(Not so) Happy Hour at the ER
For the past two days, I've been feeling just awful. I had my gallbladder surgery back in September, as some of you may remember, so I thought I was good to go. Ha, wrong.
Ever since I went on vacation a few weeks ago--had to be really careful about the food, it was all very rich but it was included with the price of our tix--I have been feeling unwell. I had the same kind of pain I had before I had my surgery. Now I would really think that was weird except I've heard from two people--an ER nurse (whom I saw when I had the flu just after my surgery) and another patient who had the surgery--that they both felt the same kind of pain at one point or another and went, "Wait, what? Did it grow back or something??"
So Wednesday and Thursday of this week I have went to work, stayed about an hour, and left because I just felt too sick to be upright. My receptionist was out with a sinus infection, so that just piled on the OH NOES for me (even though my boss said yesterday, "It was so dead on Wednesday; you didn't miss a thing.") and made me feel worse.
My boss also knows that I am not a chronic sickie. "If you're out sick, I know there's something really wrong with you," she told me once. So. I am not condemned for that. I know this. Everyone at work worries about everyone else so we're good to go with that.
After spending much of the day yesterday between uncomfortable and in serious pain, I decided that I had had enough and off to the ER mom and I went. Got checked in, sat for a moment, then a nice tech came and got me and took me (with some others) over to an 'overflow' ER that was so. Darn. Quiet. It was really quite nice, actually. The nurse asked me a bunch of questions, and she said it didn't sound like I had pancreatits (which is not necessarily fatal but it's SRS BIZNES). "People with pancreatits are very sick people--they can't keep anything down and the pain doesn't go in waves, it just comes and STAYS--none of which you have." (It was true; I ate a little, didn't feel like I was going to honk, and the pain had been sort of flaring and ebbing all day.)
So. I was given a 'GI cocktail' that consisted of liquid lidocaine (I think she called it donotol) mixed with Mylanta. They warned me that it would be a weird sensation, and that it would numb my throat a bit. Well sure enough it did. Made my tummy a bit upset but nothing serious. As I sat there feeling a bit odd, the nurse came in and said that I should avoid citrus, tomatoes, and other acidy fruits, and no fatty/fried foods, but encouraged me to eat veggies (salad), fruits like melons and grapes, and to cut my calcium intake. She said that the diet that my old doctor prescribed years ago--the 'whole milk-white bread-white cheese-vanilla ice cream' thing--was old fashioned and does more harm than good, if indeed I do have a small ulcer. My doctor (have an appt on Tuesday) will treat that if necessary; I might have an infection of h. pylori, which is a bacterium that causes ulcers. Heh, I remember when I heard the story of the doctor who first discovered the connection between h. pylori and ulcers---he was laughed out of medical conventions at first but no one's laughing now...
Anyway. The nurse left, but while she was talking I started feeling very strange. My left eye began to ache and my head started hurting. I'm having a stroke or something, I thought. Say something to her! Say, "I don't feel well." The other part of my brain (the rational part) said, "Don't worry. You're fine. You just feel weird because of the pain medicine." After she left, my mom said, "What's wrong?"
I had a full-blown panic attack right there. "I'm so scared," I said to Mom. "There's something wrong with my eyes and my head hurts and oh GOD I'm so scared!"
Mom kept her head (ha, that makes one of us) and said, "Don't worry. You're just fine. Take a deep breath."
I did. Romans 8:15 popped into my head: "For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, 'Abba, Father.'" (although to be completely honest in my spinning brain it was run together with 2 Tim 1:7: "For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.") Instantly, the headache was gone, my eyes felt normal, and best of all I was suddenly on dry land instead of a sucking hole of quicksand. "It was panic," I told Mom. "I'm all right now."
"I know," she said, her eyes wide. "I could see it. That was weird."
I have NO idea where it came from. None. Probably left over from feeling (erroneously) guilty about missing work and feeling like I'd done something to bring my illness on. I ate as carefully as I could on vacation and since then, but I didn't know about the calcium thing and had been eating milk on my cereal in the a.m. and yogurt during the day. So maybe I'll have to switch to soy or something. Which isn't bad because I kind of like soymilk and I LOVE soy ice cream. Soy yogurt is something I haven't tried yet but we'll see. I'm allergic to straight soybeans (no edamame or tofu for me) but again, we'll see.
There's also a situation at work that I was proactive about but because of the flakiness of someone outside my office (and my naieve belief that others honor their promises as I do), there's a piece missing to an important project. I did the best I could and it will get resolved next week, but I'm just scared. I'm always scared, it seems like. Scared I'm going to do something to really foul things up for me and get fired, lose my house, lose everything...I hate that feeling.
I know that people say I'm helpful to a fault. I'm the go-to person. Ive been dubbed the 'information guru' or the person who will wing it and do something even if I'm not sure how it works. I know I'm a good person. My boss knows this, too. I screwed up bigtime a few years back and though I've not made the same mistake, I always fear doing it again.
I look up to her, and her disapproval is probably my biggest fear. There are nasty things out there that know that about me, and they regularly use it to whack me in the face. "See? See what you are? You're a lazy good for nothing who's going to be out on the STREET. And by the way, don't ask for God's help because He doesn't like you and doesn't want to help you. If you'd just listened to Him you wouldn't be in this mess, now would you?"
This doesn't help my stomach, as you can tell.
Right now, I'm spending a lot of time in Psalm 23: "He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul. He guides me in the path of righteousness for his name's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever."
In other news, my cell phone has died, and my DSL keeps going offline. My mom and I are on the same plan so she got the 'new every 2' this time. I may get my QWERTY phone sooner than I thought...though I'll likely have to pay for it, grragh.
In other other news, I felted my first crocheted wool handbag today. Turned out nice.
