Hey, all! I know I haven't posted in months, but I'm back! And this will be a kinda long post to make up for the time I've spent away. Happy Cinco de Mayo! I understand that doesn't really mean very much, but we have a fun Cinco de Mayo tree up at work, with chili pepper lights, and a margarita glass full of dark chocolate Hershey kisses. But Cinco de Mayo will always mean something to me. It's the day, back in 2002, when I nearly died.
Let me explain. On May 4, 2002, I had a class to go to for my job. It was an all-day class, and I had fun (pretty much). Several people from my base went to the class with me, and a good time was had by all. The class was about an hour and 15 minutes away from my home base, so we stopped for a few things on the way home. One of those things was food. Some of us ate, others didn't, and then we went on our way. We got back to base without incident, and went our separate ways.
I didn't feel all that well when I got to my house, but I figured it was because I was a bit wound up from the class. I'd been a little stressed over this particular class, and I imagined I hadn't really realized how stressed I'd been, and that was why my stomach wasn't feeling right. I had some antacid and felt a little better. Later I ate dinner, and it seems maybe I went to bed a little earlier than usual.
I woke at about 2:30 AM, needing to go to the bathroom. This was somewhat unusual for me, but you gotta do what you gotta do. I got back in bed and had just drifted off again when I realized I was quite nauseated. I ran back to the bathroom and threw up. That was the start of it. For the rest of the night, I was up about every 45 minutes, running back and forth to the bathroom with a variety of tummy troubles. Didn't get much sleep, as you might imagine. Finally, at about 6:30, I went downstairs and mentioned to my mom that I was sick. I thought perhaps it was some mild food poisoning, possibly from the meal I'd had the afternoon before. I realized that, because it was Sunday, my only options were to either wait it out, or to go to the hospital for some treatment. But I was so tired, I thought from lack of sleep, that I decided to have a bit of a lie-down on the floor and see how things went. It was so hard to move, to do anything at all that required even a little bit of effort. I didn't realize it at the time, but even though I thought I was just taking a little nap, I was really losing consciousness for varying periods of time. My mom and brother kept asking if I wanted to go to the hospital, but I kept putting them off, thinking I'd get to feeling better after a little nap. The nausea had subsided, but I just couldn't get out of my own way. I decided to take a shower.
The shower wasn't the best idea in the world. I stood in the stream of water, just stood there, for I don't know how long. At times I would sit down in the tub and pass out. I finally turned off the water, got out of the tub, and laid down on the bath mat. I passed out again. I was out for probably 45 minutes, and my brother finally banged on the bathroom door, which brought me around a bit. I struggled a bit more, then got dressed, went downstairs, and finally, at about 3 PM, my mom and brother talked me into going to the hospital. He drove, Mom sat in the front of his Jeep Wrangler, and I got put in the back seat. I couldn't stay awake. And my abdomen was starting to hurt a bit, but not like when I was nauseated.
The hospital is an hour away. Now, I think I've mentioned before, I work for an ambulance service, so obviously I didn't want to take the ambulance to the hospital. I didn't really think I was ill enough for an ambulance; they're for really sick people, or really hurt people, not somebody with a little tummy pain who needs a good night's sleep. I realized much later that I would have been much, much better off if I'd taken the ambulance. But medical people make the worst patients, so my brother and mother humored me and transported me by private vehicle. We finally got to the hospital, and somehow I managed to walk in. The triage nurse saw me walk in, recognized me, and took me immediately into triage. I guess I looked pretty ill. I know I was walking somewhat bent over, holding my tummy. She told me I was very pale, did her triage routine, and sent me to the waiting room. It's a community hospital, very good for what it does, but it's not a huge emergency department, and it looked somewhat busy. I sat down next to my family and waited.
A few minutes later, another nurse called my name, but when I went to stand up to follow her, I almost fell to the floor. I screamed out in pain. They got a wheelchair, and there was a flurry of activity. I was put in a room immediately. As my mom and brother watched (they were allowed into the room, and stood in a corner, to keep out of the way), I got an IV, an EKG, a blood draw, an abdominal ultrasound, and I don't remember what else. One of the physician assistants came in to get my history. I was in and out of consciousness. Unconscious was best, because when I was awake I was screaming in pain. I'm pretty tolerant of pain, but this was unlike anything I'd ever experienced. We ask people to rate their pain on a scale of 1-10, with 1 being almost no pain, and 10 being the worst pain the patient can imagine. When they asked me, I rated the pain at 20, and I meant it wholeheartedly. This was pain beyond what I could even start to imagine. This was beyond Stephen King's or HP Lovecraft's wildest, most horrific dreams. It felt like a huge, red hot ice auger was drilling through my upper abdomen. Absolutely dreadful.
At some point, I apparently passed out for an extended period.. When I woke, my family wasn't there. I asked one of the nurses, and she told me that they'd gone home. I was to be admitted. They were waiting for a room to be readied for me on the appropriate floor. I asked her what was wrong with me, and she said they weren't positive, but it looked like pancreatitis. Oh, great. Pancreatitis has terrible press, and it's all completely deserved. And the thing about being a medical provider is, you know this stuff. And I'm one of those crazy people who reads medical textbooks for kicks, so I knew quite a bit about pancreatitis. None of it was good.
I'll have to stop there for now. I have a lot of things to do before bed, and I have to be in a town two hours away by 9 AM tomorrow for a training session. Part II will be posted soon... I hope.
