It's Not Every Day....

...that a girl gets a fire pit, jewelry, AND a six day hospital stay for her 40th birthday.

As you may have guessed, my the culmination of my fortieth birthday plans did not end as planned. But to truly tell the story best, we have to start on the Thursday before....

Aside from the nastiest of nasty Nor'easters rolling in, the day had been quite uneventful.  I went to work, picked up the kids, came home, made tacos for dinner, and headed out shorty after for a bit of Yoga.  About 15  minutes into the class, somewhere between the cat pose and kneeling mountain, I felt a tightness in my chest.  Nothing I thought, so I continued through the pose, returning to standing when it became clear I needed to leave.  Making a bee line for the bathroom, my chest got tighter and my head started spinning.  The nausea came shortly after, followed by shortness of breath and sweating profusely.  Not since my severe allergic reaction from Amoxicillin had I ever felt like this, and I began to think I was having a heart attack.

And of course, as soon as the thought entered my head, I dismissed it.  It must have been the tacos. It's bad heart burn that's all.  I left, headed out into the rain, and slowly made my way home where I popped some Tums and prayed it would settle down in time for bed. Which it did, until it didn't. Now 1:30 in the morning, a few more Tums and few hours later it settled, and I slept about an hour before I went to work, and on with my day, all the while still feeling pain from my lower rib cage to my hips.  When I got home, having eaten virtually nothing through the day, I had a tiny amount of fettuccine Alfredo and once again, all the abdominal pain was back.  By 11:30, Tony and I were driving around looking for an open place to get Pepto to coat the pain so I could sleep.

Saturday morning found me better, but with a constant pain in my lower back and pelvic area. At this point Tony said he would not be spending my birthday in the Emergency Room so I was to make an appointment with the doctor that day.  After running errands, I headed up to see the on call around three.  She ran the usual tests, took some blood, and concurred that it was more likely to have been just bad heart burn.  Then the EKG came back.  Apparently there is a "line".  Above the line is a heart attack, below is not.  My EKG revealed that (3 days later) I was still ON the line. She conferred with 3 other doctors, one of whom thought it was cardiac, and the other two saying it was questionable.  The consensus was that I would try the heart burn route and then follow up with checking on my heart.  Armed with a prescription strength antacid, I was sent on my way, arrived at home and delivered the news.

And then the phone rang.  My liver numbers were high.  She insisted I check in to the ER tonight.  Um, no... not on a Saturday night, no thanks.  Our compromise was to head back in to the clinic in the morning, get rechecked and do an ultrasound. So, we cancelled my birthday plans for brunch and headed in at 9 am and after a standard "we'll bill you the co-pay", we were escorted from the waiting room and told to go to the ER.

Happy Birthday To Me....

My plans ruined, we checked in at my preferred hospital.  Having eaten nothing but white rice since 5pm the night prior, they hooked me up to an IV, took some blood, and ordered an ultrasound.  The medical center had phoned ahead, which, while it did make us appear more urgent, in no way shape or form got us any more attention.  Sunday morning in the ER found us with two patients waiting for psych beds who could not stay in their rooms and insisted on chatting with everyone, a voluntary detox, and a return patient with a migraine.  Apparently he had been here the night before, had ripped his own IV out, and needed to be escorted out via security.  But here he was again this morning, with his horrible 9 day migraine, talking about it the whole time, eyes wide open under the florescent lights, claiming he was nauseous, but later asking his father to pick him up an Italian sub. I know you'll all be shocked to find there was in fact nothing medically wrong with him and he was callously sent home with no prescription narcotics.

Meanwhile I laid there half hung over the side just trying to find a comfortable position.  In an effort to keep me comfortable during the wait they allowed me ice chips, which triggered agony.  The ultrasound shook everything around, and while gallstones were clearly visible, I was returned to the ER staging area until the doctors could get a good read on me. The pain was excruciating. I was unable to cry, talk, and it hurt to breathe.  I sat there curled up, holding Tony's hand, my face in his belly, his hand rubbing my back.  Finally the doctor order some Morphine which did nothing for the pain and made me as violently sick as someone with stomach acid and dry heaves could be.  It was then that they started me with the first of what would end up being 16 bags of antibiotics. We were about 4 hours into this when the doctors came out and delivered the news, a gall bladder than needed to come out, along with a largely inflamed pancreas, and liver levels 14 times the normal limits.

I was moved to a holding area for the emergency department, which is where I stayed until Monday night.  Once in the private room they decided I needed something different for the pain.  I remember sitting up, Tony rubbing my back while I once again purged the little I had into the blue bag from hell, and hearing from the side "Are you seriously falling asleep in the puke bag?"

Yes.  Yes I was.  Good stuff that pain killer was... I slept instantly, and felt no pain from there on out. The nurses were wonderful, tending to needs I didn't even know I had.  One even sang me Happy Birthday in Chinese.  The kids came in, my parents visited, and I think I saw half the medical staff of the hospital over the next day or so, the full duration of which was being now estimated at 7-10 days.  Finally, the orders came down, already admitted, I was to be moved to Center 4, another holding area of the hospital, until a room was available.

Center 4 was good.  Quiet but full.  Full of surgical patients, waiting for their turns, something that the staff was not used to.  And while they did their best, they were overwhelmed.  My IV went disconnected for over a hour, which being my only source of nutrition for the last 3 days, significantly dropped my hydration and sugar levels and when it was reconnected, caused a leak. I was told that they did not want to change it (regardless of the fact that it was 3 days old and needed to be changed) and about an hour later I was transported to the 3rd floor where they promptly whipped it out and ordered me a new one. Which, due to my dehydration, was virtually impossible to do. 6 hours later, arms bruised like a heroin addict, they finally got one into my hand.  And here it was that I stayed for another 3 days, virtually pain free, and bored out of my skull.....


.....To be continued....