Here's a spoiler: I passed.
Lets recap. Sunday night was a barrel of monkeys, particularly one monkey crawling around in my junk.
Quick trip to the Resurrection Palace left me drugged up and calmed down and tired as eff. Late to bed,
early to rise, we were all shot that morning, but the good news is I wasn't dying. In fact, I felt pretty okay.
Then, right around 11:30 monday night, it was deja vu all over again. What the hell? What did I do, drink
an egg timer? But this time I was ready: I had my little bottle of friends, V is for victory, for a given value
of victory (hi mr. opiate). At first I thought I'd take it slow and only take one, but as business expanded
I decided it was no time for machismo, and swallowed the second dose of my pride.
I tried waiting it out. I left my poor girl to her much needed sleep; she had gone to work on fumes and
had another such morning ahead of her. I tried to find a comfortable position, even tried to sleep a bit
as the medicine took its time sinking in. For a while, I almost thought it was working, or maybe it was
just the being tired. Whatever the case, it didn't work.
Okay, now what? Couldn't sleep, pain was eating me. It was worse than before, even through the vicodin.
Bad enough that eventually I wasn't swallowing anything; I actually pulled the towel rack off the wall when
the spewing started. I felt really bad about that, but I felt better once I emptied my stomach. At least, I was
nausea free and only in agonizing pain. And by that point it had gone on longer than either of the two big
bouts of the previous night. The whole part where it was supposed to go away while on the way to the ER
seemed to not work if you weren't actually going to the ER. It occurred to me that maybe driving around
in a car somehow vibrated the fucker out of place and back into somewhere less hurty, or something. I was
thinking a lot of things at the time. Most of them were "fuck fuck fuck this hurts fuck fuck ow". Something
to that effect.
So, I hated it, hated myself for doing it, but I went in and woke her up. I felt like a failure, that I had failed
her, but I really didn't know what to do. (I considered how I could possibly drive myself to the hospital, but
even if the pain didn't make me drive into a building, the vicodin in my system would have been real fun to
explain in court. Besides, I don't know how to get there). I woke her up, and tried to make it clear this was
a last resort, and we went.
Driving did nothing. The whole ride over was painapalooza, and I was half out of it trying to hold myself
off my left buttcheek with one hand and commenting at every other intersection, regurgitating little bits I
had overheard about where this street goes or what corner this store is on.
And then we went into the ER, and I signed in, and regurgitated in the bathroom. I actually went in once,
and while trying to talk myself out of the inevitable, got interrupted by a guy who had to pee. Aren't you
special, buddy, just because you *can* pee. I'd been drinking water, but nothing was happening down there.
When he was done, my hold-it-in ran out, and what I dumped in the bowl that time was mostly water. The
dam wasn't gonna break.
I didn't even have time to wipe my chin before I heard them calling my name. I had to choke down to get
through the basic questions, my head was spinning in the opposite direction from my guts, and the whole
I-hate-night-shift joy vacuum who was checking me in had no sympathy for my plight and no appreciation
for my efforts to keep her uniform clean. I had lost track of my dear girl, who had come with me to the
door but wasn't there when I looked around, so I asked Nurse Disaffected if she could come with me. She
was actually sent off to do my registration (after what she went through she can run off with my wallet any
day), and met back up with me shortly after I peed in a cup. It was not a good showing for the home team.
I had a brief visit from my regular nurse, who was annoyed that the triage nurse had already taken my pee
and my blood; it seemed less that she was annoyed about missing the fun and more that she had walked
all the way down the hall for nothing. Also, I was completely unaware of them hooking me up to a saline
bag, and didn't realize it until my girl pointed it out.
The third time I puked, it was after meeting with the Medical Student. She was also real psyched to be here,
oh yeah. It was one of those things where I felt I had to rush to get every detail fitted into her available 12
seconds, but she did take extensive notes. I don't actually know that they were notes, she may have been
writing "I hate pasty white men in gowns" over and over again, but whatever. By the time she had showed
up, the pain had taken a breather and I could actually sit / lie comfortably. Of course, as soon as she was
out the door, it came right back. It came back and didn't let go, and the nausea came with it. I made my
companion and guardian angel step out of the room; apparently I am shy about vomitting the way I'm shy
about peeing. "Don't talk, don't talk! You'll make it crawl back up!". heh. I thought it was going to be dry
heaves after the first two rounds, but the body is resourceful. I don't know what it was or where it found
the stuff, but I'm pretty sure I hadn't swallowed it. There's probably an organ or two that donated to the
puke drive. I filled the little kidney shaped tray, not missing the irony of it all.
