The Worst Feeling in the World.
Not quite sure where to start for this one...
It's Sunday and it's partly between morning and noon. I am insanely congested and I have that distant, balloon-head/Sudafed feeling. I have no idea where this (probably, but not yet diagnosed) sinus infection came from. I began to notice it yesterday when I woke up at 1 in the afternoon after sleeping off the morphine that I was given during my three hour visit to the emergency room.
Allow me to further explain: Last Sunday, when we were coming home from the trip to Connecticut, I began to suffer a slightly intense pain in my lower abdomen area. When we stopped off at a gas station, I tried to go twoseys (thinking the pain was from my stomach; gas, maybe?) but nothing happened and the pain grew from slightly intense to incredibly intense. I writhed in pain, doubled over in the back seat for half an hour before I was put in the front seat, where I would have more leg room, and given some Tylenol. After another 30 minutes or so, the pain subsided and after another 30 minutes or so, I had completely forgotten that an hour previous I had wished that I was dead.
The week went by and I didn't have any more pain. Until, Friday night. I went out to eat with my friends before being invited to a late night gathering at one of my friend's friend's house. I peed before we left and noted that the color of my pee had a red tint to it. I deliberated over this for a moment when my friends started yelling at me for taking too long. I said, "my pee looks red." To which my friends replied, "did you drink anything today?" I pointed at the box of cherry flavored Capri Suns on the top of refrigerator. My friends laughed and said, "Do you know how much dye is in those things?" I didn't. But, it did make sense: cherries are red; cherry flavored dye is most likely red; stuff that you drink comes out in your pee; if you drink cherry flavored dye and pee, it certainly could have a red tint to it.
I went to the gathering and stayed for an hour. I wasn't feeling too well, so I left. I came home. Changed. Went to bed.
I woke up at 11:50 (my clock said midnight on the dot, which means that it is actually 11:50 due to my setting the clock to be ten minutes fast) and I was in slightly intense pain. I remembered what I felt like the Sunday before and how it took about an hour for the pain to go away after taking Tylenol. I went downstairs to the bathroom, took pain medication, and laid on the floor. I writhed in pain for about an hour. Nothing changed except that the pain grew more intense. I took another dose of pain medication and resumed writhing in pain on the floor. After another hour of this and no sign of feeling better, I woke Stephanie up.
Within ten minutes I was laying back in the front seat of the Mazda 3 watching street lights and neon signs pass overhead. The gentle hum of the car's engine seemed distant with the pain being as intense as it was. I stopped writhing for a moment to ponder why closed retail establishments would leave their signs on at two in the morning... I resumed writhing.
We got to the emergency room and I couldn't get out of the car. Stephanie had them come and get me with a wheel chair. The nurse took my blood pressure, temperature, etc, and asked me what my pain was on a scale of one to ten (you know the scale, with the smiley faces). I said in between groans, "it's easily a twenty."
Soon after, I was laying down in a hospital bed. By now, I had had the pain for almost three hours and it wasn't getting better. I was, however, getting used to having it -- so, I started cracking jokes. I asked the nurse if she had properly labeled my urine sample so that it would not be confused for a cup of apple juice. I also apologised profusely for being in such a lousy mood at such an ungodly hour.
The doctor introduced himself and pushed on my abdomen. He said that it is probably a kidney stone, but to have a cat scan to be sure.
First, however, the nurse hooked up my IV and put three medications in it. Morphine. Fenergen, which settles your stomach when you take Morphine and makes you incredibly sleepy. And Benedryl, which was added after a slight allergic reaction to the Morphine occurred (my veins turned bright red and swelled). Of course, Benedryl makes you incredibly sleepy.
I asked Stephanie to take a picture with her cell phone to remember the whole experience by. She refused knowing that I would post it on my blog. I demanded arguing that readers of the blog would want a visual. She looked in her purse and realized that she left the phone on the kitchen counter. So, sorry -- no picture.
The tech came and helped me into a wheel chair and took me to the MRI machine. I laid down on the cold table and was covered in a warm blanket. Stephanie got to watch the scans in the other room. She said she could see a little white dot that the tech said is probably a kidney stone.
The doctor confirmed it and the nurse came back with prescriptions for pain and nausea and explained which ones I had to take when. Then I asked her to explain it again because at that point I was in a drug induced stupor and the only thing that really made sense to me was the flying pink elephant.
We got back home after 5am and I fell quickly to sleep. I slept until 1 in the afternoon and it was a wonderful sleep.
I haven't had any kidney stone pain since then -- I'll know it when I do. Apparently, it can take weeks for these things to pass through the system and the pain will come and go.
I do have this nasty sinus problem that is most likely an infection. I'll find out tomorrow when I go to the doctor.
I called my friends and told them that there is no artificial dye in Capri Suns. Stephanie checked.
-------
In the meantime, I am not sure if I'll get around to working on the next Inside the Open Mic video today or not. I interviewed David Fey who plays dark, yet poppy, folk rock songs and we killed a very creepy looking bug, which I kept and have not yet had the time to identify.
