Monday, May 17, 2010

Good Luck Shooting the Moon aka What's Wrong With Me?!

Pain. That's been the theme of the week. Every single day meant some kind of pain.

Monday was emotional as I had a very difficult conversation with a loved one. My Tuesday my heart was feeling better but I think it's because it passed along all of the pain to my stomach. I woke up Tuesday around 1am with what felt like a fire lit in my stomach, resulting in my laying in fetal position crying. Popped a lot of Pepto, went to work, and tried to forge through the next few hours all the while incessantly heckling my coworkers about what could be wrong with me and googling potential causes for my ailment...I thought it would go away by healthy living and not exerting myself too much.

On Friday, I did what any normal girl feeling lousy with the day off would do...I went to the spa to get pampered: manicure, pedicure, hair cut, foot massage and...leg wax. Now up until this point, I thought that I knew what real pain was. WAS I WRONG. In all of my years on Earth i have never experienced something to excruciating as getting my legs waxed (and that says something)and the worst part, for me, was knowing that this is something that i was not only a willing participant in, but that I was actually paying someone to do to me. I started questioning my sanity wondering what kind of a person I am that I'd pay to be tortured. I wanted to stop her so many times but I thought, "No Alice, tough it out." Then when i thought it was over I breathed a sigh of relief until she told me to TURN OVER and I thought I would really and truly die.

With my medical expertise (courtesy of my mother, WedMD and other internet sites) I surmised that my healthy eating and abstaining from all things fun meant that I was on the road to recovery until about 4am on Sunday morning when I woke up in a state. Making whimpering noises while clutching my stomach to no avail, it was undeniable at this point...there was something actually wrong with me and I needed medical attention. I was able to drag myself to L'Hopital Francais where I was given a doctor who was wonderful but spoke only Vietnamese and French. My French is ok...I can get by, but explaining medical terminology is difficult enough to do in ones native tongue let alone one that they are conversational (at best) in.

They proceeded to stick needles in me and have me undergo tests for approximately four hours. I had morphine injected into my veins for pain. I had an ULTRASOUND. When they mentioned "ultrasound" to me I thought it was just "xray" lost in translation, but no...it's actually an ultrasound. Ultrasounds are the weirdest yet coolest things. Mine was actually a bit uncomfortable but they put the cool gel on my stomach (like in the movies!) and I was able to see on screen everything that the ultrasound was picking up.

I was told after my four hours of tests and one hour of waiting that I was "fine." That there was "nothing wrong with me." That I was "lucky." How, i wondered, could this be. How is it that I required an IV of morphine for pain yet there was NOTHING WRONG with me?! I know I'm a hypochondriac, I know i can be a bit of a baby but this is too much. They packed my purse full of medication and sent me packing?

Final injury of the day? Having my AMEX card denied.

Let's hope this week is relatively painless. My heart, stomach, and ego need a break.

1 comment:

  1. ouch lol.
    Somehow this circle of us- you, jenny, me are getting injured a lot.

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