Fun Times in the Emergency Room

First, I apologize for mentioning this and then leaving you hanging. Apparently percoset makes you sleepy. Verrrrry sleeeeepy.

Tuesday morning as I was sitting at my desk happily coding away, I suddenly found myself nigh unto doubled over with pain in my side. When I could once again breathe, I called up my sister (who has mighty fine experience with kidney stones and other ailments of the torso that leave you breathless and in pain) and described the sensation. Our concensus was that it was nothing we could come up with and I should just try to tough it out.

Shortly thereafter I called Tim and said I needed to go home so I could die surrounded by the people and things I loved. Since the weather was beginning to get treacherous, we went home and I curled up in the fetal position and moaned the remainder of the evening away. Finally, before bed, Tim pursuaded me to do something that will make my mother cringe, that is, to take one of his left over pain killers from his tooth surgery two weeks ago. I should just say that I did it only because I was convinced that I was going to die anyway, and I didn't want my last words to be "AAAGUUUUUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!"

Wednesday morning dawned freezing and ice coated and I took myself off - jammie clad - to "work from home" in the basement, pain much less and with only intermittent stabbings and screechings. I figured I was on the mend and consoled myself with Motrin as needed (read: every four hours like clockwork - yes, delusions of feeling better are my specialty when confronted with silly suggestions like, "Why don't we go to the doctor?")

That evening, I began my delightful siren song of "AAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHH!!!!!" and was again pursuaded by the siren call of sleep inducing pain meds. Only to awake some four hours later in more intense pain than I had yet experienced. And so, at 3am, it was off to the ER we went - despite the layer of ice that doesn't even break under the weight of the car when we drive over it that is currently masquerading as our driveway.

So we trucked off to the, thankfully deserted, emergency room where I had visions of compassionate doctors who would be concerned for my well-being and possibly look like either George or Noah. (I'm not picky.) Clearly at this point I was hallucinating. Every single person who walked in the room demanded to know my symptoms - even though each and every one wrote it in the chart and each and every one had the chart right in front of them and I said the same words (with accompanying gestures) each time. The only possible conclusion I could come up with was that the ER docs in our neck of the woods can't read. (And perhaps it's this lack of literacy that has kept them from developing some kind of, oh, empathy? Bedside manner? Kindness?) (Oh, alright, there was one exception - the guy who put in my IV was very nice. He just ran afoul of the fact that I have no discernable veins and thus, I kid you not, I have a bruise on my arm from the tourniquet.)

And so, after seven hours of x-rays and sonograms and blood tests and snarling disbelief that I wasn't simply there either to score pain meds or on a lark to waste their time when they could be using that time to file their nails or practice their biting sarcasm on one another, we came home with no diagnosis other than things I don't have.

I don't have kidney stones.
I don't have exploding ovaries.
I don't have diverticulitis.
I don't have apendicitis.
I don't have much respect left for doctors.

Thankfully I do still have something to keep me warm at night: Pain.