep-deprived Phil tried to get me to take a bite of a Twix for the sugar, and I retched as soon as it touched my mouth. I never turn down chocolate.
“Phil,” I whispered, trying desperately not to move from fear of the pain. “If this isn’t better by the morning, I think I need to go to the hospital”.
Lo and behold, things were only worse by morning. It felt like I was being repeatedly stabbed in the stomach. I could barely stand up, and when I could, I was hunched over at 90 degrees. We called our travel insurance company (all hail travel insurance!) and they advised us to go to a walk-in centre for an opinion. If they agreed it was appendicitis, they’d give us a letter to allow us to fast-track through a&e.
What followed was perhaps the most painful couple of hours of my life. We drove twenty minutes to the nearest town of Monflanquin, parked at the bottom of the hill, and walked for ten minutes through the centre, looking for the doctor’s surgery. I clung to Phil’s arm like my life depended on it, bent in two, stars dancing in front of my eyes. We finally found it, and somehow I waited forty minutes to be seen, all while convinced my appendix was about to explode where I sat in the nice waiting area.
The doctor didn’t speak any English (we were pretty much in the middle of nowhere), but thankfully I speak reasonable French. I explained everything that was wrong, and he felt my stomach. Immediately he began to look concerned, before giving me a pitying look that crossed all language barriers.
“This side of your stomach is rock-hard”, he explained gently as I struggled to translate. “You’ve got acute appendicitis. You need to get to a hospital”.
After handing over twenty euros (apparently that’s how things work. At the time, I wouldn’t even have cared if he was ripping me off), we limped back down the hill to the car, and made our way the next twenty minutes to the nearest hospital, in the town of Villeneuve. Staring blankly ahead, I said flatly: “they’re going to take it out, aren’t they.”
“Yes. I think they are”, Phil responded.
Every turn and bend in the car made my stomach feel like it was going to rip in two. There wasn’t even room in my head to feel concerned or worried about what was about to happen. I’ve never had surgery before, let alone in a country where I don’t fully understand the language, but I had to put trust in the fact that everything would be ok. “It’s only appendicitis”, I told myself. “people go through worse. It’s a common operation – doctors do it all the time.”
As promised, I was seen straight away when I got to the hospital. I didn’t understand what the bustling nurses and doctors were saying to me, but was relieved when they hooked me up to a drip and the pain started to seep slowly away. I’d been in constant pain for almost two days, so I can’t even tell you how good it felt to have some respite!
Mum and dad and my sisters came bundling in at this point, as we’d left the house so early that morning in search of a doctor that they hadn’t even know what was going on. While Phil talked this through with the travel insurance company, I had an ultrasound which confirmed that yep, my appendix was about to blow. Time to whip it out.
I had a consultation with a surgeon, who, while trustworthy-looking enough, chattered away in complicated French and made cutting motions with his hand while gesturing to my belly button. I didn’t care. “Just get it out. Make the pain stop”, I told them in broken French. They seemed to understand.
After being prepped, I was wheeled away for surgery. My dad had on his “everything is alright” face and tone, while my mum looked as though she was about to throw up in the hospital corridor. I gave her a thumbs up as I rounded the corner toward theatre.
The team from this point were fantastic – they complimented my French and did their best to explain what I didn’t understand, they made jokes, they even stroked my face and reassured me. It was weird, but I still didn’t feel that frightened – even though being put to sleep has always struck the fear of god into me. When you don’t have a choice, you just do it. I probably wouldn’t live without the surgery. I took deep breaths, answered their questions about my holiday calmly as they pumped in more and more anaesthetic. The last thing I remember is asking the anaesthetist where he lived as the room started to spin.
Before I knew it, I was coming to in a room bustling with doctors. I drifted in and out of consciousness as a friendly nurse came over periodically to check on me. I felt calm, relaxed and relieved it was all over. The pain in my stomach was gone, but was replaced by a dull ache in the top part of my chest, “C’est normale”, the kind nurse explained to me. I asked where Phil was, when I would get back to my room, but couldn’t stay awake long enough to hear the answers.
The next few days passed in a blur of pain, blood tests and hospital meals. The surgeon explained that my appendix had been more infected and inflamed than they’d expected, and also showed abcesses on the surface. Turns out I was very, very close to it rupturing. As a result they made three incisions in my stomach – in the belly button, one on the left hand side with a tube attached to drain the wound, and the other alongside my bikini line.
I was meant to leave hospital after three days, but my blood results showed there was still too much inflammation and I was feverish, so I stayed in for an extra day. When I finally got back to the chateau, there was only about four days left of our two week holiday.
I was in a bit of pain, and still couldn’t stand up straight, so I spent the next four days mainly eating Bounty Ice cream and watching Orange is the New Black on the sofa.
So, as it turns out, my idyllic two week holiday wasn’t quite as relaxing as I’d first hoped. But a
t the end of the day - it's only appendicitis, worse things happen.
I’m doing a lot better now – the swelling in my stomach has gone down, although not all the way, and my wounds are healing. In a way, it’s a blessing that it happen
ed when I was surrounded by my family and people who could care for me and drive me to the hospital. And I’m glad it happened now, as opposed to when we’re travelling.
It’s just an excuse for another holiday, right?
