I have no idea why, but that Gilmore Girls phrase popped into my head when I was trying to come up with an appropriate title for this blog post. So there we have it.
I know I said I probably wouldn't post this week, but I've been getting questions about the health issues and while I'm grateful for the concern, I just figure it's easier to post up here. Plus, whenever I'm dealing with something, I go to my main b for advice: Google. And often, I'll stumble upon a blogger's story about her issues and I'll feel a little solidarity and comfort and just... I don't know, it's nice to read from others going through similar things. I'm not sure where to start exactly. So let's wing it. (If you're not into reading all the mundane stuff and just want to know what the hell was wrong with me, skip to the part that says in big letters, "What the hell was wrong with me?")
The Pain Last Week
The other day, around 4pm, I started having some abdominal pain. It was a notch up from what I normally experience, but I didn't think too much of it. I kind of assumed it was just another thing related to endometriosis. I took some ibuprofen, it didn't do anything. So then I though it might be gas (yeah, I tend to be a little more glamorous on the blog than talking about gas, but I'm trying to keep it real) - not regular gas, but the kind similar to when you have surgery, that's sharp and rises to your chest and shoulders. Dinner time came and I barely ate because I was in such pain. So I took some stuff for gas. It didn't help but I went to bed. Fast forward to the next day and I was no better. Still assuming it was gas and that I was being a wimp, I tried walking around and exercising. NOT A GOOD PLAN, CHARLOTTE. By afternoon the pain was at a steady 8 or 9 on that lovely scale, and I could hardly move. I tried laying down and sleeping to no avail. Then I started vomiting and I decided... watching the live action Cinderella would help.
It didn't. I mean, it's a great movie but the pain was bad and I couldn't eat and I was throwing up. I still insisted it was gas pain (the growth from endometriosis is on some of my non-reproductive organs, so general abdominal/digestive issues are frequent) but I decided I would need to get over my fear of the doctors and nurses thinking I was a wimp for going to the ER over gas pains. Off to the hospital I went.
At first it wasn't too bad. They took me in relatively quickly. They did wait a little long to get those pain meds in, though. (The first nurse couldn't get an IV in, so they brought me to get an ultrasound before administering any medication. I wasn't mad, and I'm super used to multiple tries to get my veins, but the pain was serious so I was a little miffed.) Anyway. They changed shifts while I was getting that ultrasound, and my new nurse came in and got a vein on the first try. Finally! Pain meds! I hate how they feel at first. Not a fan of dizziness and, well, feeling high. But! It brought the pain down to around a 5, so that was a relief. But it still hurt pretty badly when I breathed in.
Also, the girl in the room next to me was an insufferable brat. But hey.
They ran some tests and came to tell me they were concerned that I had a blood clot in my lung. I think I looked something like this:
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| I'm confused and so terrified I could pee my pants, but I don't want my face to show any trace of fear. |
If you know me, you might be aware that blood clots are something I'm terribly afraid of. One of the reasons I hate being on birth control so much is that it increases chances of blood clots. Just remembering the moment the doctor told me they thought I might have a clot is making my palms sweat. No good, no good, no good.
I think the doctor was picking up on the fact that I was nervous fucking terrified, so she tried to downplay the whole thing. She reassured me that I was a low risk patient for blood clots, and that it was unlikely. She said they could do a CAT scan to find out if there was a clot, but that she'd prefer not to right away because of the radiation. I agreed. She explained that there was a blood test they could run. It tests for a few things, but if it came back positive, it could mean there's a clot. (It could also mean something else - so a positive result wasn't necessarily indicative of a clot.) They already had my blood and I while I knew I wouldn't be comfortable unless we knew FOR SURE there wasn't a clot, I was fine with just running the test instead of doing a CAT scan. They seemed to think it'd come back negative and that the pain was just gastritis or something.
Hollah, the test came back positive.
On the outside, I think my eyes just got big and my face turned a deep shade of red. On the inside I was like
Guys, I am so scared of blood clots. This felt like I was living an actual nightmare. I didn't visibly freak out, but my calm act was a little thrown by my shaky voice. So, CAT scan. They wheeled me out and on the way to imaging, when no one could see my face, I definitely did a little silent cry. So dramatic. I am not completely afraid of death, but I'm not eager for it just yet and I don't want it to involve blood clots and chest pains and gasping for air. Yes, I know I was in a hospital and they would have handled it, but this is my nightmare, so back off.
