Thank you, Izumio – AGAIN!!! – Appendicitis

Thank you, Izumio – AGAIN!!! For bringing out the appendicitis in T1 and for allowing us to get to the hospital in time for that emergency operation. Thank you for making it all go super smoothly and thank you for letting her have such a superb recovery. The Doctor gave her 3 weeks of Medical Leave but she is up and about on Day 5 walking around in Pavilion already. How amazing is that??? The appendicitis operation is exactly like a C-section except that the cut is only a third of the size of a C-section. Whatever she went through I could relate. This is how it began……

2am – I was awoken by T1 by my bed saying that she wanted to vomit. I told her to go sit on the toilet bowl so that in the event she did, it would be in the toilet and not on my bed! Within minutes, she was puking on the toilet floor rug. My brand new green washroom floor rug. It now had a lump of orange porridge with black bits. What the hell has she been eating??? Food poisoning for sure. I asked her what she had eaten the day before and it turned out that we had all had the same food. There must have been SOMETHING different, I told her. THINK.

I quickly gave her a packet of Izumio knowing that it is the best thing to recuperate and get over any food poisoning stint ASAP and she vomited as soon as she finished the packet again. All over the toilet floor before we could clean up the green rug. I woke the Hubs up as I needed backup. He is no stranger to puke cleaning as he did it A LOT when I was pregnant with both girls. Bless him forever.

I was pretty sure that the vomiting was over by now since Izumio would have brought it all out. I sent her to bed and she asked if I could put some YUYI oil on her tummy. I said YUYI oil??? Shish. That oil must be 10 years old since we used it on you as a baby! Let me put some Digize oil on you instead. It is great for indigestion and food poisoning according to Aunty Mei Leng. After rubbing the oils into her tummy, she fell asleep.

At 6am in the morning, she had a raging fever hot as a kettle. Goodness. This must be some bad food poisoning I thought to myself. I gave her another Izumio and she vomited again. I told her to rest and went for yoga. During yoga, I got a call from my housekeeper to tell me that T1 was really not looking well. She had eaten some porridge but did not vomit. STRANGE. Anyway, housekeeper was panicking and I was calm as a cucumber wanting to finish up my yoga class and so she said that if T1 vomited again, that she would call me. I was just at the gym 20 steps away. When I came back, I asked T1 to take another Izumio for her fever and she vomited again. Oh dear. Should I take her to the Doctor? Yes-No-Yes-No-Yes-No? If it was indeed food poisoning, Izumio really would take care of it. Easy. But what if it wasn’t?

I drove her to the local clinic anyway. I asked the Hubs if I should take her straight to the hospital and he said no need. At the clinic, the Doctor said she was double positive for appendicitis whatever that meant. She was made to jump on one leg to check if she had abdominal pain and she did. And she was also probed around her stomach and the pain was exactly where the appendix was. I was instructed to take her straight to the hospital except that it was exactly the time that I had to pick T2 up from school too. How urgent is it, Doctor? I have to pickup my little girl from school. “Well, appendicitis is actually a medical emergency. You do not want to wait till it ruptures.”

Aiyahhhhhhh………Why give me such decisions to make???

I asked T1 if she was in pain and if OK to withstand another half hour whilst we zoom to go pick T2 up. She said ok. So we went to school and joined the school queue. Half way, T1 said that the pain was getting worse. FISH!!! Do what? Do what? Do what? The car was sandwiched in a school traffic jam. Do I turn around and go to the hospital? Or do I wait just a little bit more to get T2 then zoom off? I was so stressed I couldn’t decide. A dear friend offered to pick T2 up as I couldn’t get the Hubs on the phone – TYPICAL. Another dear friend said go-go-go. I kept asking T1, “How much more painful? On a scale of 1-10? Bearable or not?” The poor girl must have been so traumatised……I eventually managed to get the Hubs, called the school to tell them that the Hubs would be late in picking T2 up from school and to watch her meanwhile till he arrived and I zoomed to the hospital A&E. She was wheelchaired in immediately as she could barely walk by then.

The Medical Officer also said she sounded like she had appendicitis but to let the tests confirm it so she went for a couple of tests and they called in the paediatric surgeon. He arrived and touched her pulse and told me she had appendicitis. How the heck did he do that????? I thought only Chinese Sinsehs did that!!! He said it was experience. Pffft. He gave me 2 options – remove the appendix before it ruptures or wait for it to rupture. Ha. Ha. Ha.

