Apparently my body wasn't really interested in stopping at the "I've got a cold like everyone else" stage...it had to go a little above and beyond to something a little more exotic.
So it put in me agonizing pain for two days until I finally couldn't take it any more and stumbled into the ER Tuesday night.
I have both a high tolerance for pain and the classic "good girl" syndrome, so for me to go to a hospital in the middle of the night is pretty serious stuff. I wasn't afraid I was going to die...I was in just enough hurt to be afraid I was going to live.
As it was, after I got "triaged" (near as I can tell, this is a fancy word for being admitted), I waited for over a hour before a doc came to see me. In the meantime I stood up, I sat down, I leaned against the wall, I walked around...anything I could try to relieve the painful pressure in my abdominal region. It felt like something had grabbed ahold of my stomach and was squeezing it like it was testing the ripeness of a cassava melon. I've never given birth, but if this is anything like labor pains, I have a whole new respect for my mother's attempts to parcel out guilt with her comments on how long she was in labor with each of us.
After I was triaged, I got dumped in Room 4, asked for the infamous urine sample, handed a drafty hospital gown and started my wait. I'd forgotten my watch in my rush to leave the house, so I had nothing to measure the passing time by except betting myself on how many more positions I would have to switch to before I was sure that I wouldn't be able to handle the cramping any longer.
They did tease a bit at first...within 10 minutes a Nice Young Man showed up with a cool mobile workstation and got more detailed information from me (including, of course, my insurance information). I saw that my answer of "8" to the question of "From 1 to 10, how bad would you say the pain is?" had earned me a rating of "2 - Urgent," so that was encouraging. Since there weren't any people with gunshot wounds or foreign objects sticking out of their bodies when I came in, and I was put in a room right away, I figured it wouldn't be too long before someone in a white coat would appear and I could accost them with a plea for relief. I even had it all phrased..."I don't care WHAT it is that is causing the pain, but I need you to make it stop NOW!"
"Not too long" and "ER" in the same sentence? Ha ha, you foolish girl, you!
"Jen" came in about 10 minutes after the Nice Young Man left and cheerfully informed me that she was going to be one of my ER nurses and that someone would be by in a few minutes to pick up my sample. That was a lie and a fiasco. When someone finally DID show up, she didn't know who I was. Apparently they had the room listed as being occupied by me and someone else. That provided more fun in the ensuing hours as people would arbitrarily stick their heads into Room 4 and ask me who I was. It was a good thing they had stuck one of those name tag bracelets on me when I first arrived, otherwise they wouldn't have known whose emergency contact to get in touch with when they found me passed out on the floor.
My room was right in front of the main flurry of activity, so I got scraps of conversation about everything that was (and wasn't) going on. I started to get a bit annoyed when people would swoop into my room, move past me like I wasn't there, look for (and occasionally find) some piece of medical apparatus Not For Me, and swoop back out. I would have settled for an insincere "Hi! A doctor will be with you soon!" rather than no acknowledgement at all. I do abhor rudeness, after all. I got VERY annoyed when I heard Swoopee #1 (I thought she was a nurse, but several hours later she was introduced to me as one of the doctors) a bit later saying "Skip SuperMilkChan and go to Room 11". Apparently who trumps who in the abdominal pain game can be influenced by age. My personal opinion was that the 68-year old had had a much longer life than I had and that I should get priority, but once again, my opinions didn't seem to matter much. It did make me seriously dislike Swoopee #1
Doctor #1 came in sometime after midnight and apologized for the wait (good start to bedside manner). She asked me all the same questions the triage nurse had asked (including the "1 to 10" rating), poked my abdomen, asked some more questions, poked a few more things, promised to come back with a morphine drip, and left. I could hear her conferring with Swoopee #1...describing my symptoms and asking what it could be. I felt like I was on an episode of "House", only with not quite the best and brightest minds in the hospital.
Before my drugs arrived, one of previous Who Are You people showed up with a portable EKG machine and started sticking 3M brand electroconductive softpads all over my legs and chest (during this operation, the X-ray guy showed up and got a look at the goods before the EKG lady shooed him out). You could tell I was sick because I really didn't give a rat's ass. I was keeping my eyes on the prize...that big, beautiful IV full of morphine. As long as failures of modesty didn't keep me off that track, I was good to go. She ran the EKG twice since I couldn't relax (she thought it was because I was nervous - it was actually because lying flat on my back put me in more pain than any other position). I was pleased to find out that my heart was still beating.
X-Ray guy was still skulking about when she was done, so I followed him to get some chest x-rays taken. I found that standing with my chest pressed up against a solid surface while my head and arms were still free to move about was, interestingly, the most comfortable position I had been in in two days. But then I had to lie down and do a flat bed scan, and that was wicked uncomfortable.
