You Never Forget Your First Time
There's a first time for everything ...including riding in an Ambulance, and getting an IV.
Wait, stop, calm down. I'm fine. Or I wouldn't be writing this now, Mike would. But yes, there's a story behind this, and I'm getting there.
I suffered a very bad migraine yesterday at work. I tried to work through it, but it just kept getting worse and worse, and I was starting to get those little sparkles and fuzzy lines under the surface of everything - if you've had migraines you know what I'm talking about, if you haven't, just trust me, when the pain gets bad you see things - and I went "oh fuck this stoic bullshit" and got up to ask my supervisor a) if he had any painkillers and b) could I go home please thank you? But the answer to question a was no, unfortunately, and I never got to ask question b because at that point the pain hit me really bad and I swayed on my feet and fell over sideways.
Cue the freak-out.
Supervisor runs to get lead, who gets there when I'm hauling myself to my feet and they plunk me in a chair and start giving me the third degree - and over my protests call an ambulance. I think me dry-heaving into a wastebasket because of the nausea caused by the pain was the clincher. So after a shitload of questions - when did I eat, what did I eat, what pills do I take, did I take one today, does it hurt when I do this, yes stop it - the EMS guys get there: cue more questions. They say they'd like to take me down to the ambulance for more testing, please, and... one the one hand I'm like "geez, stop making a fuss" and on the other hand if you're too weak to stop the people from putting you in the stretcher and taking you to he ambulance, maybe you need to go. So down in the ambulance I get more questions, blood pressure, temperature, blood sugar (owie!) all are normal(ish) but I'm in a buttload of pain and slurring my words because of it and the exhaustion. So they say they can still take me to the hospital but it's my choice. I remember the supervisor saying that if they can take me, go and I figure - hell, better safe than sorry.
So I get my very first ambulance ride, which was not very fun because of the bright lights and the movement and oh god the nausea. More fun than a lot of people's first ambulance rides, though, I'll bet. And they take me to the unloading part of the hospital and there's a part of me that's mildly annoyed that my headache is so bad and I'm all covered up because this is new and I want to see.
Yes, I really am still that inquisitive four-year-old who caused a bomb scare at heart.
Anyway so as they're taking me wheeling me through the emergancy room I happen to have my eyes open and uncovered so I make pathetic grabby motions at mike_mcall who must have come as soon as they called him from work.
Then there is lots of laying down and waiting, and searing pain, and Mike (bless him!) distracts me by reading aloud from the Dresden Files novel I'm currently in the middle of. The doctor comes in, and tilts my head back and forth and shines a very bright light in my eyes to rule out it being brain bleed or meningitis. That these are even possibilities makes me very happy I said yes to going to the hospital. Cause man, what if?
Then I lay around for a while in pain, listening to Mike read before a nurse comes in to hook up my second IV - except nobody hooked up my first IV, so she does that instead. And I brace myself for the pain - god I hate needles - but it doesn't even hurt going in, just feels "a little weird" and I make the obligatory podborn jokes to Mike and am in general absolutely fascinated. There's this length of metal. In my arm. And I am connected to a machine, and it is feeding me stuff right into my bloodstream. THIS IS SO COOL!! I think I amused the nurse terribly.
So they leave me alone for a while, and by turns I listen to Mike read, and try to sleep, but uh pain and thing in my arm, and light so no. After a while the nurse comes in and changes the IV - the last one was for nausea, this one's for pain. And I notice that the length of tube between the needle and the place you click the length that goes to the bag in fills up RED when she takes the old one out. "OH!" I squeek, "that's me!" I've never ever had a problem with blood - girls kind of can't out of practicality, and anyway I had a lot of nosebleeds when I was little - so it's just grotesquely fascinating. As is watching the red slowly get sucked back in with the flow of medicine from the new bag. "Yeah," Mike says "it's backwash!" Hilarious.
A while after that they apologize, but they have to kick me out because they need to lock someone in this room - I don't know, I didn't ask - and move me to the patient waiting room down the hall. Apparently they only put me in there in the first place cause it's what they had open. So I go and I sit there (comfy chairs!) and watch an Intervention special on A&E which bores me to tears but it's what was on when I got there and the other guy in the room seemed to be into it. My headache has turned into a dull ache so when the Doctor comes again he says he's just gonna check to make sure I have no lasting nerve damage - I don't - and then he takes the IV out and then I can go home.
I get home, stick a pillow over my head, and crash out. Not counting brief periods of wakefullness and bunny cuddling, I was out for thirteen hours. Yeah. But I feel great now. And I have this awesome bruise on my arm where the IV was, all bright vivid purple with a little red dot in the middle; it looks like a nebula! Ahem.
And wow, typing all this have taken a very long time and I would like to check my f'list and prep for the game I'm running tonight, so toodles!
