ER Trips and Holiday Weekends...

So, I guess I know how to start off a holiday weekend with a bang--if you call 'excitement' a ride in an ambulance to the ER right before Memorial Day weekend. I was just glad to go before the weekend kicked into high gear so that I didn't have to compete with the large weekend crowd of people at the ER with bug bites, broken bones and alcohol intoxication.

By now many of you have already heard the full scoop, some have seen the 'partial scoop' on Facebook, and some of you have asked but I haven't filled you in yet.  At this point I'm getting over my vanity and posting what happened.

This post is long and yes, it does share a lot of the gory details. So if you're not up for that feel free to hit the delete button! This is for the folks who were asking for the full scoop! I've put the 'bigger details' in bold or larger font so you can just skip to those!

I woke up at 10 AM Thursday morning before Memorial Day weekend with stomach pain. I raised the head of my bed (it's adjustable bed) hoping that it might just be a little acid and would resolve.

It did not.  I ended up shortly thereafter with excruciating pain (both upper and lower GI pain), severe nausea, and some not-so-tasty burps. 

I have had similar attacks in the past.  They mimic the gallbladder attacks I had before I had it removed. Usually, the attacks I have had since the removal of my gallbladder resolve after a few hours and I am able to wait them out. The attacks are excruciating and draining, but they do eventually resolve.

On Thursday I tried, to no avail, everything in my arsenal of medications I could think of to abort the attack--Librax, Zofran, Zantac, etc. etc.! 

Mom had to go to work. I was too weak to be able to get fluids for myself or move around, so Dad stayed with me for the afternoon.  I also knew that if I started tossing my cookies, I'd be too weak to be alone. He and Asher took very good care of me.

By 7:30 Thursday evening I hadn't gotten any relief.  I called the on-call doctor--who in the past has been not at all helpful--and he was incredibly helpful. He suggested going to the ER, but also confirmed that I was using medications that were okay to use, the I could try to wait it out until the morning and call immediately at 7:45 AM for an appointment.  I suspected, and he confirmed, that the attacks I have had since my gallbladder surgery might be caused by a complication known as sphincter of oddi dysfunction.

At this point, I thought that I was keeping myself hydrated enough, so I stayed home. I finally tossed my cookies and thought maybe I'd be able to get some sleep. Ha! Dad stayed the entire night with me so Mom could get some sleep. Dad did not get much sleep, that is for sure! 

By the next morning I had only slept about three hours total in a 22 hour period.  Dad left to take Asher to the groomer (thank goodness because Asher would have freaked if he had been here when the ambulance arrived!). 

I wasn't sure how we were going to get to the doctor, but we were going to try. Then, I started throwing up bile and was so weak and exhausted. My poor mom and all of the throw up she has had to deal with in my lifetime! I always pick her 'shifts' to during which to throw up! Dad missed it all (which is a good thing!).

By this point, I knew we were headed to the ER.  Mom said: "Are we calling the ambulance?" as she stood there trying not to toss her own cookies. 

This was not my first ambulance ride.  

At this point, I'm at peace with calling the ambulance when something like this happens.  The EMTs, paramedics and police officers are always amazing.  They always reassure me that I have made the right decision, that this is their job, and this is what they are here for. 

The policeman was here in less than two minutes! We asked how he got here so fast. Turns out he was at the entrance to our neighborhood when the call came through!

Honestly, I think I looked so green by the time they arrived they knew I needed to be transported.  

I know now that as hard as it is to call the ambulance, it's the best way to get the care I need. I get too weak to be trying to sit up in the ER and wait for a bed. The hardest part is all the alarm I cause the neighbors! Alexandra's dad, Scott, was over here within a few minutes asking if we were okay and if there was anything he could do. He even brought my mom lunch in the ER. And Jeannine works at the hospital, so she popped right on over to check in--although they were giving me the morphine and I wasn't too with it! 

I really hate to have to go to the ER. It's an absolute last resort for me. Unfortunately, sometimes I wait a bit too long to make the decision to go!  7:45 in the morning is a perfect time to go though! It's not busy at all! 

I wasn't overly thrilled with the ER care--the doctor was pretty dippy, but the nurses were fantastic. I hate how they always tell me I have a virus! Really...this has happened multiple times. Same symptoms exactly. It has to be something else!

