Whatever happened to...........

My son went to a job interview 6 months ago with terrible pains in his side. He got through the interview then went to A&E. He was admitted straight away and had his appendix removed the next morning. It was done by keyhole surgery and he was home the next day! By the way, he got the job.

I was in agony with a pain in my side, taken to hospital for a scan and had emergency surgery on New Year’s Eve. I saw in 2019 in a haze of morphine sans appendix. My GP said I was too old at 69 for appendicitis. Obviously I wasn’t!

DH had emergency appendix removal in 2012 after suffering silently with bad pain for 4 days. I insisted he went, reluctantly, to the GP who referred him directly to the surgical ward at hospital. After a CT scan, he was operated on and found to have a burst appendix and gangrene in his bowel up as far as his liver. He was lucky to survive, but he did, albeit with bowel problems ever since. Being stoical about pain is not always the best choice but that's the way he is and no doubt will always be.

My nephew was chronically ill many years ago with his appendicitis as was my step-grandson after the hospital initially turning him away even though he'd been bent double.
An uncle in the 50's/60's had 3/4 of his stomach removed because of ulcers----bad diet.

Neither appendicitis nor ulcers are as heard of as they used to be and seemed to fizzle out after the 70's.

The reason being that we're lagging behind more with heart disease than we are with cancer. A lot of heart disease is preventable and if you see the ratio between deaths from heart disease and cancer the figure is higher.
Again it's a pollution and lifestyle thing. Dementia is a higher risk from death than cancer is.

One in three have high blood-pressure. Thousands were offered to attend their GP's for checks and thousands didn't bother. Whereas people are more likely to go to their GP if they find lumps and bumps etc, but not for BP checks.

Many of the 'ulcers' turned out to be Helicobacter Pylori and treatable by combination of antibiotics. If only Granny could have known. It would have saved her a horrible op.

Heart disease is the biggest killer---it was in 2018 anyway and we're only into 3 months of 2019.

DD had her appendix out whilst pregnant with DGS1 who is now 10. She was living in Germany at the time.

I have gastric ulcer

I think it's because the emphasis now is on preventable illness, not those which happen naturally. Cancer seems to be the biggest killer at the moment, and it is mainly caused by our polluted environment and people's lifestyles.

It still happens, my GS had to have an emergency appendectomy 2 yrs ago it turned out to have complications but he recovered well that was down to our wonderful NHS.