Health, who the hell can ever predict when it’s gonna laugh in your face and put you in the hospital? Well, I had the pleasure this week, when some strong abdominal pain placed me in the emergency waiting room. As I looked around I realized it was fairly empty ensuring that I should see a doctor within the next eight hours or so. Beside me, C sits reassuring me that everything’s going to be okay, and to prove this point she takes an old issue of Cosmopolitan and starts quizzing me to find out if I really am a sex goddess.
“You want to leave the party so you and your MAN can get it on. How do you make your point clear? Do you A) tell him to guess if you’re wearing panties or not, and if he’s ready to find out? B) Hug him really tight and hope he gets the message, or C) straddle his legs and tell him he better get ready for the best ride of his life?”
She looks at me, awaiting my prompt answer. I notice two older gentlemen listening to our conversation looking slightly scandalized by our current topic. I smile before I look back at her.
“Oh boy, this is such a tough choice. Well, obviously C is an excellent option, yet I love the mystery of A. Hmm... I think I’ll lock in A as my final answer...”
The two old men look shocked as I imagine they’re picturing their own granddaughters having this conversation. Oh my, the youth of today. I don’t really feel we’re so different, except now everyone wants to talk about it. I recently read Look Me in the Eyes by John Elder Robison. Mr. Robison wrote a chapter for the new paperback version where he explains that he ‘cleaned up the book’ because he never intended it for tweens and teenagers. Yet they were reading it, so he decided to alter certain passages, not because he thought they weren’t swearing, but because he wanted every kid he met to have a better life than him, to in a way, be better. This made complete sense to me. My father has done questionable things in his life, and he certainly swears, yet he rips me a new asshole when I try these things. My father has never been one to express his emotions, and I’ve never heard him say he loves me. How do I know? Well, he cares when I swear.
My pain is overtaking my ability to think clearly. I feel as if someone is kicking my back with steel toe boots and my stomach is on fire. The nausea is about to win the battle we’ve been engaged in for the last five hours. I make my way over to the bathroom, quickly ripping the elastic off my wrist, throwing my hair back in a rush. The bursts of pain are keeping time with my heart, creating a painful harmony. My whole body shakes from the strength of my stomach evacuating it’s contents.
I walk back out to the waiting room in time to hear my name being called. Grabbing my books, I slowly make my way down the hall to the intake area. The nurse takes me into a room and begins to ask me the first round of questions I will be continually be asked throughout my stay.
“Are you pregnant?”
“No.”
“Are you sure you’re not pregnant? There isn’t ANY possible chance you could be pregnant? When was you’re last period?”
“Now.”
“Is it a normal period, flow and such?”
“Yes, I think so...”
I can tell you that it is incredibly annoying to be a female when entering the emergency room, because it seems that the first thought is that every women is pregnant. The next is that she’s a dirty liar. The worst part about getting excessively asked if you’re pregnant is that you start thinking about those programs where the women don’t know they’re pregnant. You start freaking out that YOU could be one of those women. The fear sets in, because now not only am I in pain, but I’m scared shitless that some little invader is taking over my womb and stealing my nutrients. After my initial examination I returned to C sitting in the waiting room and I inform her about my fears.
“What if I’m pregnant?”
“Leigh don’t be stupid, you’re not pregnant.”
“What if I am? What if I’m one of those women who never knows it? Oh my god C scrape it out! SCRAPE IT OUT!”
C laughs at my antics and like any good friend she can tell that I’m slightly concerned. So of course she begins to play on these unfounded fears. I don’t know what I’d do without friends like this, because if you can’t laugh about it, what the fuck can you do?
I have heart problems in my family, my grandfather died when he was fifty-four years old from a heart attack, so they decide to order blood work, trace my heart and get a urine sample. At the mention of blood work I started to rethink this whole ‘getting relief for pain’ thing. I hate needles. It might go back to the time when my grandpa froze my ears by shoving a needle up them before piercing them. It may be attributed to my brother tackling me to the floor, keeping my eyes peeled open to watch the scene from Pulp Fiction where Uma Thurman gets stabbed in the heart with adrenaline, all the while pinching me and laughing manically. Even now, writing about these special memories brings tears of joy to my eyes, but the point I’m trying to make is that I hate needles.
“Sorry did you say blood work?”
“Yes, we’re going to need to get it so by the time the doctor sees you, the results will be back from the lab.”
“Um ya know what... I think I’m feeling bet-AHHH-ter.”
“You’re getting the blood work”
I can see her exasperated face. I close my eyes as she wraps the elastic band around my arm and exclaims that I have great big veins and that I shouldn’t worry. As she pokes the needle into my arm I wiggle my toes and think about the sketch I’d been apart of, yet never performed. The main idea of it was that a family did heroin together on Christmas. It was a humorous sketch but it became more so for me right now as I remembered the slightly nauseous feeling I got when pretending to put the fake needle into my arm. Heroin, I hate to say it, but I have a feeling we’re never going to be great friends.
After the rest of the tests I return to the waiting room and read as the clock slowly continues on. Tik Tok Ke$ha, tic fucking tok. C is starting to fall asleep beside me and I tell her to go home and get some sleep because she has work in the morning. She insists she’s fine for a while, but finally she submits and tells me to call her if I need her. As I sit here alone I start to wonder if I might be sick. I mean really sick. What will I tell my family? What does this mean for me? I’m twenty-one, for god sake I haven’t even begun to live yet, can it really to come to an early end?
Finally they call my name and I return to the intake area with my fears sitting firmly at the edge of my consciousness. The doctor is ready to see me and asks me the same array of questions from earlier in the evening. He examines my abdominal and pushes on my right side just under my rib cage. I scream.
