2 Nights in the Hospital
Ok, so the scoop for those of you who have questions about my hospital visit...
I did indeed go to the hospital on Wednesday night. I'd been kind of sick (again!) since Sunday, but thought that was mostly gone as of Tuesday. So when I woke up with an upset stomach on Wed, I just figured it was something I'd eaten.
So I went to work and classes and somehow just kept feeling worse. But I somehow still thought it was just a reaction to some good old American food I'm not used to. But when I got a fever during my afternoon class, and could barely drag myself home, I started to think it was something different and I wouldn't be making my evening class.
Now one of the things that I'm coming to appreciate about my family is the amount of medical expertise contained therein. I mean, I remember my mum diagnosing just about anything we kids could get from her big old trusty medical book. or dictionary. or something...And now, of course, I've got a sister who is a nurse; a sister who is studying to be a nurse; and a brother who wants to be a doctor. I guess Ayme and I are all set. :) So I called my dear sister-who-is-a-nurse, because while i'm not overly fond of medical personel, i'm awfully fond of her. And she told me I needed to talk to the doctors or nurses here.
Now that took a long time, because it was around 6 (health centre closing time), and it involved lots of phonecalls and the info-centre and no-good numbers, but success in the end and my doctor here is awsome.
And what else but that by around 8:30 or 9, my fever was up to like 102-point-something and heading to the ER about an hour away for concern for appendicitis or some gall bladder infection or something.
I figured that for sure I'd be out in a few hours, right?Yeah. About that. Blood tests, hours of waiting, and a cat scan later the doctor told me and Chaustin (my housemate, who also took me to the ER, fyi) that they were going to keep me over night. I've been to the hospital before, lots of times. But I never spent the night in one before, and it really is an awfuly lonely kind of experience. On the other hand, there were lots of amusing differences to note about the hospitals I've been to before. And I had an interesting room-mate in the bed a curtain over, and some of the nurses had really cool stories (like, one was a UN peacekeeper in Haiti in '94!)
I'm pretty sure I didn't actually get admitted to the hospital ward from the ER until between 4 and 5am, but by that time they had me well drugged up and long since on an IV, so who knows? And then somehow the nurses on the floor didn't actually know that I was there til about an hour later, when they woke me up from my drugged sleep to do a ton of paperwork.
Well, when I finally woke again later, I figured it wouldn't be long before I was out... but no. I had to have another blood test, and now I was not allowed any medicine and also not allowed food or anything to drink until the latest bloodwork results came back. I never really got to talk with the doctor himself that day, but I did find out that basically, I got a bad virus and got it badly, and that my appendix was twisted and inflamed either as a result of, or as well as it. And eventually the word came out that they were keeping me one more night. Which considering that I wasn't able to eat or anything was probably good. But yeah.
To make a short story shorter, I stayed another night and my blood counts got better and they finally decided nothing was going to explode and I was aloud to eat clear liquids (i.e., chicken broth and ginger ale), then full liquids (i.e., tomato soup and tapioca pudding and ginger ale), and yeah. And finally they made me eat a horrible full meal (of FRIED fish and heavy potatos and cheese cake and squash of all things!!!) before I left, releasing me only if I didn't get sick on that food. I didn't eat much, kept down what I did, signed the papers, and got out of there thanks to Chaustin picking me back up.
And so I'm back home, not quite well yet, but quite, quite happy to be back. The end.
posted by Lada @ 8:13 PM
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