I am currently in the process of divorcing my husband – who does not want this divorce. He is a 41 year old alcoholic and has a history of not telling the truth. Recently the following has happened and I am not sure if he is telling me the truth, or just playing some sick games to mess with me. I would like to know if what he is telling me is medically possible, or medically impossible, because it sounds very strange to me. Here is his story… His company insisted he go to the hospital right away because during his last company enforced physical 6 months prior) he had some blood tests come back with something out of wack. Though he was feeling fine, he went to the hospital as instructed. At the hospital he was told that he had lost more than half his blood. They gave him “4 units”. Then they put a scope down his throat to see why he was bleeding. They confirmed 6 bleeding ulcers. They caulderized them and sent him home the next day. When he went back to work 2 weeks later, they told him he needed the doctor to “clear” him for work before he could come back. When he went to the doctor to get cleared, it was determined that he was still bleeding and that they now needed to do a cat scan to see why because the ulcers had been fixed. A cat scan was taken. When the results came back he was told that he had colon cancer and it was really bad, that it has spread outside the colon. A couple of days later he went to get a colonoscopy. At that time he told the doctor that over the last two weeks he was having severe pains in his abdomen. The doctor told him that this type of cancer does not come with a lot of pain, so maybe he didn’t have cancer after all… that maybe he had a ruptured appendix and what was actually on the cat scan was fluids from the ruptured appendix. So the colonoscopy was cancelled because if they did that, then it could possibly kill him if he had a ruptured appendix. He was given a 10-day prescription of antibiotics and an new appointment was scheduled for the colonoscopy in two weeks. No additional tests or hospitalization was done at this point. I was under the impression that a ruptured appendix would kill if not treated immediately by removal of the appendix, and I told him that. He said that the doctor told him that it is possible, to survive a ruptured appendix. So now he has me waiting two more weeks to see if he has colon cancer, or if he had a ruptured appendix. This all sounds so crazy to me. I hate not to believe him, especially if he really does have cancer, but logically I am having a hard time with believing all this, especially given his history of heavy drinking and lies.
A ruptured appendix is a potentially life threatening condition. However, not all cases need to be treated with surgical excision. Europeans studies have found that patients fare just as well on antibiotic therapy as surgery but there is a high recurrence rate of appendicitis (10 – 20% because the appendix has not been surgically removed). In the United States, some physicians will treat a ruptured appendix with antibiotics especially if it has been ruptured for a few days and the patient is fairly stable. The rationale behind antibiotic treatment is that the ruptured contents have been contained in an abscess and the abdomen is intensely inflamed that emergency surgery is too risky. The antibiotics will calm down the inflammation before the surgeons remove the appendix a 1-3 months later.