I texted some of my closest friends to tell them, and their responses ranged from calm concern and encouragement to straight fear (sorry for freaking you out, guys!).
The CAT scan showed no clots, and I had a little party. Not really, but I was so relieved. The unfortunate part was that my pain wasn't completely under control, especially when I breathed in. After they tested for the clot, they basically told me I probably had gastritis and to follow up with a pcp.
lolol ok
(In truth, I get it. Abdominal pain, from what I understand, is a headache in the ER. There are so many causes - I mean, I was convinced I just had gas... - and it's an ER, not a specialist. They try to rule out the life threatening stuff and then send you home if they don't find anything. I get it.)
Back Home
Okay, so we left. They gave me four pain pills to hold me over until I could get a prescription filled the next day (we left the hospital around 10:45pm). I was still a little doped up (a lot doped up, really) and so I felt great. Breathing in was uncomfortable, but otherwise, I was okay. I hadn't eaten at all that day, so I was excited to get something. I immediately thought of wonton soup, but the place closed ten minutes early. So instead, I had a piece of white bread and went to bed, probably some time around midnight.
I woke up at 1:45 in pain. It wasn't horrific, but it was unpleasant. I was able to fall asleep though. I woke up in severe pain less than an hour after that. It was completely, totally awful. I took one of the pain pills and tried to lay down. I couldn't find a position that even remotely eased the pain, which made me think, for the first time, that it wasn't gas (I hadn't been sold on the gastritis thing). I didn't want to wake my grandparents up, though, so I kind of just laid down in pain for a little while. 3:30 rolled around, then 4, and still, the pain pill didn't kick in. It didn't even take the edge off the pain. I put Cinderella back on, but could hardly follow along with it. At 5:27 I gave in and woke my grandparents up (my grandpa yelled at me for not waking him up to take me back three hours earlier) and told them I needed to go back to the hospital. He brought me and at first the lady at the desk looked at me like I was crazy when I told her I had just been here. But they took me straight in (miracle, thank you God) and put me in a bed. I definitely felt like an idiot and a weakling since I had just been there, but I truly couldn't handle the pain.
Just Kidding, Back in the ER
A nurse and a doctor came in and asked me some questions. I don't think either of them doubted my sincerity, but they were about to change shifts, so talking to them was kind of a waste.
Another nice nurse came in and asked me about my pain levels. I believe I told her it was "at least a 10!!!" I texted some of my friends asking if I'd sound like a psychopath if I asked them to put me to sleep.
At this point I was half crying (like, I wasn't even making noise or aware that I started crying. Tears were just falling out, man.) and my body was weirdly curled because I was trying desperately to just. ease. the. pain. already.
I'm pretty sure I ended up telling the nurse I'd very much be okay with them sedating me.
They did not, however, sedate me.
She pumped some sweet, sweet drugs into my body and the pain dulled down to a 5 or 6; completely, totally tolerable. If I started having level 5 or 6 pain right now, randomly, I'd think it was horrible and I'd curl into a ball. But after over three hours of severe, level 10 pain, a 5 or 6 was nothing. But the nurse didn't like that I was still in pain at all and neither did the doctor.
The rest is fuzzy, but basically they ran a shit ton of tests. Then they decided to do an MRI. I kid you not, they put me in a wheelchair and brought me outside. I was amused at first, thinking it was funny that we had to go outside to get to the MRI room, but that maybe the dude was just taking a short cut. That is, until he started going 'round corners and then we crossed the street, all the while it was RAINING. I started thinking horrible thoughts.
"Oh my God, he's not even a real employee! OH MY GOD HE IS STEALING ME. He's going to put me in a van or kill me!!!!!"
But one of my few good traits is that I'm resilient, and so I talked myself down. "Even in a bit of pain, I could take this guy if it came down to it. I'm not that drugged up."
The world will never know if I'd have been able to take him, because it turns out he was in fact an employee and the MRI place was just across the street. (Don't get me started. wtf, south? Wouldn't you want to be able to get patients to the MRI machine quickly? What if it's someone who had been in an accident?!)
By the way, I fucking hate MRIs. Loathe, hate, detest, abhor them.