I got hooked up to warm fluids and then received morphine and Zofran intravenously. I don't think I will ever get morphine again...yuck! It made me feel awful.  It didn't stop the pain. The ER doctor insisted that I eat a popsicle, which I then promptly threw back up. Ugh.

Next we tried a 'GI cocktail' of Lidocaine, Donnetal, and Maalox.  Okay, that is some seriously nasty stuff to drink. I had no idea you could drink Lidocaine. But it worked! Immediately. I also got a hefty dose of phenegran in my IV and I was out of it after that. 

I think I was so exhausted from the pain and so many hours awake that the combination of so many meds and the pain relief made me just konk out.

I had also waited too long to get to the ER because my sodium levels were very low and my potassium levels were also low.  What concerns me is that I had worked very hard to stay hydrated and had really not thrown up that much, so it is strange that my electrolytes got so out of balance. This has happened to me in the past.  But it's pretty hard to go to the ER and say: "Hey, I've only thrown up once but I think my electrolytes are off!" 

We got home around 1:00 on Friday and I slept all afternoon.  

My cousin Dana was scheduled to arrive Saturday at lunch time for a visit.  We postponed it until Sunday, but unfortunately I was feeling really, really crappy and cranky the entire time she was here. 

On Tuesday after Memorial Day I was extremely fortunate to get in for an appointment with my PCP.  In the past, when I have had these attacks I have bounced back pretty quickly.  This time I did not.  I was exhausted, weak, dizzy, nauseaous, and had NO appetite.  

My PCP is not so great with the chronic illness issues.  This is the first time I have seen her for a more acute problem and she was great.  

She feels that I do not have sphincter of oddi dysfunction, which is in fact, a very good thing because the only way it can be 'fixed' is through a surgical procedure that carries a lot of risk.

Her feeling is that I have gastritis. All I could think was something called gastritis could make me this sick? Likely, I have a lot of acid in my stomach from all of the antibiotic use and also because I am not able to sit up long enough after meals.  Gastritis is an inflammation, irritation, or erosion of the stomach lining. I seriously wonder what my poor stomach looks like on the inside! I was really trying to avoid an endoscopy, but I am not sure that is going to be possible at this point.

I already take Prilosec every day.  My PCP added in something called Carafate, which Itake one hour before meals and at bedtime, to coat the stomach.  I've been on a bland diet (which is fine, because I have very little appetite or taste for anything. I'm saving my mom a bundle on food this month!). I also took Zofran for most of the week for the nausea.

I had to skip my Bicillin shot, and will likely still have to get a lower dose tomorrow.

It wasn't until this past Saturday when Rebekah was here that I finally started to feel better.  Sunday was the first day I woke up feeling any sense of hunger. Thankfully, I have Mom's Jewish penicillin to sustain me!

I'm still not feeling back to baseline in terms of energy or appetite, but it's certainly improved since the ER trip.

At the end of this month I have an appointment with a GI doctor, so I am hoping that he can help to put the pieces together as well as come up with some solutions. Until then, I just want to stay 'attack free'. I am not sure I'm convinced one way or the other if it is gastritis, sphincter of oddi dysfunction, or something else.

I feel like all I've done is sleep and rest even more than I usually have to for two weeks straight. This latest health issue got me really frustrated and down.  I feel like I try so hard to stay on top of things, to prevent any new problems from coming up, and to manage my health as best I can.  It's so frustrating to me how chronic conditions can snowball into other conditions. I feel like all I do right now is go to doctor's appointments.  

I'm not ready to start over tomorrow with a bicillin shot.  Grrrrrrrrr!!!!!

So, have I lost all of my vanity at this point? Yikes! I've told the gory details so many times to folks, that I decided to just write what happened. Maybe it will help me process what happened and move on a bit too.  I always find ER trips a bit traumatic, even if they go as smoothly as they possibly can go. 

Thanks so much for all of your love and support through email and Facebook and for your great senses of humor--I woke up on Saturday afternoon to some very funny responses on my Facebook page.  Special thanks to Scott for helping out and to the rest of our lovely neighbors for their care and concern.

And, of course, I'm completely indebted to my parents who had to deal with all of the really gross stuff and who lost a LOT of sleep!

Blessings,

Emily