serpentine smiles

A few random health and surgery things I forgot to mention in the longer write-up:
- I really had absolutely zero suspicion that it was appendicitis. The one thing I remember hearing about it, sometime back when I was a kid, was that it is impossibly, excruciatingly painful. That you can't function if your appendix bursts. Something about being unable to stand on one foot, or unable to jump because of the pain? I don't know how much of that is "old wives tale" vs. "typical of most people, just not all" but while this was definitely painful, it didn't strike me as debilitatingly so. Occasionally the pain would spike to what I'd call a 9/10, but that would fade back to a 5/10 after about twenty seconds, which is firmly in the "I've worked through worse" category.
- Related to the above, I've had and worked through menstrual cramps that were more painful. I've *seen* studies talking about this very thing, but because of that, I just sort of assumed "well, this can't be anything too serious, then."
- They had a really hard time getting blood samples from me. My veins just... retreated. When they did get blood, it kept clotting before they could do the tests they wanted it for, so they put me on a blood thinner for a few days. The bruises from some of the blood draw sites *just* disappeared fully as of today.
- I am *really, really* glad that the surgeons took a second look at the CT scans and decided to operate. The initial CT analysis (I don't know if this was a CT tech's read of it or an automated analysis) gave such vague and inconclusive results. Which isn't wrong, per se; apparently my guts were just trashed, ha. But if the surgeons hadn't taken that additional look, hadn't determined that even though the CT listed appendicitis as a "secondary" concern, it really looked like it might be appendicitis that needed treatment... things could have been pretty bad for me. I already wonder how long it'd been having issues, for it to have already perforated, abscessed, gone gangrenous. Was two days (Friday night onset of symptoms until Sunday night surgery) really long enough for it to have gotten that bad? Waiting longer would have likely pushed me toward the sepsis stage, and I'm glad I didn't have to deal with that.

Last week I did get my expected denial of leave from the state, which my HR department appealed. Today I got the notice from the state that my application has finally been fully submitted, and that they have all required information. So NOW it can finally be reviewed. Good thing I don't, you know, have rent or bills or anything!

Speaking of bills... For as much as I've complained about my insurance, they really did cover the vast majority of my stay, which is a huge relief. I didn't know what sort of bill I was going to get stuck with. The total for my time at the hospital ended up being nearly $100,000. It was more than $96,000, and my insurance paid over $89,500 of it. I owe around $6500. That is still a lot of money for me, and certainly not pocket change that I have lying around, but it's certainly not as life-ruining as $100000 would be.
(Also granted, some of that is the hospital upcharge. Each tylenol pill was $3.50. Each bag of IV fluid was $90. Each day of "room and board" was over $3000. Surgery and anesthesia were billed for one 15 minute block and then per minute, which tells me the surgery itself took an hour and 16 minutes.)
I may still owe another $1700 for the anesthesia, which has been billed, but my insurance has not responded to.
Apparently my urgent care appointment cost $390, despite it literally being five minutes of poking me in the stomach and telling me to go to the ER. I paid $50 to be seen, and my insurance paid $140, so I still owe them $100, too.
Of course, I'm going to have to apparently go to the fucking hospital again to give them money, because when I try to make a payment on their handy website, it just gives me an error and tells me to speak to customer service... which there is no contact info for anywhere that I can find on the website.

I returned to work last Friday, which was really just a chance to catch up on everything that happened while I was gone. (My manager and our lead instructor apparently got into it, and got a divorce no longer feel able to work with each other. My company made the absolute worst knee-jerk decision regarding a "solution," which has left everyone angry and resentful. My manager was responsible for two locations, so they took her second location away and gave it to the lead... even though he has had zero training and has zero idea how to do any of the office work that a center requires. There is no other staff up there. Manager is angry and resentful that her center was taken away; Lead is angry and resentful that it feels like he was thrown into the deep end with no training. They both think the other is getting rewarded.)

I can't say I feel fully ready to be back to work (and judging by some stupid mistakes I made, my brain isn't 100% back in the game,) but for the most part it's okay, and I'm definitely far, far readier than I would have been the week before. I was definitely not ready for a 10-hour day on Sunday, but it is what it is.

Yesterday I felt pretty good, and got together with Taylor for a good chunk of the day. We watched a movie and read and it was nice. I managed without falling asleep in the middle.

Today... all I really did was sleep. I woke up at 7:00 and fell back asleep until nearly 10. Two hours later, I was ready to go back to sleep, and dozed on and off for hours more. This feels like a stupid backslide.

Otherwise, healing seems to be going fine. The first and third incisions are healing really well. The middle one (in my bellybutton) hurts, but I think it's because the scab cracked, and the sharp edges dig into the tender stuff underneath depending on how I moved. It doesn't look bad, just hurts a little. I've been able to manage without the lidocaine patches for a couple days now, which is good.
Still a bit bloated, and haven't had a chance to go on walks the last couple days, but it's definitely better than before.
Food is still sitting fine. My guts are see-sawing back and forth between extremes of how they'd like to misbehave, but things are still moving through the tubes, which is all I can really ask for.

Alex is sick. :( Some sort of head and chest thing. Sounds similar to what I had back in 2024, which lingered for months. I hope this one passes faster, but it's a nasty cough. He had a fever for a while, but that passed. Miserable. I also really hope that I don't get his crud. I've been through enough, lol.

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...and as I'm writing this post, our kitchen ceiling just started leaking. Guessing the upstairs neighbor's dishwasher or something. Super! Time to go deal with that!

The leak is made all the stranger because during my hours of dozing, I dreamed there was a leak in the ceiling next to my bed. It was a brief snippet of the dream, but still, bizarre.

ETA: Ceiling leak addressed. Kids in the apartment upstairs flooded their bathroom. Better result than it could have been! Emergency maintenance came by, and cut away a few bits of drywall to try and make sure that it dries out. They'll check again tomorrow.