Friday 20 March 2009

Here, there be sick people....

I've had and interesting few days.....too say the least.

On Wednesday I woke up feeling out of sorts but figured that it would eventually pass. When I got to work the feeling escalated into pain. I managed to hang on for a few hours but eventually, I had to call it quits. There is nothing like working with a bunch of guys and telling them that your pain is located in your ''female'' parts.

I called DH at work and he came immediately as he works only a short express bus ride from where I work. Off to the hospital we go. After a three hour wait I'm in an emerg room with a doctor who examines me. As he leaves the room, to order x-rays, he tells me that I won't get anything to eat or drink in case they need to operate. At this point he suspects that it's my appendix.

Off to the x-ray....one nurse wheels me off to imaging and leaves. An orderly wheels in an elderly man and parks him right in front of me. I don't want to be rude and have this man think that I am starring at him, so I lower my eyes. EEEEEWWWWW is that what I think it is? I'm now starring at his urine collection bag. This is gross on just so many levels. I do the only thing I can, I turn my wheelchair around so I'm looking down the hallway.

When I get my x-ray, I realize that I've sunk to a new low. The first two require me to stand up. There on the display is my name, my ID number, the fact that I'm female and my age (and not the one that I tell everybody that I am...the real one). I am currently in a hospital gown and my back side is exposed. I am experiencing humiliation from the front and the back.

I return to my emerg room where the doctor tells me that nothing on the x-rays can explain my pain but that he would do something to help me manage the pain. At this point I am on IV so in goes the gravol then the morphine......1....2....3.....4....5......WHOA!!!!!! that stuff works fast. DH is with me and enjoying the fact that I am now stoned out of my mind.

The doctor returns and this time he brings reinforcements.....the surgeon, who after poking and prodding me so much that I want to clock him because IT STILL HURTS, decides that it's not worth it to open me....yet. The doctor returns to tell me that he would like me to stay overnight. I'm still high and still in pain, so I agree. However the pain stops a few hours later and I ask to go home. Let's face it, watching an old guy walk back and forth in the hallway, in his pyjamas, is not my idea of entertainment.

My family doctor, a cautious man, enters the scene, scares DH with all the things that could happen to me still, in the middle of the night so that is why I should stay. I sent DH home with a list of things I need and get the doctor to allow me something to drink. He puts a midnight deadline on the liquids and I'm in a real room.

The next morning I get an ultrasound. This tells the doctor what all the fuss was about the day before. His best guess was an ovarian cyst bursting.

So what have I learnt from this experience? While I found the sensation of being stoned on morphine unique, I am in no hurry to repeat it, as it made knitting virtually impossible.

Until next time
Yours in Yarn,
The Fibreholic

8 comments:

Kathy said...

Oh you poor thing. Now is when it becomes a bad thing that I love House. It sounds like you need a team of beautiful people ordering all kinds of obnoxious tests so that the doctor can make an amazing last minute diagnosis. Fun to watch, probably not as exciting to live through.

Knit My Grits said...

Oh yeah! NOT fun. That happened to me when I was 32 - the pain from the cyst bursting literally THREW me out of my bed as I was in a deep sleep at the time. I took the coedine the doctors prescribed me for fybroid pain and wouldntchaknowit, THAT was the time my body decided to end the love affair and proclaim a drug allergy. Needless to say, 911 and off to the hospital I went.

Nancy said...

Well, since you are blogging, I hope it means you are on the mend. Did you just have meds to fix the problem, hope so. What a not fun adventure.
Nancy

MadMad said...

Ay! You poor thing! But no surgery now? Hope you're feeling all better - and back to knitting!

TinkingBell said...

How awful for you - I hope you feel better - maybe you could have managed some garter stitch?

Denise said...

Oh that sounds so awful, you poor thing! Humiliation AND pain all at once - no fair.

Know what you mean about the urine bags - my FIL had one for over 2 months recently, and kept SHOWING it to us - no, no, we honestly don't want to see!!

Taphophile said...

erk - how bloody awful for you. Hope you're back in health now. :)

=Tamar said...

Oh, ow. I've had one of those. Thank goodness it was only once.
Here's hoping you also never have it again.