The Strong Man

When I think of carnival sideshows, I think of the strong man. The humongous man who can single-handedly hold an enormous weight atop  his index finger. I've never actually seen a man like this but I know someone who for a couple weeks a few months ago tried very hard to be this character.

Back in April, I was working from home when my husband approached me saying he was not feeling well. I could not say he looked his best so I asked him what he was feeling. He said that he felt a sharp stabbing pain on the right hand side of his stomach. Having had a very similar pain many years ago and based on his description, I began to diagnose. I asked him if the pain radiated towards his back and he said it didn't. He decided to take a nap and a number of hours later, upon awaking, he said he felt better. I wish I could have concurred that he looked better. If seeing a ghost is supposed to make you look blanched, then my husband looked as though he saw a whole family of ghosts.

As the day progressed, he was sweating profusely. I decided to check for a fever and he did have one albeit not too strong. I happened to mention to my husband something a doctor once said to be (in a very similar situations as his), that a sharp pain and a fever are two things you shouldn't take lightly. Despite my saying this to my husband, he went to bed and woke the next day claiming he felt better.

Looking at his face told me otherwise. His stomach also inflated as if he were a few months pregnant. I checked his temperature and it had gone away. His face had taken on a different hue. There were shadows of a mustard appearing in his coloring. That same night, he had a fever again but not as high as the previous night.

I decided not to nag anymore. He was, the last time I checked, an adult and knew his body better than anyone else. I made a couple of threats like "if you get hurt, I'm going to hurt you!" I always found those to be very effective with my parents.

As the days went by, the descriptions of his pain perplexed me. I looked up ever symptom he reported and it completely befuddled me. Finally, he decided to go to the doctor. The doctor was equally perplexed by his symptoms and even more by his blood work results.

After 10 days (yes, ten days!) he went to the emergency room because he just couldn't handle the pain or nagging yucky feeling any longer. The doctor sent him directly to the emergency room. After some time, we discovered that my husband's appendix had ruptured that very first day when he mentioned having a sharp pain. For 10 (yes, ten days!) days his innards were accumulating all the pus and fantastical floating things that one collects around their inner organs when one's appendix breaks. He had to have a small catheter placed into his side to drain all the material that had gathered. It took as many days to drain his stomach area.

Due to the infection that had occurred in his stomach, the doctors couldn't operate to remove the appendix. They had to allow his insides to heal a bit. This past Friday, he finally had his appendix removed and he is recovering.

My husband is not a small man. He's 6'2" and weighs over 200 pounds. He could easily hold a heavy weight in his hands but a circus strong man he is not. His mind might be stubborn enough to refuse to see a doctor but it's not strong enough to bear almost 2 weeks of pain. Most people can't really tolerate much pain but to literally not listen to your gut can only get you so far. If he'd only listened to his wife, he would have gotten attention a lot sooner too.