“Hmm... do you drink a lot Leigh?”
“Umm, I wouldn’t say a lot, but I’ve been known to have a beverage from time to time...”
“Well, excessive drinking can cause the pancreas to become inflamed and that might be causing the pain. I’m just going to check your blood work.”
Shit. I went out last Friday and got blackout drunk. To be honest, I’ve instated a don’t ask don’t tell policy concerning that night. Not because of anything serious, but I’ve always felt sometimes it’s better just not to know. Damn-it I bet they can see that from my tests, I must look like the biggest alcoholic. Whatever I’m twenty-one, shit happens. Hopefully.
He comes back and does a quick ultrasound and tells me I’ll need to come back in the morning for an extensive abdominal ultrasound. Until then he was going to prescribe me some Percacet which is like Tylenol with Morphine. Finally the good drugs! The nurse tells me that I’m scheduled to come back at 7:45AM and that I can expect to be here for a while. She gives me papers to take with me the next day, and on it I see a question. Possibly Binary Colic, whatever the fuck that means.
I get home and crawl into my bed after taking the drugs. I huddle into a ball with the covers pulled over my head. I’m being young and sentimental right now but I’m cuddling the shit out of my childhood blanket. It makes me feel better. I clench my teeth as I feel the high from the drugs begin to hit my brain and I set my alarm...
I wake up to the incessant beeping coming from my phone.
“7:00AM you’ve got to be shitting me. Ahh fuck.”
I get out of bed and collect the three books I’ve decided to take with me. I read pretty fast and I know I’m going to be there for a while. Paul Auster, let’s do some detective work. Maybe by lunch I’ll get into Naked Lunch. If there’s a silver lining in this situation it’s that I have an excuse to do nothing but read today.
I get to the hospital and check in at the front desk. It’s early and no one is waiting so I go right in. They lead me into a changing area were I’m so lucky to be given my very own backless gown. After slipping the worn fabric onto my shivering skin, I make my way into the other room.
The technician begins my exam. I turn my head to see the screen and as she goes over my pelvic region I release a sigh of relief at the blankness staring back at me. See, I feel like saying, I’m not pregnant! I keep this victory to myself and wait for this sticky examination to end. She gets the radiologist to come and look at her findings.
“So Leigh, I see you’ve been having some abdominal pain.”
“You betcha”
“Well have you been experiencing any nausea?”
“Absolutely, I mean what would abdominal pain be without a little nausea?”
He laughs at my tacky joke and pauses as he seems to have found something.
“Ahh if that’s air it should go away in a second. If not, we’ve found it. Hmmm yep there it is.”
He begins to wipe my stomach with a towel.
“Well Leigh, the good news is we know what you have, the bad news is that you have a gallstone.”
He waves goodbye to me and the technician gives me another towel and tells me I’ll need it, because this gel gets everywhere especially places you don’t anticipate. I want so badly to make the joke that sits on the silver platter before me. Instead I settle for mentally putting it in the back of my mind so I can share it with L and R later. They’ll appreciate the childish tone of these jokes.
After I change, I get sent back to emergency to see another doctor. By the time I get to there he’s reviewed my chart, and tells me that I’m looking at surgery. SURGERY, as in someone’s cutting me open and TAKING AN ORGAN OUT OF MY BODY. This cannot be happening to me. I mean I know it’s a storage facility for the bile my liver produces to digest fat but frankly, I assume it’s there for a reason! Surgery, I hate needles yet I’m supposed to let someone cut into me? This cannot be happening.
I get placed in the original intake room I was in the prior night, awaiting my consolation with the surgeons. I start to rationalize what I’ve been told, I can’t imagine I’ll need surgery. They probably just told me that as a worst case scenario. This line of thought comforts me. I call my Dad and he confirms my logic is solid. Can’t we laser this bitch out?
The resident surgeons come and examine me. They ask me the standard questions that every other person in this hospital has asked me. Why do they even make those charts?
“So you’re definitely going to need surgery. You have a couple options, this is serve enough that we can admit you now and hopefully get you in with the next five days. Your other option is to post pone it, and set the date for your surgery. The only risk with the second option is that you could possibly get another attack waiting for your surgery.”
“What would you recommend”
“Well, we happen to have a crazy wait list for surgeries right now. There’s about five or six ahead of you for the surgery and you’d be stuck here for five days.”
“Ok, so what are the complications of removing my gallbladder, doesn’t it release bile and help digest fat, while regulating my pH levels in my small intestine? Isn’t it kind of important that I have that?”
“Are you a Bio major”
“No, I just remember High School Biology.”
“Well that’s true but it’s really a storage for the bile your liver makes, in a couple weeks your liver will adjust to it no longer being there. It’s a very common procedure, we make four incisions, cut it out and pull it out through the incision in your belly button.”
“Hmm ok... well... ok”
“We’ll give you some time to think about your options”
I’m surprised how calm I am. It doesn’t feel real, that must be why. I feel as if I’ve taken a step back from my body and I’m watching myself in a movie. I mean I know this is common. I understand it’s an easy surgery. What I don’t like is the whole cutting me open and pulling an organ out of my body. I like my bile storage facility otherwise known as my gallbladder. Maybe if I post pone it I’ll be able to research some options to save it.
So that’s what I ended up doing. I’m currently booked to meet with a surgeon to talk about my surgery. At this point, I’ve researched a procedure call Lithotripter which is a procedure that sends acoustic pulses to break up the gallstone. It’s ideal for me because I have a single gallstone that is less than 2cm . Fingers crossed!
