| 4/04/2006 |
CAUSE I'M DEAD AND BLOATED
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This post is not for the squeamish and very easily falls into the TMI category. If you don't want to hear about the inner workings of my innards I suggest you email me a question that I can answer this month. Seriously kids! Take a stab at it. :-)
So I was sick... Not your usual "I have a cold" sick. This mussa-fusser meant business. It started off Friday mid-morning at work with a slight headache. I thought I might need some food. I pop into the cafeteria and grab myself a wonderful smelling and tasty meatball hoagie. Yum!
The sandwich seemeds to have cured the headache, but my stomach felt funny. More specifically the area right below my ribs. The area I imagine my diaphragm to be.
Ok here comes the vain part... I was wearing a shirt that was just a tad too small for me around the midsection. But I love the shirt and if I want to button it up then I live in a glorious state of denial when I want to wear it. The buttons weren't popping off, but I was holding in my gut so the vertical stripes wouldn't be as noticeably warped when it came to my pooch. Where's my William Shatner girdle when I need it?!
So... after a while I thought it might be indigestion. Or perhaps even caused by my stupid vanity (I ended up just unbuttoning the top shirt and saying the hell with it).
By the time I got home, my indigestion had me cramping up pretty good. I was in some serious pain. But not constantly. I imagine it was like what contractions would be for a woman. Now, don't get on your pregnancy horse and tell me passing my meatball sub is nothing compared to giving birth. I fully admit it is not even close. And God bless you ladies for going through that... That's craziness!
My self-diagnosis had bumped up my indigestion to an stomach flu. Can you believe I've never been to med school? I watch Grey's Anatomy and Scrubs. That should count for something, shouldn't it?
By dinner time, I was in a fair amount of pain, but it'd only last for a few seconds every half hour or so. I still had an appetite. I was feeling rather cold and it was not cold in the apartment at all. Even by my standards. I'd now upgraded myself to having an ulcer. I was cursing that meatball hoagie.
I didn't sleep much that night. I couldn't get comfortable. Laying on either side seemed to squish areas that didn't like to be squished. Sleeping on my stomach was out of the question. Flat on my back was all I could handle. Which was fine.
By the next morning the pain had shifted. It was now lower in my abdomen and off to my right side. Constipation? A gastro-intestinal blockage? All I could think about was that damned meatball hoagie and the number it had done on me. I know... Me + Med school = Bus missed.
I had to laugh at this point because I was thinking of the scene from an episode of Grey's Anatomy where the guy swallowed ten Judy heads (think Barbie dolls). In what we are lead to believe was because he enjoyed the feeling of... passing... them. Ok-do-we-really-need-further-explanation-on-this?! No. Ok, cool. Moving on!
I'd decided to tough it out. I typically subscribe to the Drink Plenty of Fluids school of thought. I'd been sucking down all the water, cranberry juice, and Mug root beer I could handle. I wasn't feeling any better, but I wasn't feeling any worse.
Now the doctor talk was beginning. If I wasn't feeling any better by Monday I would go to the doctor. And she'd tell me I had constipation or I was simply just having cramps of some kind. What does an appendicitis feel like? Could that be it. My condition was getting progressively worse.
Seriously folks... If you need free medical advice I'm your man! The Doctor is in.
First came over-the-counter remedies. All that was available in the medicine cabinet was Gas-X and Imodium. I've never been one to keep a lot of OTCs on hand, or meds of any kind other than my allergy medication. Those two were from a long past episode and will never be used again. My poor body didn't know what happened after taking them.
I decided to purchase some Milk of Magnesia or Ex-Lax or Colace or something. And now I'm having flashbacks from Girl Interrupted. Remember Brittany Murphy playing Daisy who had an eating disorder. She'd only eat roasted chickens that she'd pick apart and hid under her bed till they stunk, and was addicted to Colace. Niiiiice.
I picked up some Ex-Lax and then went out to eat at one of my favorite restaurants in town. El Augila. Kick ass Mexican food. Which I swear wasn't chosen because of any possible side effects.
I took two once I got home and noted that it would take 6 to 12 hours for it to kick in. Looking back on it... Thank goodness it was a weekend. That 6 hour window of mystery really could be problematic if this was an issue that needed to be resolved in a specific time frame.
When 8pm hit I announced that the medication could begin. The Window of Mystery had been opened!! For the next 6 hours I checked the clock too frequently wondering when something... anything... would happen. Nothing really ever did.
It wasn't until some point in the middle of the night that I woke up from a crazy dream which I'll regale you with later. I couldn't go back to sleep. I was most certainly up. My cramping has ceased and there were definite reasons to get up. I'll just leave it at that.
The next morning I felt exhausted. Literally and physically. I hadn't slept. And when I did I was while emulating a Kitchen Aide mixer attacking high thread count sheets. I'd wake all twisted up in them, having burritoed myself somewhat securely.
Monday was a recoop day. I wasn't feel up to snuff yet and decided on a whim to take two more Ex-Lax for good measure. Because... nothing is more fun that feeling like you went three rounds with a prize fighter where every shot was taken in the gut.
Thankfully the worst has passed and I am feeling much better than I did a few days ago. Thanks for asking. On the plus side... nothing beats losing an easy five pounds like a good stomach virus. |
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I posted this @ 4/04/2006 01:10:00 PM.............Need a link?..........
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