When Medical Student Girl had left, she'd said something like "I'm going to go check with my doctor". Like,
she was going to run her notes/goth poetry/etc by the doc and figure out what to do next. At least, that
was the impression I had. I didn't think I was going to be sitting there for over half an hour before seeing
anyone, and by that point I was getting close to seeing Jesus. I made what little effort I could to try and
keep the mood light, because I didn't really want to worry my poor sweet girl too much, but some faces I
was probably making were unavoidable. She went out and asked someone to find my nurse, or anybody,
to tell them I was in pain. Where was the drugfest? That's why I was there. Somebody needed to flick the
off switch. The credits needed to be rolled on my nervous system. Cut!
And then, it was too late. There was this sudden, sharp stabbing pain, like a signal flair shot off the top
of Coit Tower; it came in a flash, and then was gone. And then, for the first time in hours, I had a gentle,
almost refreshing urge to pee. To sweeten the pot, slowly the pain meter started to slide back down into
the green. Or the yellow, if you prefer. I could sit. I could take deep breaths. Suddenly, I was tired.
And I had to pee.
And then the nurse showed up again.
The wanting to pee thing was mentioned, and also the need for mobility if this was going to happen; my
saline bag was hanging on the back of the door, which is one reason I didn't toss directly in the sink or
the garbage previously. I also pointed out to her that I hadn't brought my own strainer, and if she would
be so kind... after ten minutes and two trips I had both the Mr. Walkie dripstand and my strainer. Having
provided this, she told me that the doctor wanted to see me and asked me to hold off on the field trip.
Another ten minutes or so finally brought me a doctor. By this point I was sitting in a chair next to my
girlfriend, having posed for pictures and feeling a whole bunch better although still somewhat out of it.
The doc was a tall handsome black man who had either just recently come on shift after a long nap, or
he was self medicating. He actually looked like he was glad to be there, and aside from my unfortunate
situation was glad I was there too. I nipped the 'sir' thing in the bud real fast. I'm a little foggy, but I
think the nurse was in there at the time as well. It was a full house. Party on.
Sitting there waiting to pee, he covered the stone basics we all knew, told me they were looking for the
results from my previous night's CT Scan, and once they found them they might send me for another to
see what the progress was or if it was stuck somewhere. Oh, and he'd see that I got some drugs in case
the pain came back.
They filed out, and I figured I had better stick around til the meds arrived. Ten minutes later, I got my
venti morphine latte, double the pleasure dosage from the previous night. Shot straight into the saline
line, it hit me all at once. Woo hah. I had to sit for a minute before I could walk.
My wonderful escort went and scouted out where the bathroom was, then came back and got me. She
pushed Mr. Walkie along for me and got me to my destination safely. And that's where it happened. In
the House of the Golden Pee, my enemy fell. Into the strainer, I mean. Game over.
I passed my doctor on the way back; I waved my strainer at him. He gave me a 'good job!'. So perky.
The nurse came back to visit shortly after we returned to the room, went and got me a jar to put it in.
We took pictures of the little fucker, playing with the macro to get the best shot. We heard the nurse
tell the doctor in the hall, heard him reply that he'd seen it. It was like big news; I was a star. At least,
I was best supporting role for the real star. We had fame in a bottle.
Eventually I was dehosed and signed off on the paperwork and we were free to go. It was probably about
3:30am when the Event happened; the clock on the stove blinked 4:44 when we walked into the house.
She crashed a little while later, and I followed soon after, although I had to pee about fifty times first. Oh,
and what fun that is. Every time, my sore and inflamed toobage would flare up during; it required gentle
pacing.
Bruised, battered, drugged, drained, I finally slept.
Current Mood: ravaged but salvaged
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