Birthday...

I have a gift. Birthday, christmas presents, well, I can guess them. It's not that I clearly know what they are but I get a kind of gut instinct. Even if it is something that I didn't ask for, it just comes to me. 

With this knowledge at hand, my best friend Jess and boyfriend D. were determined to surprise me for my birthday weekend. After weeks of prodding and poking for information - nothing.

So what is a girl to do? RUIN it of course. Well, not intentionally.

My birthday fell on a Sunday, however was to include an entire weekend of shenanigans! Jess organized saturday and D, sunday.

Friday morning I woke with a slight discomfort in my stomach, but as I had been out of the lash pretty hard the night before I dismissed it as merely hangover related. As the day wore on the uncomfortable ache in my stomach continued, and my stomach continued to bloat. As L's mum Dee had just got home from giving birth I was doing my best not to complain too much about an uncomfortable pain in my stomach when she was sporting some awesome C-section damage. But by late afternoon the pain had move to the lower right of my stomach and was now projecting sharp stabs when I moved too much.

I called D. to have a whinge and he advised me straight away: "It's your appendix - we need to get you to hospital". (Stubborn me) hung up the phone, and told him I was fine. 

Sure enough - an hour later, D. was by my side and we were rushing to Hammersmith Hospital in the back of a taxi as I could no longer walk.

After 8 hours in emergency (now 1am), a internal examination, 5 blood tests, an internal ultra-sound, a drip, multitude of pokes and prods, we were put in the back of an ambulance and moved to Charing Cross Hospital (who specialize in general surgery).

Later that morning - I went into surgery. When they opened me up, my appendix was so large, it had started leaking fluids into my stomach and could have actually burst at any moment.

Lucky for me, my surgeons were amazing. I opted for a laparoscopic surgery (2 small incisions and then through my belly button) which has a recovery time of 4-6 weeks, still enabling D. and I to start our travels which were booked 3 weeks later. Having opened me up and finding what they did, most other surgeons would have cut me open and dismissed the laparoscopic method due to the sheer size of my appendix. However, not my surgeons. They cut the other side of my belly button to make the hole bigger and continued to work laparoscopically. Turning a 2 hour surgery into a 4 hour one (much to the panic of my friends and D. in the waiting room, and family back home).

Fair to say, I don't remember much, but awaking the next morning, MY BIRTHDAY, finally coherent (morphine had worn off - apparently after surgery I was flying very high), but very sore. 

Yet despite the circumstances, I was still spoilt.

 With a room full of friends (nurses loved me), bunches and bunches of flowers, chocolates, champagne, presents and a home-made Alice in Wonderland birthday cake.