Saturday, January 06, 2007

Appendiceal Surprise or Big Pack of Lies?

Appendiceal Surprise or Big Pack of Lies?

Our favorite VIP patient and frequent topic of this column, La Lohan, has been admitted again!

It’s really a shame that it happened during such a tender time for the 20-year-old party girl-turned-AA-member. She was just getting used to normal blood alcohol levels and then wham! – an acute abdomen.

The details of how and when she got admitted are hazy, as per usual, but piecing together various stories, the most likely scenario sounds like she saw a doctor sometime Wednesday who diagnosed her with a hot appendix and sent her to Century City Hospital in Los Angeles to have it snipped out, where she most likely stayed in one of their luxe VIP suites (seen in pic). Ooooh la Lohan.

We’re quite sure she’s a good judge of hospital VIP suites by now. Maybe she would consider doing a Top 5 Best Hospital VIP Suites for StopPagingMe.com?

Why is it that Lindsay keeps returning as an inpatient? Is it the young interns? The pain meds? The swing-arm TV?

Now, we would have given Blohan the benefit of the doubt had we not seen TMZ.com’s new video clip of her jaunting out of the hospital on post-op day #1 (POD#1).

There is no question that the party princess would have had her appy done by laparoscopic approach. This way, surgeons could easily hide the 1-2 cm scars below her ischial spines and inside her umbilicus (belly button). And yes, that is less painful and often results in quicker recovery – but 24 hours??? That is really pushing it from a pain tolerance and medical standpoint. It just seems silly that she would not give the trocar incision sites at least until the evening to heal up a little. Which brings up another interesting quandary: what type of pain meds did she get, being that sh is trying to clean up her act?

Typically, surgical patients, even those as young as 20, are observed for at least 24 hours to watch for any signs of infection (fever, chills, nausea, vomiting) and to make sure their gut is active again. That’s the best part. Gut activity is determined by the resumption of bowel peristalsis, or muscle contraction, forcing stool and air down the gut towards the rectum. Thus, docs determine if the gut is active by asking patients about flatus, aka ass-wind. I can just imagine the doctors asking LaLo if she beefed yet? Lucky bastards.

But if it was not her vestigial appendix what could it be? There are too many possibilities for what really could have happened, but here’s a short list:
- More “fatigue/exhaustion/anxiety/cocaine hangover
- Elective abortion – It’s a same-day procedure that is often well-tolerated and quite safe
- Some minor plastic surgical procedure
- UTI
- Gastroenteritis


Regardless of whether the Queen of Teen had an inflamed appendix or not, we would like to thank her for providing this column with so much fodder this past year. We wish Lohan the best of luck and health in the future and look forward to her returning several times in 2007.

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