But yes. So the tests came back and the doctor woke me up mid-percocet-induced-light-sleep-daydream to tell me they were going to admit me.
What the Hell Was Wrong With Me?
Some of my levels came back really abnormal and the MRI showed that there was "sludge" in the common bile duct. It turns out there was a stone in there. Apparently, those can still form even if you don't have a gallbladder, but it's also possible that it's been there for a long time, even before I had my gallbladder removed. So yeah, my liver stopped working properly. It became really inflamed and all of the levels were off and the bilirubin was really high. The admitted me with a plan of managing pain and observing and, if necessary, doing a procedure to go into the duct and remove it. At first it seemed like they were going to do the procedure right away, which made me super nervous. But my pain became more manageable and was much less severe, so they decided to watch me until the morning, when they'd do another blood test.
The doctor explained that when the liver becomes that stressed, the body might try and push the stone out naturally, and that, if my pain was decreasing and my blood tests were coming back less horrifying, it was probably because my body had gotten the stone out on its own. In the morning they ran more tests and my levels had gone down, but only a bit. They were still too high and I had to stay in the hospital.
(The hospital stay was....... alright. They had some overflow, so they put me in maternity. I thought it was weird at first but it turned out to be pretty awesome. It was quiet (the section with women in labor was separated by some distance and strong doors), there are babies(!), the nurses were great, and the bathroom was fantastic. It was huge. And the bed was much better than the ER bed. That all said, it still sucked. I wasn't wildly fond of being stuck inside and in one room and with no people. It was incredibly boring, though I did enjoy a marathon of What Not to Wear on TLC. When I was on the pain meds I got really sad, something I'm prone to do when I'm alone, and I couldn't stop thinking about just the saddest things going on in my life. I mean, that didn't last the entire time, but when it was happening, it sucked. I decided against the strong pain meds unless they were very necessary. I also didn't get a ton of sleep, especially since they woke me up very often for blood tests or vitals. Worst of all - worst of all - I was on a clear liquid diet. After 36 hours of no food, I was brought sodium free chicken broth. Kill me dead. Yeah, I don't know how I survived on jello and broth for three days, but I did. Many headaches. I was moved to the proper floor on the day I ended up being discharged (and I missed the nurses + bathroom) and my doc finally let me eat food, precious food. I look forward to never needing to stay in the hospital again, save childbirth, please God. Also - this may come off as complaining, and I suppose it is, but trust me, my appreciation for the care is much greater than any of my complaints.)
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| Am I complaining too much? Is this too long? Are you like, "please shut up this post is so long?" |
So yes. They believe it was a stone - there was definitely something blocking the duct - and they believe it passed. I have to follow up with le specialist, just in case it isn't that, or in case there's a stone that moved, but didn't actually pass.
It was only after the whole ordeal that I found out this thing was life threatening. Maybe that's obvious, but it wasn't to me. I thought I was being admitted for pain management and just for convenience if I needed the surgery. I thought it was similar to when I had my gallbladder out - surgery was best, but it wouldn't have killed me right that second if I didn't have it removed straight away. I was wrong. I was super wrong. The condition was actually life threatening, which freaks me out just a tad now. I mean, I thought it was gas! I put off going to the hospital for as long as I could! Part of me is worried - I have a tendency to put off going to the ER despite pain (when I had those terrible, severe cramps, two different people told me to go to the ER. I didn't because I didn't want to be a wimp and I thought the doctors would think I was ridiculous to complain about "period pain" and then a month later, when I finally went, there was a freaking mass on my ovary). So I'm a little scared that I won't recognize a serious issue when it's happening - I literally always attribute any problem to endometriosis, since that's so often the case. Over the last few days, every time I've had a hit of pain, I get really scared that the stone is back.
I need to get over it, or I need to just pretend to be over it until I go see the doctor next week - something that will hopefully yield some answers.
I've been trying to improve some of my habits for a while, and the doctors said it was obvious. They also told me that regardless of some of my habits (like eating habits), this could have happened. But I'm going to continue trying to improve anyway, of course.
I'll give an update after the doctor, and maybe eventually I'll write about the endometriosis, since it plays a big part in everything, and since so many women have it. More info/accounts on the interwebs can't hurt.
Now I'm off to root for the Cubs. ;)
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Charlotte
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