It's Sunday and it's partly between morning and noon. I am insanely congested and I have that distant, balloon-head/Sudafed feeling. I have no idea where this (probably, but not yet diagnosed) sinus infection came from. I began to notice it yesterday when I woke up at 1 in the afternoon after sleeping off the morphine that I was given during my three hour visit to the emergency room.
Allow me to further explain: Last Sunday, when we were coming home from the trip to Connecticut, I began to suffer a slightly intense pain in my lower abdomen area. When we stopped off at a gas station, I tried to go twoseys (thinking the pain was from my stomach; gas, maybe?) but nothing happened and the pain grew from slightly intense to incredibly intense. I writhed in pain, doubled over in the back seat for half an hour before I was put in the front seat, where I would have more leg room, and given some Tylenol. After another 30 minutes or so, the pain subsided and after another 30 minutes or so, I had completely forgotten that an hour previous I had wished that I was dead.
The week went by and I didn't have any more pain. Until, Friday night. I went out to eat with my friends before being invited to a late night gathering at one of my friend's friend's house. I peed before we left and noted that the color of my pee had a red tint to it. I deliberated over this for a moment when my friends started yelling at me for taking too long. I said, "my pee looks red." To which my friends replied, "did you drink anything today?" I pointed at the box of cherry flavored Capri Suns on the top of refrigerator. My friends laughed and said, "Do you know how much dye is in those things?" I didn't. But, it did make sense: cherries are red; cherry flavored dye is most likely red; stuff that you drink comes out in your pee; if you drink cherry flavored dye and pee, it certainly could have a red tint to it.
I went to the gathering and stayed for an hour. I wasn't feeling too well, so I left. I came home. Changed. Went to bed.
I woke up at 11:50 (my clock said midnight on the dot, which means that it is actually 11:50 due to my setting the clock to be ten minutes fast) and I was in slightly intense pain. I remembered what I felt like the Sunday before and how it took about an hour for the pain to go away after taking Tylenol. I went downstairs to the bathroom, took pain medication, and laid on the floor. I writhed in pain for about an hour. Nothing changed except that the pain grew more intense. I took another dose of pain medication and resumed writhing in pain on the floor. After another hour of this and no sign of feeling better, I woke Stephanie up.
Within ten minutes I was laying back in the front seat of the Mazda 3 watching street lights and neon signs pass overhead. The gentle hum of the car's engine seemed distant with the pain being as intense as it was. I stopped writhing for a moment to ponder why closed retail establishments would leave their signs on at two in the morning... I resumed writhing.
We got to the emergency room and I couldn't get out of the car. Stephanie had them come and get me with a wheel chair. The nurse took my blood pressure, temperature, etc, and asked me what my pain was on a scale of one to ten (you know the scale, with the smiley faces). I said in between groans, "it's easily a twenty."
Soon after, I was laying down in a hospital bed. By now, I had had the pain for almost three hours and it wasn't getting better. I was, however, getting used to having it -- so, I started cracking jokes. I asked the nurse if she had properly labeled my urine sample so that it would not be confused for a cup of apple juice. I also apologised profusely for being in such a lousy mood at such an ungodly hour.
The doctor introduced himself and pushed on my abdomen. He said that it is probably a kidney stone, but to have a cat scan to be sure.
First, however, the nurse hooked up my IV and put three medications in it. Morphine. Fenergen, which settles your stomach when you take Morphine and makes you incredibly sleepy. And Benedryl, which was added after a slight allergic reaction to the Morphine occurred (my veins turned bright red and swelled). Of course, Benedryl makes you incredibly sleepy.
I asked Stephanie to take a picture with her cell phone to remember the whole experience by. She refused knowing that I would post it on my blog. I demanded arguing that readers of the blog would want a visual. She looked in her purse and realized that she left the phone on the kitchen counter. So, sorry -- no picture.
The tech came and helped me into a wheel chair and took me to the MRI machine. I laid down on the cold table and was covered in a warm blanket. Stephanie got to watch the scans in the other room. She said she could see a little white dot that the tech said is probably a kidney stone.
The doctor confirmed it and the nurse came back with prescriptions for pain and nausea and explained which ones I had to take when. Then I asked her to explain it again because at that point I was in a drug induced stupor and the only thing that really made sense to me was the flying pink elephant.
We got back home after 5am and I fell quickly to sleep. I slept until 1 in the afternoon and it was a wonderful sleep.
I haven't had any kidney stone pain since then -- I'll know it when I do. Apparently, it can take weeks for these things to pass through the system and the pain will come and go.
I do have this nasty sinus problem that is most likely an infection. I'll find out tomorrow when I go to the doctor.
I called my friends and told them that there is no artificial dye in Capri Suns. Stephanie checked.
-------
In the meantime, I am not sure if I'll get around to working on the next Inside the Open Mic video today or not. I interviewed David Fey who plays dark, yet poppy, folk rock songs and we killed a very creepy looking bug, which I kept and have not yet had the time to identify.