Today is an anniversary of sorts for me. Four years ago on this day, I woke realizing that I had better get myself to a hospital--and fast. I had been ill for several days, high fever, abdominal pain, and had been unable to keep anything down--not even water--for at least two. I had made a trip to the Urgent Care clinic a couple days previously, and they had given me antibiotics, with instructions to "rest up". I thought I had the flu, or some kind of food poisoning. As time wore on, I began thinking differently. Whatever it was, it wasn't going away, and the pain was only getting worse.
Like a lot of people who have never been seriously ill, I didn't stop to think, not even for a fraction of a second, that something might really be wrong with me. In fact, the main reason I decided to phone my mom to take me to the ER, was that I knew I must be extremely dehydrated. I was in and out of a fever haze, hallucinating, and in a house by myself. I didn't spare much thought as to WHY I was feeling so unwell. Instead, I started to panic about the dehydration. Some alarm bell went off and all I could seem to do was search my memory of the previous few days, trying to recall how much water I'd managed to keep in me, and when I'd consumed it.
I thought we'd get to the hospital and they'd just pop some saline into me and then send me on home with a poor-girl-with-a-bad-case-of-the-flu pat on the shoulder. This is not what happened. As soon as I arrived at the front desk, I could no longer stand up from the pain in my abdomen. Suddenly, I could barely speak or breathe. After several excruciating (years)minutes of questions regarding how I meant to pay for administered care, I was finally allowed to get into a bed.
The (very, VERY kind) nurse asked all the usual questions, did all the usual things that they do--blood pressure, stuck me with an IV, pulse and the like. And then she asked me to rate my pain on a scale of one to ten. By then my boyfriend had arrived, and I don't remember saying this but he tells me I said, "it feels like handfuls of broken glass are being ground into my gut". So came the first shot of Demerol. We waited for it to take effect while they tried to figure out what to do with me. I watched the clock: five, ten, fifteen minutes, all the while white-knuckling K's hand, and still breathing like I was in labor. Finally, I asked K to call the nurse. I got another dose of Demerol. When this didn't work, they gave me Dilaudid. Suddenly I began seeing shapes in the curtains, faces and words... I knew I was hallucinating, but I didn't care as the pain had finally receded to a pulsing dullness. I need to take a moment here to talk about pain. I had never really experienced pain before that day. I have never been in a car accident, never broken a wrist, leg, or even a toe, I have never given birth... I'd had migraines, menstrual cramps and other "everyday" pains, but never, NEVER anything close to approaching this. And boy was I was scared.
When the pain had abated, I became aware of the fact that the hospital staff did not know what was wrong with me. This was disconcerting. The nurse came in and said that they would need to admit me and were getting ready to administer a CAT scan. I looked at my mother and at K, both looking progressively more nervous, and for the first time accepted that something was really wrong. I began thinking about the fact that I had no health insurance. And that the cost of any care I received was going to come out of (my) pocket. In retrospect, it seems insane that that was what was foremost in my thoughts at the time. "HOW AM I GOING TO PAY FOR THIS!?" Instead of focusing on the fact that I was very ill.
They did the scan and found that I had a massive infection in my abdomen. The MD actually said to me, "I've never seen anything like this". These are words one doesn't particularly wish to hear an MD say while one is lying on a gurney in a paper robe. I stayed in the hospital for eight days, during which I had two more CAT scans, three drainage tubes cut into and protruding from my belly and side, IV antibiotics, lots and lots of pain killers, and full digestive rest--food via IV--not mouth and stomach.
Gradually I started to feel better, had more energy, the fever finally went away and they were training me on solid food again. They sent me home with a two week course of oral, full-spectrum antibiotics, and crossed fingers that this would be the end of it.
It wasn't. Just under three weeks later, the fever returned and I had to go back and have the infected bits taken out. It was determined, then, that I had Crohn's. Another nine days in the hospital, and the worst was over.
I have been in remission for four years now!!!! Yay! I can't begin to convey how happy it makes me feel to say that! With that entire ordeal it has taken a very long time for me to view my body as healthy and whole. And I do! I do!