"Brace yourself. This might feel... a little weird"
-Morpheus, The Matrix
Wait, stop, calm down. I'm fine. Or I wouldn't be writing this now, Mike would. But yes, there's a story behind this, and I'm getting there.
I suffered a very bad migraine yesterday at work. I tried to work through it, but it just kept getting worse and worse, and I was starting to get those little sparkles and fuzzy lines under the surface of everything - if you've had migraines you know what I'm talking about, if you haven't, just trust me, when the pain gets bad you see things - and I went "oh fuck this stoic bullshit" and got up to ask my supervisor a) if he had any painkillers and b) could I go home please thank you? But the answer to question a was no, unfortunately, and I never got to ask question b because at that point the pain hit me really bad and I swayed on my feet and fell over sideways.
Cue the freak-out.
Supervisor runs to get lead, who gets there when I'm hauling myself to my feet and they plunk me in a chair and start giving me the third degree - and over my protests call an ambulance. I think me dry-heaving into a wastebasket because of the nausea caused by the pain was the clincher. So after a shitload of questions - when did I eat, what did I eat, what pills do I take, did I take one today, does it hurt when I do this, yes stop it - the EMS guys get there: cue more questions. They say they'd like to take me down to the ambulance for more testing, please, and... one the one hand I'm like "geez, stop making a fuss" and on the other hand if you're too weak to stop the people from putting you in the stretcher and taking you to he ambulance, maybe you need to go. So down in the ambulance I get more questions, blood pressure, temperature, blood sugar (owie!) all are normal(ish) but I'm in a buttload of pain and slurring my words because of it and the exhaustion. So they say they can still take me to the hospital but it's my choice. I remember the supervisor saying that if they can take me, go and I figure - hell, better safe than sorry.
So I get my very first ambulance ride, which was not very fun because of the bright lights and the movement and oh god the nausea. More fun than a lot of people's first ambulance rides, though, I'll bet. And they take me to the unloading part of the hospital and there's a part of me that's mildly annoyed that my headache is so bad and I'm all covered up because this is new and I want to see.
Yes, I really am still that inquisitive four-year-old who caused a bomb scare at heart.
Anyway so as they're taking me wheeling me through the emergancy room I happen to have my eyes open and uncovered so I make pathetic grabby motions at mike_mcall who must have come as soon as they called him from work.
Then there is lots of laying down and waiting, and searing pain, and Mike (bless him!) distracts me by reading aloud from the Dresden Files novel I'm currently in the middle of. The doctor comes in, and tilts my head back and forth and shines a very bright light in my eyes to rule out it being brain bleed or meningitis. That these are even possibilities makes me very happy I said yes to going to the hospital. Cause man, what if?
Then I lay around for a while in pain, listening to Mike read before a nurse comes in to hook up my second IV - except nobody hooked up my first IV, so she does that instead. And I brace myself for the pain - god I hate needles - but it doesn't even hurt going in, just feels "a little weird" and I make the obligatory podborn jokes to Mike and am in general absolutely fascinated. There's this length of metal. In my arm. And I am connected to a machine, and it is feeding me stuff right into my bloodstream. THIS IS SO COOL!! I think I amused the nurse terribly.
So they leave me alone for a while, and by turns I listen to Mike read, and try to sleep, but uh pain and thing in my arm, and light so no. After a while the nurse comes in and changes the IV - the last one was for nausea, this one's for pain. And I notice that the length of tube between the needle and the place you click the length that goes to the bag in fills up RED when she takes the old one out. "OH!" I squeek, "that's me!" I've never ever had a problem with blood - girls kind of can't out of practicality, and anyway I had a lot of nosebleeds when I was little - so it's just grotesquely fascinating. As is watching the red slowly get sucked back in with the flow of medicine from the new bag. "Yeah," Mike says "it's backwash!" Hilarious.
A while after that they apologize, but they have to kick me out because they need to lock someone in this room - I don't know, I didn't ask - and move me to the patient waiting room down the hall. Apparently they only put me in there in the first place cause it's what they had open. So I go and I sit there (comfy chairs!) and watch an Intervention special on A&E which bores me to tears but it's what was on when I got there and the other guy in the room seemed to be into it. My headache has turned into a dull ache so when the Doctor comes again he says he's just gonna check to make sure I have no lasting nerve damage - I don't - and then he takes the IV out and then I can go home.
I get home, stick a pillow over my head, and crash out. Not counting brief periods of wakefullness and bunny cuddling, I was out for thirteen hours. Yeah. But I feel great now. And I have this awesome bruise on my arm where the IV was, all bright vivid purple with a little red dot in the middle; it looks like a nebula! Ahem.
And wow, typing all this have taken a very long time and I would like to check my f'list and prep for the game I'm running tonight, so toodles!
"Brace yourself. This might feel... a little weird"
-Morpheus, The Matrix