Risk of rupture meant a colony of sick bacteria traveling all over her body into her blood stream possible causing septicaemia and death.

Without further ado, she was rushed into the operating preparatory room and myself whisked to get changed into operating room gear and within minutes, T1 had passed out on general anaesthesia and some gas. I was asked to wait outside for the hour and it was the longest hour of my life. So thankful that Mom was by her side throughout her ordeal and soon enough, she was pushed to her suite still asleep and that night and the following four nights thereafter, I slept with her on the couch because the hospital didn’t even have a spare bed for me to rent. The bill came up to about RM15,000 much less than expected but no biggie since Naturally Plus pays out multiples of that every so often. Peace of mind indeed, I am so grateful that I do not have to worry about surprise medical bills.

And the moment T1 was discharged, I was on a flight to another city to meet my new team. I had actually wanted to cancel the trip but people were flying in for it and the Hubs said to go and so I did. It was a whirlwind trip and I almost missed my flight the next day! I booked a taxi for 5.30am but obviously the body was just too exhausted to even hear the multiple alarm clocks that I had set. This is after 4 nights on a hospital couch mind you so when I got a phone call at 6am, I literally jumped out of my skin and without even brushing my teeth or washing my face (I would do that later at the airport!), flew down the hotel lift and caused a flat tyre by jumping into the taxi. Well, almost. Thankfully, the guy knew exactly which terminal gate to stop at and I ran to the counter (as surprise, surprise, I hadn’t even done web check-in) only to be told that the flight was now closed. Can you imagine the look of horror on my face?

I told the local counter guy that I absolutely COULD NOT miss my flight back to KL as I had a sick daughter who’d just undergone an operation and if need be I would pay double, triple even just to get me onto that flight back. He said, “M’am. It is your responsibility to come early for check-in. I have 7 people on my wait list who have paid double for your seat and I have already told them they could have it.”

I was thinking WTF, it wasn’t that I was THAT late??? Boarding hadn’t even happened yet!!! And I told him that I would pay TRIPLE so shouldn’t I overtake those on wait list who were paying double??? He said no, sorry. I started begging and crying and pleading, I even fell onto the floor to act out my Tamil drama with my make belief saree (for the glory of Air Asia and Tony Fernandez) but he said no.

“OK, get me onto the next flight then.”

“I am sorry, M’am. All flights to KL are fully booked today.”

So I punched the guy and I got a seat. No doubt they took away my front row seat and placed me right at the back as detention but at least I got my seat. Alhamdullilah.

**************************************************************************
Who is Mamapumpkin?
Mamapumpkin spent 7 years in London committing crimes to gain her Bartlett BSc in Architecture. She spent 7 years as a Stay At Home Mom raising her children as documented in this Mamapumpkin blog since over 10 years ago and thereafter returned to the Corporate World stronger than ever. Her last job as Country Director of a British Railway Signalling organisation saw her getting ill with an aortal and mitral heart valve regurgitation and cancer. Through her journey from working to not working to working again, she sets out to prove to all women that they can do anything and everything that they set out to do; as long as they have that fire of desire burning within and the drive to work hard with oodles of love, passion and integrity.

Despite being ill, she has grown a network marketing business from little knowledge and experience in the otherwise infamously known MLM (Multi-Level Marketing) industry, racing from an income of ZERO to RM 100,000 monthly in merely 2 years. She is a firm believer of the MLM business model but realises the pitfalls too and understands how and why the majority of people would shy away from any MLM business.

She is now pondering the title of her new book, From Zero to 100,000 RM monthly in 2 years and has a sequel in the pipeline with the aim of helping real professionals succeed in the World of MLM. Always the giver, Mamapumpkin has supported orphans for years and has now extended her care to the sick, single mothers, and even struggling families. She believes that with the MLM business model, we can all have a life of our own desires to enable real contribution into the world.

A beautiful life without limits.

Mamapumpkin currently manages the Homeschooling Hub Malaysia on Facebook. She also runs Working Women Malaysia (not THAT kind of Working Women LOL), Mamapumpkin - Creating A Life of Abundance, and Funky Moms on Facebook to offer REAL support to all women who want career and life success. She is a living testimony that women really can have a lot. Being financially free has enabled her to travel the world anytime anywhere doing anything, and she spends most of her day to day with her children, reading and supporting other women.

For enquiries, please contact her at mamapumpkin at gmail dot com or WhatsApp her at +6012-2333840