In still other news, if my DSL hangs around long enough, I'm going to try and do a Knight Rider playlist for my iPod. /geek
Ever since I went on vacation a few weeks ago--had to be really careful about the food, it was all very rich but it was included with the price of our tix--I have been feeling unwell. I had the same kind of pain I had before I had my surgery. Now I would really think that was weird except I've heard from two people--an ER nurse (whom I saw when I had the flu just after my surgery) and another patient who had the surgery--that they both felt the same kind of pain at one point or another and went, "Wait, what? Did it grow back or something??"
So Wednesday and Thursday of this week I have went to work, stayed about an hour, and left because I just felt too sick to be upright. My receptionist was out with a sinus infection, so that just piled on the OH NOES for me (even though my boss said yesterday, "It was so dead on Wednesday; you didn't miss a thing.") and made me feel worse.
My boss also knows that I am not a chronic sickie. "If you're out sick, I know there's something really wrong with you," she told me once. So. I am not condemned for that. I know this. Everyone at work worries about everyone else so we're good to go with that.
After spending much of the day yesterday between uncomfortable and in serious pain, I decided that I had had enough and off to the ER mom and I went. Got checked in, sat for a moment, then a nice tech came and got me and took me (with some others) over to an 'overflow' ER that was so. Darn. Quiet. It was really quite nice, actually. The nurse asked me a bunch of questions, and she said it didn't sound like I had pancreatits (which is not necessarily fatal but it's SRS BIZNES). "People with pancreatits are very sick people--they can't keep anything down and the pain doesn't go in waves, it just comes and STAYS--none of which you have." (It was true; I ate a little, didn't feel like I was going to honk, and the pain had been sort of flaring and ebbing all day.)
So. I was given a 'GI cocktail' that consisted of liquid lidocaine (I think she called it donotol) mixed with Mylanta. They warned me that it would be a weird sensation, and that it would numb my throat a bit. Well sure enough it did. Made my tummy a bit upset but nothing serious. As I sat there feeling a bit odd, the nurse came in and said that I should avoid citrus, tomatoes, and other acidy fruits, and no fatty/fried foods, but encouraged me to eat veggies (salad), fruits like melons and grapes, and to cut my calcium intake. She said that the diet that my old doctor prescribed years ago--the 'whole milk-white bread-white cheese-vanilla ice cream' thing--was old fashioned and does more harm than good, if indeed I do have a small ulcer. My doctor (have an appt on Tuesday) will treat that if necessary; I might have an infection of h. pylori, which is a bacterium that causes ulcers. Heh, I remember when I heard the story of the doctor who first discovered the connection between h. pylori and ulcers---he was laughed out of medical conventions at first but no one's laughing now...
Anyway. The nurse left, but while she was talking I started feeling very strange. My left eye began to ache and my head started hurting. I'm having a stroke or something, I thought. Say something to her! Say, "I don't feel well." The other part of my brain (the rational part) said, "Don't worry. You're fine. You just feel weird because of the pain medicine." After she left, my mom said, "What's wrong?"
I had a full-blown panic attack right there. "I'm so scared," I said to Mom. "There's something wrong with my eyes and my head hurts and oh GOD I'm so scared!"
Mom kept her head (ha, that makes one of us) and said, "Don't worry. You're just fine. Take a deep breath."
I did. Romans 8:15 popped into my head: "For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, 'Abba, Father.'" (although to be completely honest in my spinning brain it was run together with 2 Tim 1:7: "For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.") Instantly, the headache was gone, my eyes felt normal, and best of all I was suddenly on dry land instead of a sucking hole of quicksand. "It was panic," I told Mom. "I'm all right now."
"I know," she said, her eyes wide. "I could see it. That was weird."
I have NO idea where it came from. None. Probably left over from feeling (erroneously) guilty about missing work and feeling like I'd done something to bring my illness on. I ate as carefully as I could on vacation and since then, but I didn't know about the calcium thing and had been eating milk on my cereal in the a.m. and yogurt during the day. So maybe I'll have to switch to soy or something. Which isn't bad because I kind of like soymilk and I LOVE soy ice cream. Soy yogurt is something I haven't tried yet but we'll see. I'm allergic to straight soybeans (no edamame or tofu for me) but again, we'll see.
There's also a situation at work that I was proactive about but because of the flakiness of someone outside my office (and my naieve belief that others honor their promises as I do), there's a piece missing to an important project. I did the best I could and it will get resolved next week, but I'm just scared. I'm always scared, it seems like. Scared I'm going to do something to really foul things up for me and get fired, lose my house, lose everything...I hate that feeling.
I know that people say I'm helpful to a fault. I'm the go-to person. Ive been dubbed the 'information guru' or the person who will wing it and do something even if I'm not sure how it works. I know I'm a good person. My boss knows this, too. I screwed up bigtime a few years back and though I've not made the same mistake, I always fear doing it again.
I look up to her, and her disapproval is probably my biggest fear. There are nasty things out there that know that about me, and they regularly use it to whack me in the face. "See? See what you are? You're a lazy good for nothing who's going to be out on the STREET. And by the way, don't ask for God's help because He doesn't like you and doesn't want to help you. If you'd just listened to Him you wouldn't be in this mess, now would you?"
This doesn't help my stomach, as you can tell.
Right now, I'm spending a lot of time in Psalm 23: "He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul. He guides me in the path of righteousness for his name's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever."
In other news, my cell phone has died, and my DSL keeps going offline. My mom and I are on the same plan so she got the 'new every 2' this time. I may get my QWERTY phone sooner than I thought...though I'll likely have to pay for it, grragh.
In other other news, I felted my first crocheted wool handbag today. Turned out nice.
In still other news, if my DSL hangs around long enough, I'm going to try and do a Knight Rider playlist for my iPod. /geek