Life's Rich Pageant

March 14, 2010

Friday night as I sat down to begin working on my taxes, my gut started hurting. Probably just something I ate, I thought. But then as the evening wore on, the pain got worse and more frequent. Sharps pains in my stomach, followed by goose flesh all over. I got a little freaked out, but decided I'd tough it out through the night. Jeremy got home late from work. I told him, and then he observed me double over in pain when the pain hit. Maybe we should go in Abby. I started to cry. I didn't want to go to the ER. I didn't want to be sick. I just wanted to enjoy my weekend at home. I told him if I wasn't better in the morning, or if any other symptoms started along with the pain, we would go in.

Around noon on Saturday I realized that pain was pretty horrible and that it would be wisest if I had it checked out. I hadn't experienced this feeling before. The closest thing was what I was experiencing just before I was hospitalized when all this started, and that scared me. So off we went.

As we drove towards UMC, Jeremy gave me his hand and said, "Team Cashman." His way of telling me we're in this together. "I think you signed up for the wrong team babycakes," I said half crying, half laughing, doubled over in pain. "No. We're in this for the long haul Abby. This is all a part of life's rich pageant."

We sat in the ER for an hour. Bouts of pain would come over me, bringing me to tears as I moaned and grabbed at my stomach. When I got to the triage they got me into a room and started me on morphine and fluids right away. They admitted me. After preliminary labs showed just that my white blood cell count was a little high, they started me on IV antibiotics. All my other labs came back negative, so they had me drink the lovely berry flavored barium beverage and prepped me for a CT scan of my abdomen.

This morning they told me my bowels looked full like they might if I had an obstruction, but they could not see anything that was actually obstructing them. One doctor said maybe my stricture was acting up and I needed dilated again. Apparently there were also some lymph nodes in my bowels that were enlarged, which meant there was some inflammation too. They don't know for sure if that's what was causing my pain, or if I just had a virus. Whatever the case may be, I'm feeling much better today. They are having my surgeon's team track me. I haven't been allowed to eat, but they're letting me start fluids and work my way up to solid food today. If I can tolerate food, they will probably let me go home this evening. My stools have been watery, so they're keeping me on IV fluids and wanting to make sure that's gotten a little better before they send me home too. They don't want me to go home just to get dehydrated and come back again.

All in all I think I'm handling this pretty well. I panicked at first. I was scared and didn't want to be at the hospital. It's not as traumatizing as I feared it would be. I tell myself that being here doesn't mean all kinds of bad things are going to happen to me. It doesn't have to mean what it once meant to me.

So here I sit, in my hospital bed in a room I've been in before. Jeremy's reading a book. I'm ever so thankful for the distraction my laptop can provide, killing time hoping I get to go home soon. I'll keep you posted.