After getting back to Room 4, at best guess, it took another 15 - 20 minutes before my Drug Nurse showed up, sucked out copious amounts of blood and finally hooked me to a 6-mg. morphine drip. After she finished that, she made assurances that I would probably feel light-headed and fall asleep for an hour or two and when I woke up my test results would be back. Oh, and someone would be in to get a urine sample.
Ummmm...I done already sent one of those off with some lady. More confab at the doctors' station. Tracked down Take the Sample to the Lab Lady. She informed them that the sample was in the lab. They continued talked, but I was bored with them and focusing on whether or not 6 mg. was actually making a difference.
Swoopee #1 aka Doctor #2 popped in shortly after for her turn to poke my abdomen and ask me pain level questions. I was curt. Polite, but curt. I would have been more forgiving if the drugs were warming out my system better. She got her answers and then went and confabbed with the other two doctors some more.
Almost at the end of my first bag of morphine (I went through 3 before the pain and I decided to part ways), Some Random Male Nurse pops in and tells me that I have to take some "stuff" (technical term) for a CAT scan (I have good insurance, so I imagine they were milking this for all it was worth). The "stuff" turned out to be "Sterile Water for Irrigation...[Latin chemical names I daren't try to repeat.]"
It was vile.
It looked, smelled and tasted like dishwater...only far less pleasant. I looked suspiciously at SRMN. He went to get me some anti-nausea medication (good call on his part). After he replaced my now-empty IV of morphine and stuck some anti-nausea stuff in there, I asked if he was SURE that it would keep me from throwing up and I felt queasy already. He assured me that after 5 or 10 minutes it would kick in and I would be fine.
Total lie. After the first swig of dishwater hit my stomach, I discovered that sample transport bags make good airsick bags.
About halfway through Bag #2, Doctor #3 showed up with a mobile sonogram unit and showed me how to interpret the grayish blobs on the screen as kidney, liver, aorta, and gallbladder. I learned that my rib was shadowing my gallbladder, so she couldn't get as good a shot as she wanted to. I also learned that the rest of my organs looked BEAUTIFUL! As flattering as that was, I didn't want to know about the bits that looked GOOD, I wanted to know what looked BAD so we could fix it!!!
They eventually discovered that I hadn't finished my "stuff" and ordered me some additional anti-nausea medication. Again I waited about 10 minutes (probably longer), and again it didn't last any time at all.
When they finally looked in on me again, I told them I wasn't sure that a CAT scan was in the cards (thus making them nervous because if I had appendicitis and they let me walk out without diagnosing it, all their careers would be over). They offered a different kind of anti-nausea...this one apparently works on the part of the brain that makes you vomit (who knew? I thought it was purely a gag reflex.) This one worked long enough to get me through my terror of drinking the water and finish off the pint. Definitely not one of the more pleasant experiences in my life.
So I got wheeled up to the CAT scan (getting wheeled was cool...made me feel like I was really in a hospital and stuff), where I was stuck in a giant magnetic donut made by Toshiba and laser beamed. That lasted about 15 minutes and then I got to go back down to my room and eavesdrop on what the docs thought about my case. I heard rumors of possibly having passed a gallstone (whatever that is) and about some elevated levels of something. I drifted in and out of sleep for another hour and finally Swoopee #1/Doctor #2 came in and told me that I had elevated liver levels and a Lipase count of 114, which was high, but not so high that they were going to admit me. I was instructed to follow-up with my primary care physician within 24-48 hours (I'm working more on the 78-hour theory and hoping I don't have to make another trip up there in the meantime.)
That's all she told me. No nothing about gallstones, nothing about any of the millions of other tests, nothing about what to do to take care of myself in the interim between leaving and seeing my doctor. So I did what any self-respecting person would do as soon as she got home from the hospital (well...after getting rid of the rest of that icky dishwater)...I went on the internet and, knowing various and sundry words from watching a lot of television, looked up "pancreatitis". I discovered that despite the fact that THEY didn't know what I had, I was a walking textbook definition of acute pancreatitis. Makes you a little nervous when you, as a layperson, know more about getting information on illness than a doctor does...nay...THREE doctors do!
So I have an appointment with my not-regular-doctor who is on vacation this week, but her compatriot who needs to be as concerned as I am about this whole situation, because this apparently can be something very serious (although I do feel like a human being again and I've finally got my appetite back and I can sleep again.)
Because I know that you desperately care about my well-being, I will keep you up-to-date on my progress...Including if I have to go back to the hospital and will, once again, be accepting presents. :-)
