Side Effects May Include...

Kevin tried to bribe me into staying home from work last night. Dinner and a movie in Yakima for the two of us! He may have been feeling lonely that I was about to  leave him, or he may have felt pity for a sick girl who was sniffing and hacking like a chain smoker with dust allergies. OR it may have had something to do with what I would consider "abnormal" behaviour on my part.

The fear I have for taking medication (because, let's face it, how does it know what part of my body hurts? It doesn't, it numbs it ALL, and I'm not OK with that!) is occasionally overcome when, in fact, my whole body does hurt. As it did yesterday. The dose of generic brand DayQuil my mom gave me looked extremely huge, but my misery forced me to choke it down.

To my amazement, it actually helped. I was blowing my nose 1/2 as often and my headache subsided. The good times lasted for about 4 hours before I snapped. Kevin turned on SpongeBob, which I find OK normally, but yesterdays episode deserves a Daytime Emmy for hilarity. One joke and I was over the edge, I started laughing so hard I fell off the couch, onto the floor, and just kept laughing...

You know it's bad when Kevin starts to get concerned about my sanity, and offers to take me to the emergency room, I was laughing so hard for so long. The whole time I KNEW I was going crazy. I was laughing on the outside, but inside I was confused and not at all amused. I had long since stopped paying attention to the TV and was laughing at my laughing. Fighting to regain control of my mind took several minutes and relapses. To cap off my mad mental break I finally got my laughing under control by suddenly starting to sob my eyes out (I'm not even exaggerating). Kevin kept asking "what's wrong," and my only answer was "nothing, I don't know, nothing, wahhhhh."

This whole scenario lasted maybe 10 minutes, and at the end I was so exhausted I could not even stand under my own power. I was totally fine after that, I went to work more or less sane. The one thing I have learned from this "high" of mine, a very important lesson, I would make a terrible pot smoker! Or any type of druggie! One of the most miserable/scary experiences of my life, never again, never again!

In the early morning hours...

It was the sharp stabbing pain across my abdomen that woke me up at 2:00am. I stumbled toward the bathroom sure that I was having some kind of severe digestion issue. No relief. I crawled back into the hall reaching for the closet for some sort of medication, any medication! Too late and I collapsed into a writhing ball of pain on the floor….

My darling, wonderful husband, by some miracle, took only about 5 seconds before he woke up from a dead sleep knowing something was wrong. He found me on the floor, unable to move, shaking, hands numb, and breathing heavily.

At first he asked if I wanted to be taken to the Emergency Room, I said I’d be fine, and then he insisted. I tried to lay on the couch while he went and cleaned the newly fallen snow off the Jeep. He loaded me inside pajamas and all, and at this point I was feeling rather stupid, sure as I could be that this would just turn out to be a really expensive bout of constipation.

We arrived quickly at Kadlec Hospital. The good news is that at 2:30am there is no waiting to get seen so I was quickly checked in and forced to put on one of those awful gowns. They put me in a room and with nice warm blankets and Kevin by my side we waited for the doctor.

When the doctor came in He asked me to list off my symptoms:

• Severe sharp stomach pain
• Nausea
• Numbness and tingling in my hands and feet
• Shaking

After answering a few more questions he ruled out things like kidney stones, burst appendix (I was extra concerned about that since it had just happened to my sister in law), gall bladder… After poking around my abdomen, and giving me some narcotic pain killers, he decided it would be best to order an ultra sound. This was not how I had pictured getting my first ultrasound! The lady was super nice and I got to go on a bed ride to and from my room to the ultrasound room, and let’s just say she did two types of ultrasounds. All the while my devoted little husband stayed by my side.

Back in my exam room the doctor finally came in with my verdict, results, findings. It turns out that at some point during the night I had had an Ovarian cyst 1.5” x 1.25” that had ruptured. My right ovary was swollen, it still had some blood in it, and I had leaked fluid into my pelvic cavity (sorry this part is nasty).

So the good news is it was not all in my head. The bad news, it happened. The Doc sent me home with a prescription of pain killers and the direction to go in for another ultrasound in 4-6 weeks to make sure it heals. We got home a little after 7:00am, some 4 hours later, and all I wished was that I’d worn cuter pajamas!