A Life SO Ordinary

Thursday, Jul. 07, 2005

Now onto the stranger of the happenings. For awhile I have had these weird stomach pains. It wasn't really indigestion or heartburn, but my dr. thought it was acid reflux or something like that. I ended up going to the ER on Thursday night (great way to end a car buying experience, lemme tell ya) and they found nothing wrong with me, but told me to get an ultra sound to check for gall stones (not kidney stones, which can be passed through your urine).

Turns out that I have them; who would have thought?! Well I went to talk to my dr. so he could explain to me what would happen/what the next step would be (sense no one in the hospital thought to do that). He basically told me that this was like an infection (one i have had for a LONG time) and usually they hospitalize people with this condition and feed the clear liquids and IVs. Since I'm so young (which, apparently is another reason why its so weird for me to have these things, as everyone has been telling me) they decide to keep me as an outpatient and pump me full of antibiotics until I can talk with a surgeon on Tuesday (a whole 4 days from then because everyone has gone home early for the Fourth of July).

I get set up with Dr. Surgeon late Tuesday afternoon and he tells me basically what needs to happen and he can perform the surgery as soon as this week. His receptionist gets me in the NEXT morning. Nothing like diving in, eh? I arrive at the hospital at 5:45 in the morning in order to go through all the Pre-op stuff.

I finally get into my short stay room where they take samples and go through, in more detail, what is gonna happen. I find out that while I'm completely under they'll have to intubate me so I can still breathe, and this will make my throat sore (i sound like a frog and have a cough because of it) AND that they will inflate my stomach with gas in order to make things easier, which is supposed to make the top and back of my shoulders uncomfortable for at least a day. Lots of fun, but I'm still going through with it because, guys, the pain is bad. It's SO annoying and painful. So right before they put me under, for good, they give me a sedative which is supposed to "calm" me; all it does is knock me out once I get in the area where they prep me for the surgery. I remember them putting me on another bed, I think, and putting those sticky monitor things on me. I have dreams about Drs. and such, and then I'm awake in the recovery area.

Everything is kinda foggy as they let me wake up on my own. They start to ask me questions about pain and my stomach area does hurt, but it was my NECK that really hurt. I mean the kinda pain you feel if you've gotten whip lash from a mildly severe car accident. This kinda puzzles the recovery nurse, she was in the surgery with me and "watched" over me directly after the surgery (by watched I mean she talked with others and listened to see if I flat lined or anything, lol), so she calls the "knock out" dr. (I don't feel like trying to figure out how to spell the real name for him) to see if they had to man handle my head during the surgery to make something work. They didn't, so she and the Dr. were a little puzzled. Anyway I started crying at some point and told the nurse I was sorry because I was a little discombobulated (I seriously said that... Mel laughed when I told her because she thought it was funny that the first thing out of my fuzzy head was that) and it seemed a little surreal. It really did. I cried before when i was put all the way under when I had my wisdom teeth out. I guess I don't like feeling that way.

Nothing really remarkable happened after that. I got put back into the short stay room where my dad and Mel arrived shortly to keep me company until I could go home. Which was when I could pee. Funny, huh?

Well, the end. True story.

This Past Week.... stopped here at 10:45 pm

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