Lauren from Texas

I have been avoiding writing this post for 3 reasons. One, because I absolutely hate disappointments. Yes, I know life is full of them, but that doesn’t make them any easier to take when they come along. Two, because I don’t want to believe that the glorious 3-day holiday weekend that I planned is over, and did not go according to plan. I’m sorry, but when you work 40+ hours every week, AND have a home to take care of, AND have responsibilities on top of that, things like 3-day weekends are luxuries to be savored. (Yes, I’m whining.) And three, because I am scared to relive the awful experience that was my Saturday.

You know when you were little and your mom told you, “Life doesn’t always turn out like you plan,” or something to that equivalent? Well, this weekend was a huge, neon sign blaring that ALL OVER THE PLACE.

Friday evening went well enough. I got off work early, made delightful key lime bars, and had a delicious hamburger supper at a local place with Michael’s brother, his wife, and their 7-month-old baby boy. Then we left to meet my parents at the Bluegrass Festival. Michael and I laughed the whole way there, listened to Michael Jackson, and made a pit stop at Dairy Queen (a road trip necessity for us). We arrived, walked around the campsite, listened to a little bluegrass, and went to sleep. No awkward family moments, just munching on snacks and getting ready for bed. (Sorry guys.)

The next morning, I woke up at around 6am with stomach pains. I blamed it on the strange bed and all the junk food I had eaten the day before, and tried to go back to sleep. But when I woke up at 6:50, the pain hadn’t gone away. It had gotten worse. I began to complain to Michael. We thought maybe I just needed to get up, go for a walk, take a trip to the bathroom. Still nothing. We did, however, see this guy from our camper.

Yes, he is shirtless. Yes, he is large. Yes, he is peeing.

Things continued to go downhill from there.

I walked some more. Ate a banana. Drank some coffee. Threw both up promptly. By now, I was in a lot of pain. And I threw up a few more times. We sent Michael to the store for some drugs. I had no idea what could have made me feel so awful – it felt like my stomach was full of knives. He came back with some Pepto tablets. Took a few – threw them up. By now, I had been having intense stomach pains for several hours. Everything in town was closed, including the emergency medical facility (riddle me that one). By about 10:30, I had decided we should head home, or at least head in the direction of a place that could help me. We had called my doctor (who is also a family friend), and he had told us to look for a specific medicine. Michael went to not less than 5 places looking for this medicine, and every place either didn’t carry it, or was out of it. I was doubled over in pain, and had thrown up at least 10 times. As we were driving to find a Wal-Mart (still in search of the medicine), we saw an emergency room, and Michael pulled over. We walked in, Michael explained to the lady behind the counter what was happening, and she told us to take a seat and wait.

Now, let me paint this picture for you.

I am wearing the clothes I slept in: an old, huge, gray T-shirt of Michael’s, SHORT SHORT purple shorts (that I would never be caught dead in under any other circumstances), and flip-flops. No makeup, hadn’t even brushed my teeth or my hair, or washed my face. I was a HOT MESS. Oh, and I threw up as soon as I got there (luckily I made it to the toilet for that one).

After what felt like HOURS (but was actually probably only 30 minutes), they called me back to Triage. Here’s what I don’t understand: I am moaning, saying I have been in intense pain for five hours, basically crying and gagging at the same time, and this woman is asking me things like my address and my social security number. I probably gave her the identity of an eighty-year-old man living in Queens; I really don’t know. After all that, I had to wait again, then was ushered into a hallway, handed a gown and a plastic bag, and pointed towards a bathroom.

When I got into the bathroom, I stripped off all my clothes, and put on the gown. Please keep in mind that the last time I was a patient in a hospital was when I was BORN, 23-1/2 years ago, and back then, public nakedness was not really a huge concern of mine. Did you know that those gowns DON’T HAVE BACKS? Meaning that all that Shredding I’ve been doing was about to pay off for people other than my husband. Kidding! But when you are a 7 or 8 on the pain scale that goes up to 10 (but what do I know? I’ve never given birth or whatever), you really don’t care if your butt cheeks are hanging out in an ER located miles away from where you live. You’ll never see these people again. Unless, of course, in your drug-induced coma you mumble the URL of your blog and they stalk you for years to come. But who worries about those things when you are A 7 OR 8 ON THE PAIN SCALE?

So here I am, hanging out on a hospital bed in the middle of a hallway, half-naked. Still in pain. I had handed Michael the belongings I had carried in with me, which consisted of a hot pink wallet & my iPhone. He came up to me and informed me that the nurses at the front had given him quite the looks when he had pulled my hot pink wallet out of his pocket to retrieve my insurance card. Yeah, yeah. Sorry honey, your public embarrassment is low on my priority list right now. Looking back, it was probably pretty funny, but not at this point, because I am a 7 or an 8, my butt cheeks are hanging out, I am freezing, and when I start gagging for the twelfth time that day, the nurse hands me a trash can with SOMEONE’S LUNCH REMAINS IN IT. As if THAT is supposed to make me feel better!

