Sick!!

I've had a lot of people ask what's been going on with me, so I thought I would share what has been happening up to this point.

In the wee morning hours of Friday, I was awakened with severe abdominal pain and nausea.
I discovered my mom was awake. After a brief consultation, I threw up, and decided it was time to go to the ER.

The beautiful, kind, amazing ER nurse (I think her name was Donna) gave me some IV fluids, zofran, and dilauded. I'd never had dilauded before, so that was an experience!

They drew labs, which we all normal except a slightly elevated white blood cell count, which could mean something, could mean nothing. I had an abdominal ultrasound, which was normal. They sent me home with meds and an appointment to have a HIDA scan done on Tuesday.

I diligently took my medication, but I was still having pain and by the time 4 hours was up, I would start with the severe pain and vomiting again. When I shot out of bed at 1:30 to throw up a glass of water, I decided to go back to the ER. I had taken my pain and anti emetics 3 hours before, and was still having pain and nausea and vomiting.

Thus began what I like to call The Worst ER Visit EVER! They gave me a GI cocktail, which I promptly vomited back up. Oral zofran, still vomiting, so now oral phenergan, which the ER doctor said, "If you can't keep that down, we will give you a suppository!" And laughed.

Hello? Where's my IV fluids? And, for heck's sake, can't we try injecting three phenergan before you shove it up my butt?

After four hours, one abdominal xray, and no IV, I was sent home feeling just as crummy as I did when I arrived, except now I had a prescription for carafate. Which I have thrown up every time I take it.

Later on Saturday, my amazing angel if a father in law gave me some IV fluids and IV zofran, after which I was able to eat. Who knew what a difference eating and not throwing it up would make?

I slept the rest of the weekend and took my pills. Every morning, I would wake up hoping and praying that I would feel better. So far, nothing.

Yesterday, I tried to work. That was a disaster. I didn't take anything except the carafate and some Tylenol, and by the time the morning was over I was in tears. Dr. Bingham gave me more IV fluid and zofran, and my amazing husband made pork cops for dinner, which I was able to eat. Hallelujah!!

This morning, I had my HIDA scan done. Nothing to eat or drink and no pain medication for 6 hours. They injected a radioactive tracer into my vein, and we watched for an hour as my gallbladder lit up like the sun on the screen. Actually, we watched Criminal Minds. Shemar Moore is a great distraction when you are very uncomfortable...

The tech was waiting for the tracer to start to move from my gallbladder into my small intestine, which never happened. After the hour was up, she gave me a medicine that is supposed to make my gallbladder contract and release bile into my small intestine. 4 or 5 minutes after she started running the medicine, I started to get extremely nauseated. A couple of minutes later, I was in horrible pain. I started to wonder what the procedure was for vomiting, and tried to breathe through the nausea. At one point, I started crying because it hurt so bad. I couldn't really move, but my hands were clenched and I kept wriggling my feet and just tried to breathe through it.

Overall, a pretty miserable experience.

Eventually the pain and nausea faded, and I was all disconnected and sent home. We are waiting on the results, which will hopefully come tomorrow.

In the meantime, I feel craptastic. Hopefully, I will get some answers, but right now it's looking like surgery is still on the table. Thoughts and prayers are always appreciated, and I will try to keep everyone updated!