You may have seen on Twitter yesterday that I was debating whether or not to go to the ER because I had a bit of pain in the lower right abdomen area. So, obviously my very first thought is appendix. I don’t know why, but since I was younger, I have had this fear of my appendix bursting. I think it is because anytime that I have ever heard someone talk about it, they describe the most excruciating pain in the world. So, whenever I feel pain in that area, it is my first thought.
Yesterday morning I woke up and had a slight pain in that area, but didn’t think anything of it at first. About 6 years ago, I had this same pain and went to the ER because of my fear. It ended up being a strained abdominal muscle and that’s it, I was sent right home. So, this is exactly what I was thinking was the issue again, except 6 years ago, I was working out a lot and it made sense. These days, not working out so much.
Between my mother, wife, other family members and friends all telling me to just go get it checked, I decided to be safe than sorry. Especially as someone with type 1 diabetes, I’ve had the mentality that if I feel like anything is wrong with me at all, I need to go let a professional determine if it’s an issue or if it is nothing at all.
I decided that I would go to an urgent care facility first because I read on their site that they had in-house imaging services, so I figured I could just pay a small co-pay and still get an CT scan there if needed. Well, unfortunately, they stop doing those at 4 p.m. and it was already 6 p.m. So, after wasting a $75 co-pay, the doctor basically told me the only way to know is by getting a CT scan and only the ER can do that for me at this time. So, after 45 seconds with the doctor and $75 later, I was on my way to the ER.
There was not much of a wait at the ER because I guess abdominal pain is one of those cases they bring you back pretty quickly. After the nurse initially checked me out, she kind of felt that it was not my appendix, but still wanted the blood work and the CT scan to see if there was anything else going on in there.
After about 2.5 hours altogether at the ER, blood work, CT scan, the nurse came in and told me that my white blood cell count was perfect, the CT scan came back with nothing wrong and that I was good to go. She said that it could be that I tweaked that area or their could be some sort of intestinal issue going on that the CT scan can’t determine. However, appendix, kidney stones and gull bladder issues were all ruled out.
So, that now makes two trips to the ER thinking my appendix is bursting and both times I was sent home with the nurses pretty much laughing at me. But, at the end of the day, I would rather pay to know for a fact that nothing is wrong.
One last thing about the ER trip. Apparently, there was Blue Light special at the ER last night because when the administration person came in, she mentioned that there was a 20% off co-pays for today. So, I guess I came to the ER on the right night!