An Incoherent Rendering of the Day

Wow. So it’s been an interesting day. I’m finally getting recovered from it enough to start to feel inspired to blog again (blogspired??), but still feeling a bit incoherent, so bear with me.

I get up at 7 each morning, to have time to take a shower, have some bible study, and maybe work a bit before Ali gets up between 8 and 9 (I know, go ahead and give me icy glares – I can feel them coming through the computer monitor now). I woke up on my own (or maybe with a bit of help from Oreo) at 6:50. Ali was already awake, moaning.

I noticed that my stomach mildly hurt way up high. Or maybe my chest hurt way down low. Couldn’t tell and didn’t care – Ali never moans – had to get in there and check her fever.

So I head in there, and sure enough she’s pretty hot. I expected it to be a lot worse than yesterday, but thankfully it was just 101.5 – about the same.

Nevertheless, I was preparing to ignore all of your helpful advice and take her to the doctor anyway – she has just seemed so miserable. I gave her Ibuprofen (because she is just absolutely and completely unglued when she has a fever), and brought her downstairs to give her some breakfast.

Her Ibuprofen kicked in pretty quickly, and I was amazed at how fast she became her happy, bubbly self. However, while I was fixing her breakfast, my stomach started hurting REALLY badly. I trudged through the pain and gave her pancakes, but while she was eating, it became unbearable. I don’t usually let pain get to me, and if it’s bad I just get really quiet and still to cope with it. But this was not that sort of pain. It was roll around in the floor moaning type of pain, all while trying every angle to find some way to relieve it type of pain.

Luckily, although Ali seems quite bright most of the time, she is apparently not smart enough to pick up on the “badness” of hurt when Mommy is rolling around and moaning. I had told her “Mommy hurts!” as explanation of why I couldn’t get her something that she asked for, and she sing-songingly repeated to herself, “Mommy Hurts!! Eat Cakes!!! Mommy Hurts!! Eat Cakes!!!”

I pushed through it for about 20 minutes as it just got worse and worse, along with feeling very feverish, nausea, etc. I finally called Chris. I could barely talk it was so awful. He immediately headed home, and decided from my tone of voice that he was going to take me straight to the ER rather than the doctor.

He loaded us both up and we head to Brookwood – yes, this is my THIRD visit of the year. I am really pricey to upkeep!!

A few hours, a bit of blood work, repeating my story half a dozen times, and lots of waiting and pained times in between, and the doctor finally tells me that, whatever was bothering me was not life threatening, and it is his job to make sure of that. However, to get a full diagnosis of what IS wrong with me, I needed to make an appointment with a specialist.

Nice, Huh??

He did give me his guess, which after a bit of internet research and talking to a few folks seems like the most logical conclusion: gall stones.

I actually was able to get an appointment tomorrow morning (miracle of miracles!!) with the recommended specialist, so we’ll hopefully find out for sure then.

Mr. ER Doc also gave me a prescription for pain pills in the meanwhile. He actually said that “gall stones are not one of those things that are an emergency; if they bother you for a month or so, you may want to get your gall bladder removed, but I would give it some time.” Are you kidding me?? I literally COULD NOT FUNCTION when I was in the worst pain. And apparently, gall stone pain can come and go at will, and hit just as quickly as it did this morning at any time. Not sure I can take that chance for a month.

I wasn’t too excited about filling my prescription. First of all, I don’t handle pain pills well. More accurately, they make me puke my guts up. I MUST take Phenergan with them, and the two combined literally make me black out while standing up.

Secondly, he prescribed me Vicodin. Now, any of you who watch House are surely gasping in horror. Yes, Vicodin is basically the co-star of the show. It is what Dr. House is helplessly and hopelessly addicted to. Due to the show, it has always seemed like a super scary drug. But Chris told me that we should fill it, because a) it might not make me throw up like hydrocodone (yeah right), and b) maybe it treats pain specially for my stomach. So I agreed.

I totally expected some super secret super pricy co-pay for it – I mean, for crying out loud, it is the co-star of the biggest drama on TV!! Surely it is arrogant enough about that to charge a lot for itself.

Imagine my surprise when I went to pick it up and it was $4!! That immediately made it lose some of it’s scariness. Then I take a look at the generic name on the label: Hydrocodone!!! It’s the SAME STUFF AS ALL THE OTHER PAIN MEDS!!

This immediately got my brain spinning:

1. Did they pick the Vicodin brand name for House to be addicted to because it sounds so menacing?
2. How does the pharmaceutical company that makes the actual brand name feel about their stardom?? I mean, surely it can’t HELP sales. Or at least legal sales, which I am assuming (hoping) is the only way they get money out of it.
3. Dr. House’s addiction all of a sudden seems much less dangerous and serious now that I know he’s just hooked on Hydrocodone. Not that I would know if that is an easy addiction to break or not – it’s not even an easy pill for me to keep down!!

So anyway. To conclude. The pain lessened greatly right before we left the hospital, and aside from a lot of soreness, I have been relatively pain-free all day (although a bit incoherent, which doesn’t make sense because I’m pretty sure that they didn’t give me anything for pain at the hospital, and I haven’t taken anything on my own).

Ali was a perfect little angel at the hospital, stayed in her stroller the whole time (She and Daddy took a lot of strolls around the ER and waiting room), and after he suggested it the first time, she kept saying to Daddy over and over, “Pray Mommy again!!” and she and Daddy would pray for me.

Mom took Ali to spend the night with them when we got home, and Ali hasn’t had a fever again since this morning (and so I ended up, albeit involuntarily, taking all of your advice after all!!). I go to the specialist in the morning, and my main prayer request is for a clear diagnosis, whatever that may be. I hate the vague, “It could be this. . . give it a MONTH and see what happens” type of response.

I’ll keep you posted!