At 7 months of pregnancy Alison Cavaille had an attack of appendicitis which led to numerous complications. 4 years later, she recounts the ordeal she experienced.
1 in 1500 pregnancies can be disrupted by appendicitis according to the Swiss Medical Forum network, but in most cases it intervenes in the first trimester of pregnancy. When Alison Cavaille became pregnant for the third time, she did not expect to go through hell. Unlike the majority of cases of appendicitis in pregnant women, for her everything started at 33 SA.
It is a very little known phenomenon that Alison, founder of the breastfeeding brand Tajinebanane wanted to highlight. If her appendicitis had been treated in time, she would surely not have undergone all her operations in addition to giving birth. When she was first told about appendicitis, she answered directly “But appendicitis we have that at 8 years old not at 30 years old” and that’s what most people think. By sharing her story, Alison hopes to help many women who are wondering about this topic, or wondering about appendicitis during pregnancy.
“I couldn’t even speak anymore, I was vomiting so much.”
“My appendicitis started at 33 SA, I think the very first symptom was on New Year’s Day. I was 7 months pregnant, I vomited all night and had severe stomach cramps. at first I thought I had eaten something bad. In the morning I still felt bad so I went to the hospital. When I arrived I was just told I was dehydrated, I didn’t have any further tests and went home. Not even a week later, we were at the table with my spouse and my children, I started to feel bad. I put it down to the pregnancy since I was nauseous the whole time. Suddenly I started to vomit quite violently, I waited two hours like that, my partner wanted us to consult but not me. Later that evening, I couldn’t even speak because I was throwing up. I also had a lot of pain in my ribs, I was really wondering what could be wrong with me.”
“My condition deteriorated overnight”
“When I arrived at the hospital in La Rochelle, they did blood tests, they saw that I had the beginnings of an infection but I had no fever. It was very vague, nobody knew what I knew. The doctors weren’t very worried, they just wanted to stop the vomiting. My appendix was not in the usual place in fact, it had moved under my ribs with the pregnancy which is why they did not detect it. According to the Swiss Medical Forum “The anatomical position of the appendix is shifted a few centimeters towards the middle of the abdomen or towards the upper right side of the abdomen at advanced gestational age, due to the increase in size of the uterus”
“In addition they told me that they couldn’t do imaging since I was pregnant, since the images can be harmful for the baby. During the night, my condition deteriorated, I couldn’t stand up at all, they transferred me to the University Hospital of Poitiers. There they could scan me so as soon as I arrived they did it for me. I felt a lot of guilt because the imagery can cause birth defects or even cancer to the baby.”
“The report fell: I was told that I had appendicitis.”
“After all it went quickly, in 5 minutes I was taken to the operating room, I didn’t have time to ask questions. Automatically I thought that when I woke up my baby wouldn’t be in my womb anymore, on the other hand I did not know if he would be dead or alive. I had never heard in my life that a pregnant woman could be operated on, especially at this stage of pregnancy. The operation lasted almost 3 hours. All the doctors and surgeons we met had never seen that, I was a textbook case.
After the operation, when I woke up I discovered that I was still pregnant. I was given a laparoscopy, I just had three or four small dots on my stomach, nothing traumatic! I stayed two or three days in the hospital then I went home. I was still super tired, I thought it was normal, but in the end the operation did not go as well as expected.
“During delivery, my infection was gaining ground.”
“The more the days passed, the more I felt contractions, on January 28 I packed my things and we left to have our child. Once arrived, the nurse tells me that these are not labor contractions, but that my uterus was in pain. I had a lot of signs of infections, so to check if the amniotic fluid was infected or not they did a blood test. We could only have the result 24 hours later, whereas if the amniotic fluid is infected the baby can die very quickly. It was super stressful, every 2 or 3 hours they came to monitor me. Every minute, every day counted for the development of my baby, he had to stay in my belly as much as possible. Until the moment where my condition deteriorated because my infection was gaining ground. Appendicitis and the operation caused sepsis.
On January 31, 2018, I started to feel bad so they decided to trigger me so that I could still give birth naturally. When the contractions acceleratedI started to vomit a lot, the midwives worried. I was suffering martyrdom, in reality what was happening was that I had abscesses in my stomach stuck to my uterus. After a while they decided to do an emergency caesarean.”
Her husband also testifies to the violence of this moment which must have been full of happiness. “When they did the caesarean, they picked up Lou, but he wasn’t breathing. They took him to intensive care and after an hour I was able to go see him, Lou was plugged in everywhere. When I went to see my wife right after she was plugged in the same way, it was very hard to live with. I didn’t know what both of them had and if they were going to get over it.”
“Assessment: I had appendicitis, sepsis and peritonitis.”
“After the caesarean, they cleaned my stomach to remove the abscesses. When I woke up, I had a probe in my mouth. I was able to see my baby, they took me there, but we were both hooked up. I stayed like that for about 4-5 days after I gave birth, I couldn’t carry my baby or sleep with him. After that, my infection wouldn’t go down, I had a fever of 39, and I was in a lot of pain.. We redid the images and they realized that I still had a lot of abscesses in my stomach so I ended up with drains. They gave me a laparotomy, that is to say, they completely opened my stomach to clean everything. I have a scar from the navel to the pubis. Finally I left after a month of hospitalization with my baby. Assessment: I had appendicitis, sepsis and peritonitis. I had a lot of pain and it lasted almost two years. Despite all that today I have a very healthy baby, and I’m fine. This third birth made me want to surpass myself. I mounted my box in stride. there are also a lot of positives.”
Parenting writer
Zoé is on a work-study program, she joined the aufeminin team in September 2022, she writes for the parenting section. Committed and curious, Zoé likes to write to advance…