Fremantlebiz - Paul's Letter from Australia

If it looks and feels like appendicitus...

Son number four who lives in Wagin came down with a gut wrenching abdominal pain on Friday afternoon. Within a couple of hours he was running a temperature and vomiting. A nurse living over the road reckoned it was appendicitis, and so did the local 'headaches and scratches' hospital. He was urged to present himself at the Narrogin Regional Hospital, a half hour's drive north of Wagin.

Narrogin had full suite of medicos including a surgeon. At about 11pm we were awakened by a phone call from my son's companion. She told us he had been seen by the surgeon, an oriental gentleman, who had declared his doubt that it was appendicitis because the symptoms had come on so quickly.

Apparently this was contrary to the opinions of nursing staff, but as in all hospitals it's a case of 'surgeons rule OK!' He ordered up some pain killer for our son, saying that a blood test would be done in the morning. He'd wanted to rule out kidney stones. Presumably he went back to bed.

I spoke to our son on the phone a short while after and he said he was pretty crook, the worst pain he'd ever experienced. I tossed over about driving down immediately, but decided it wouldn't achieve anything. His companion was taking the watch.

My wife an I spent a very worrying night. I rang the hospital at 5:30am. They said our son had stabilised and offered to put me through to him. He sounded worse than before. I rang the hospital back and started asking questions.

I had in my mind thoughts of the notorious Indian "Dr Death" who had been at work in Queensland and fled to the US. He's about to be extradited back to Australia. There has also been a huge controversy about some incompetent foreign doctors working elsewhere in Australia during the past year which has resulted in even the competent ones being regarded with suspicion by the public. Plus there have been some astonishing accusations in the media about the Western Australian health care system and its upper management as recently as the last few days.

I was told that my son would soon be having a test for a blood cell count. Apparently white cells increase with appendicitis. Because my son was so young and healthy the medicos didn't think there was a chance of the appendix rupturing soon, even if it was in serious trouble. It sounded like urban mythology to me, but I didn't say so.

By nine AM my wife and I decided to head for Narrogin. As we were about to leave we had a phone call from our son. He'd had the blood test. The surgeon in conference with another local doctor had decided to operate immediately. We didn't panic. There was nothing we could do apart from drive carefully.

It's almost a couple hundred kilometres to Narrogin. As soon as we left the city and got onto the Albany Highway we found ourselves stuck in a 10kph crawl behind a huge piece of mining equipment. Eventually it pulled over to allow the several kilometres of traffic banked behind up to pass. There's a picture of it in a folder called "On the road" on my Picasa site.

We were on our way at last. By the time we got to Narrogin it was almost noon. The surgeon had finished his work. The cause of the symptoms had indeed been a very angry appendix which had started to leak. So much for the urban mythology about youthful fitness. The nurses had been right with their diagnosis all along.

Our son was back in his room enjoying some post-operative semi-awareness. We were very pleased to see him still alive. For a while during the night I had been fearing the worst. He improved during the next few hours and the colour in his face returned. He had become become quite lucid by the time we'd decided to come home. Importantly all the hospital staff we met seemed caring.

The patient plays amateur cricket for Wagin. Yesterday afternoon he was supposed to be participating in the season's final against Narrogin. Of course he had to excuse himself from the game. Furthermore, he won't be back at work until after Easter.

The mobile phone is a wonderful invention during crisis times like these. We were able to take phone calls from all our kids during the day wanting to learn the latest info about their ailing sibling. His older brother rang from Perth airport where he was about to leave for Europe. He should be there soon.

It sure was a busy day yesterday. Today all is calm again.

© MMVIII Paul R. Weaver.

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Check out each month's subject index on the Calendar Page for my "common-man" monologues about survival in 21st century Australia – plus a little history occasionally. An original essay is added most days as part of an undertaking to write at least couple of million words. Zzzzzzzz!