It seems we can't even make it a week into the new year without a trip to the hospital. All week I've had a very upset stomach. This is nothing all that unusual for me however, so I just ate a bunch of Immodium, and hoped it would eventually pass. By Wednesday, things had progressed to a whole new level of sickness, however, and by Saturday, I started throwing up, every 20 minutes without relief. By Sunday afternoon, after spending all day Saturday, all night, and all day Sunday in the bathroom with the bucket, not even able to hold down ice chips or sips of water, and watching as internal organs started appearing, "hello spleen!" I called the on-call nurse hot-line to see if they had any suggestions. They told me to go directly to the hospital.
I didn't think I was all that serious so we went to urgent care instead.
They took my blood pressure: 70/54. They took my temperature: 101 degrees.
They hooked my up to an IV, took a bunch of blood, which took two tries, because apparently this was a difficult task and required two arms. While we're on the subject of IVs and blood draws, can we just take a moment and discuss the phrase "just a little sting," as they slammed the giant steel rod into my arm, only to miss and have to do it all over again, while my husband looked on wide-eyed and pale-faced? When all was finished, he looked at me and said something about the lady needing to go back to IV school, and "did that hurt, because it looked like it hurt." For the record, yes, it did smart just a bit. But in fact, not as much as it did the 3rd and 4th try later that night.
They pushed on my abdomen, which made me scowl and grunt, and watched as I continued with my own personal pyrotechnics show. After a few hours of continued sickness regardless of the medications they threw at me at urgent care, it was determined I needed to be seen at the hospital; because of the place I was hurting in my abdomen, there was also concern that my colon was infected, or worse, rupturing, because of where I was having pain, and when they would push and let go, I wold get very, very cranky with them.
So, the hospital is where we ended up.
I would like to take a small break here for a moment and ask the following question: why is it that regardless of the time of day or week, people cannot shower when going to the hospital? Here I was, sick for a week, puking my guts out for over 2 days, but I was still showered. I may have been in lounge pants and a hoodie, but I was clean and un-stinky. My clothes were washed, had no rips or holes, my hair, grease-free. I think it says a lot that I, wearing lounge pants, a t-shirt and a hoodie, was the cleanest, best-dressed person in the waiting room of that packed ER, because I felt like a scrub. But I digress.
At the hospital, they took a lot more blood, gave me several injections of anti-nausea meds., discovered that not only was I severely dehydrated, but that my potassium levels had also plummeted to dangerous levels. They subsequently filled me back up on potassium, and fluids. They were able to get my fever down around 8pm. Blood work came back and showed that there wasn't any serious infection. I finally stopped puking after the second injection of meds. at which point they sent me home. I am now waiting for test results, but the current diagnosis is a nasty case of gastroenteritis. So ridiculous.
Oh, and Evie was with our wonderful neighbors during this entire ordeal. We didn't want her to be sitting in the petri dish of infection. She played with the Shultz girls across the street from 2:30-7:30, then Bryan came home, put her to bed, got himself some dinner, checked on the dogs etc., and then our neighbor Sara (from next door) came and hung out so Bryan could go back to the hospital to bring me back home, once it was determined that I was being released.
Like a waterfall in slow motion, Part One
3 years ago
