An EPIC POST. Haha! Boy, Howdy, what a day. I went to the hospital! Wheee!! It was equal parts terrifying and exciting and incredibly boring, all in one delightful 11 hour thrillride.
I was so Sick yesterday- I’d been fighting this nasty throat infection for a few days, but I was thinking I might be able to knock it down with lots or rest and fluids myself, and avoid an unescessary doctor visit. I get kind of scared in Doctor’s offices. And I am all alone in an unfamiliar place and I don’t have insurance anyway, so why go to all the trouble just to have them tell me to go home and sleep and drink fluids. I figured could do that myself, ask around about where to go if I need to, and see if it gets any worse.
Well, it got worse. Yesterday I could not talk coherantly without incredible pain (which was sort of okay since I was home alone all day). What was not okay was tht I could not swallow. Not even my own spit. It hurt SO BAD. I was a drooly weepy mess of slighty feverish panicky pain.
So I got up bright and early and made my way to the ER this morning. Turns out the big Brooklyn hospital is right in my neighborhood. I took a five minute bus ride and I was there. When I got out I even walked home! It was a beautiful sunny day, you see.
I had by some miracle recovered enough of my voice that I didn’t have to communicate by legal pad or mime after all, which made it easier. I was still so wigged out that my pulse rate was up high enough they gave me and EKG to see if I was having heart complications. I wasn’t, of course. EKG was normal. I figured I must have been more scared than I was letting on.
Well, turned out it was a good thing I went to the big hospital, and not the little neighborhood clinic that might have been cheaper but was farther away. Because I did indeed have a more complicated problem than just the tonsilitis. Turns out I had “Peritonsilar abcess”. *Grossness Alert* Apparantly I had a large mass of gunky pus trapped behind my right tonsil. A really big one too. That was what was making it so painful to swallow! My tonsil was so swollen it was pressing up against every other thing back there. And full of pus! EwwEwwEww!
Well, I guess they don’t see this sort of thing in the ER much. At one point I was in a tiny room with (I kid you not) FIVE doctors, most of whom had no reason to be there other than intellectual curiosity. It was totally even better than doctors on TV. And they all wanted to look in my mouth. “Do you mind if I take a look too, miss? I ve never seen one of these..” There were some war stories- “I saw this once before in Staten Island, but it wasn’t as big”.. Older Doctor mentoring and/or mocking the younger ones.. “Man, they just don’t make residents like they used to”, “Yes, you should definately aspirate here, but I do think a referal to ENT is a good idea anyway”. And one underthebreath and poorly timed sexual innuendo regarding the preparation of the ultrasound machine. They had to put a sterile glove on the wand, see, and cover it with a lubricating goo..
It was hilarious. And really scary. I mean, I’m there in a chair in a dark room and a bright light in my face, with five total strangers peering into my mouth, one of whom is weilding a large needle. It’s the sort of thing I don’t like to see at the movies, because I’m afraid it might give me nightmares. I tried to keep my eyes closed, and there’s something pokey in my mouth, and there are all these people in this tiny room and I’m drooling like a drugged up puppy and there’s my blood on all those tools and down my chin and onmychest and in thesuctiontube ohmygodohgodohgod..
But I must have bottled it up pretty good, because they were all like “you’re the most cooperative patient ever! I guess I only made small whimpering noises, and there was one brief moment of “stop, I need to take a few deep breaths before I start to panic, please”. Mostly I was quiet, or giggling at them. Seriously, Scrubs ain’t got nothing on the Kings County ER team. They were awesome.
But after they all left and it was quiet again, I started bawling. Straight up gulpy sobbing into one of those crunchy paper towels they have. It’s a lot for a girl to take in in an afternoon. I mean I was lonely and scared and I’d felt bad all week, but it was starting to get better but there were still some scary things to do.. And it felt so very good to cry. So good.
I was almost finished when one of the doctors came in to get something he’d forgotten. “Did we hurt you?” says he, all serious. “Do you need more pain medication?!”
“No no,” says I. “I just needed to have a cry. It happens sometimes.”
“Okay”, he said. He must have been satisfied with this because I never saw him again. He was one of the doctors who was just along for the ride.
Well, they did pierce the abcess, but for all the excitement they couln’t get it out in the ER, so they sent me upstairs to the Ear Nose and Throat people. I managed to get there before their 4:30 closing time. I think I may have been the last patient they saw before they went home.. The doctor there took ten minutes and an intimidating array of tools (one of which looked suspicously like a tiny exacto knife), and slice scrape suction that bad boy was out. She didn’t even need to see the ultrasound. Wow for specialization.
I think my next life I might want to be a doctor. Last year I wanted to be a lawyer in my next life. Learning things is cool.
I’ll just have to keep collecting extra lives. Is ther a bonus round I can play for that or something? Some sort of secret easter egg in the programming? Even an, ahem, cheat code or two perhaps..
After that I got sent back down for an hour of “observation”, to make sure I didn’t leave before they were sure that I had some fluids in me and that my blood was clotting correctly. And then at last they sent me home.
Hospitals are also very boring. I’d even come prepared, I had a book! And a drawing pad, even.
I finished the book. I spent a lot of hours sitting alone in a room waiting for a doctor, or waiting for an IV to finish so they could take it out. I got pretty good at my cell phone bowling game though. I’m still just as bad at it as I am real bowling, but on the phone I have at least figured out the controls.
Of course, that last hour I was most sick of being in a hospital. I had not only finished my book, but I was bored with phone games and they had an IV in my right arm so I couldn’t draw, and I got absolutely zero reception, so I couldn’t even send out sad text messages or call my mom. Urrgh. So bored..
And HUNGRY. I hadn’t been able to eat in like, 40+ hours. Even soft liquidy foods were impossible for most of my Sunday. I’d had chicken soup on Saturday and that was it. Gatorade does not a meal make. So the prospect of going home and Eating was making me just squirm. Even if my diet is still limited to broth and smoothies. I don’t care. It all tastes good.
I made more chicken soup tonight, this time from scratch (ish), with milk in it for the creamy. And raspberry jello juice! I’m still waitng for it to set. Oh, it was so good! I did discover I am not yet ready for noodles. Or bananas. The back of my mouth is still too tender for that. May be tomorrow or wednesday Also if I swallow too fast some of whatever it is will come out my nose. I hope this just becasue my throat is still numb and not because something got permenantly moved back there. But now I get to go buy things like Ice cream and popsicles and soothing hard candies because I am the sickie! And I have a couple of days off work too. Goody goody!
It was funny, I had actually been scehduled to work today. I got the call from my boss when I was waitng at the ENT clinic. “Anne-Marie, we were expecting you today..”
“Well,” says I, (and mind you that between the infection and the numbing drugs I sound like a muppet being smothered in the other room) “I’m in the hospital”. Can anyone come up with a better reason not to be at work? I think not! So I got out of my shift tomorrow and I’m not scheduled again until Thursday. And to be sure I will be working all this weekend, becasue after that I have to take two weeks off to work on my Marisol show I feel so behind in, and I need the good wishes. And the money. Damned antibiotics cost me over a hundred dollars, and I don’t even know what the ER bill’s gonna look like. Although I’m not entirely sure I’m getting one.. The only Money guy I talked to was at the ENT clinic, and there all I had to do was tell them how poor I was, and all they made me do was throw down a 20$ copay. I’m not sure if that is a separate thing or not. We’ll find out when they start sending me letters, I guess.
So a bit of an epic day in Annie-town. I have sucessfully been to the hospital. And more importantly, returned from there a much happier, healthier specimen. Hooray!