I puked again.

The nurse put in an IV, and took some blood, and gave me a pill. The pill melted on my tongue and tasted like strawberry; it was disgusting. Then she wheeled me and my naked butt cheeks into the hospital room, and the whole time I was thinking, “This is NOTHING like Scrubs.”

I puked again.

Then after a hundred million years of me writhing in pain and my husband looking very sorry that he could not help, the doctor came in. OH. Also. My feet were freezing, so I sent Michael out to ask a nurse for some socks. One would think that if you keep a hospital at NEGATIVE TWELVE DEGREES, that socks for deathly ill patients would be pretty easy to acquire. Nope. Michael went out to the car, rummaged through my suitcase, and found a pair of dirty socks I had worn the night before. Also, they had holes in them. You know when your mom tells you to always wear clean underwear in case you’re in an accident? ALWAYS CARRY A PAIR OF NON-HOLEY SOCKS WITH YOU. To hell with the clean underwear, that’s the first thing they make you lose – my naked butt cheeks can attest to that. The socks are the important part. So what I am trying to say is that when the doctor, an elderly man in his sixties, entered the room, my husband was putting a pair of dirty, holey socks on this naked, writhing woman laying on a hospital bed. Naturally he asks, “Who is THIS?”

“That’s my husband,” I whisper hoarsely. He looks at Michael, and then looks at me, like he is not convinced.

He feels around a few areas (Note: I may or may not have been unfaithful to my husband at some point, I’m not sure, I was delusional from pain, sorry honey), and started to leave the room. STARTED TO LEAVE THE ROOM. WHILE I WAS WRITHING IN PAIN. So I said, “Please, sir, I have been in pain for seven hours, is there SOMETHING you can give me?”

So the nurse came in, made me sit up, and stuck a needle the length of my forearm in my naked butt cheek. Oh, it burned. My leg went numb. Then my butt. Then my whole head. I fell asleep.

I woke up a few times. Once, I saw that they were doing an ultrasound. I thought, “Am I pregnant?” Then I fell back asleep.

I kept having dreams about my iPhone. Like I was obsessively checking it for Twitter updates or something. And at one point I slurred to Michael something about “getting some comments.” You see, my dear readers? Even in my moment of distress, I was thinking of y’all! Aww.

I woke up again in pain, and begged Michael to have them give me more pain meds. It’s all fuzzy after that. They gave me morphine and something else. I fell asleep. I remember Michael was super concerned because my naked butt cheeks were on display for the whole world to see. Sorry, world. At least I’ve been Shredding. IMAGINE IF I HADN’T.

AGAIN I woke up in pain, and they gave me MORE morphine. At this point, I was feeling pretty dang good. Maybe I should get sick more often! World! See my butt! Oh, hey Mom & Dad.

I drifted in and out, heard my parents come in, heard Michael talking to the doctor, and finally a woman came in and tried to have a conversation with me about what I could eat, and how to take care of myself. I remember thinking, “Shouldn’t she be telling this to someone who ISN’T heavily medicated?” Then I put my clothes back on, walked to the car (or floated, which is what it felt like), and slept until the next day, and then off-and-on throughout that day. Michael took such good care of me, made me drink lots of Gatorade and take my medicine. And I ate mushy foods only.

Monday was a lot better. I still felt weak, but I was able to eat a little more “real food,” and we went over to my parents for a little while. I was still out of it though. Kind of like a hangover or something. Not that I would know anything about that!

Today I took the day off work to give me a little more time to recoup before returning to the real world. So here I am, still exhausted, and terrified of two things:

1. The doctor said that I either had a bad case of food poisoning, or a reaction to a certain type of food (not an allergy, but an irritation). As an avid food lover, to think that there might be a food that I cannot eat really scares me. Especially if that food is “wheat” or “dairy” or something equally delightful. I guess I will just have to pay close attention to what I eat and how my body responds. Suck.

2. The hospital bill. While I feel a little silly going to the emergency room for stomach pains, in my defense, I was in intense pain for about 7 hours, and I had no idea what was causing it, plus I threw up about 15 times. However, looking back, I wonder if I should have just stuck it out. I am seriously FREAKING OUT over the hospital bill that will certainly arrive in our mailbox eventually. And it will be terrifying, more terrifying than 7 hours of pain, I am sure.

So, there’s the story of my weekend. THANK YOU to everyone who called, emailed, facebooked, tweeted, commented, etc. I know you guys were thinking about me and praying for me, and that means the world to me. I hope everyone else fared much better than I did. I could probably sleep for the next 3 days and be fine with it. Anyway, there’s that. My 3-day weekend is over and cold, hard reality has taken its place.

Someone, please, have pity on me, and send me some leftover BBQ-ed ribs. And a plate of potato salad. You’d be my friend forever.