This afternoon, at around 13:50, I heard scream from the bedroom. Maxine tumbled on the bed with the most pathetique agony I've ever seen. Benson and I rushed her to Cardinal Tien Hospital. First emergency aid, then soon transferred to the out-patient dept. of obstetrics and gynecology, Maxine was diagnosed by Dr. Huang Wen-yu as 'peritonitis due to rupture of ovarian dermoid cyst or salpingitis', which is a life-threatening fatal disease. So the doctor summoned for a brief diagnoses meeting and decided to conduct an endoscopic cyst removal operation in no time. After two hours anxious waiting and sad tears of Benson, his mom's life was saved. Dr. Huang did, or, He did. Well, for most of us, we would have much less emotional stirring as Benson did when coming up with such case. However, we're supposed to know what on earth the so-called 'peritonitis' is like. Here's some excerpts from Wiki and www.pertonitis-disease.com :
Peritonitis is an inflammation of the peritoneum, the serous membrane which lines part of the abdominal cavity and viscera. Peritonitis may be localized or generalized, and may result from infection (often due to rupture of a hollow organ as may occur in abdominal trauma or appendicitis) or from a non-infectious process.
Typically, this disorder follows the rupture of an organ in the abdomen, allowing bacteria within the organ to spread into the abdominal cavity. Often caused by a burst appendix or gallbladder, it can also result from a perforation in the wall of the stomach or intestine. The main manifestations of peritonitis are acute abdominal pain, abdominal tenderness, and abdominal guarding, which are exacerbated by moving the peritoneum, e.g. coughing (forced cough may be used as a test), flexing one's hips, or eliciting the Blumberg sign (a.k.a. rebound tenderness, meaning that pressing a hand on the abdomen elicits less pain than releasing the hand abruptly, which will aggravate the pain, as the peritoneum snaps back into place). The presence of these signs in a patient is sometimes referred to as peritonism. The localization of these manifestations depends on whether peritonitis is localized (e.g. appendicitis or diverticulitis before perforation), or generalized to the whole abdomen. In either case pain typically starts as a generalized abdominal pain (with involvement of poorly localizing innervation of the visceral peritoneal layer), and may become localized later (with the involvement of the somatically innervated parietal peritoneal layer). Peritonitis is an example of an acute abdomen. Some other collateral manifestations are like diffuse abdominal rigidity ("washboard abdomen") often presented, especially in generalized peritonitis, fever, sinus tachycardia, nausea, and vomiting.