Once again I was pulled away from you due to circumstances that piss me off. I had to have emergency surgery last weekend and am still recovering. Anyone who tells you that laparoscopic surgery is SO much less invasive and easier to recover from? Needs to be punched in the EYE. Okay, okay, YES...it could be worse. But...DAMN.
I went to the ER late last Friday night due to intense chest and abdominal pain. I'd felt this before...maybe four or five times over the last year, but this time was different. It had never lasted this long before (3 freakin' hours) or been this painful. It felt like I was having muscle spasms...sorta like I was being squeezed. Because it was on my right side only, I knew it wasn't my heart, but 3 hours of labored breathing and major pain starts to wear on you. I was getting light-headed and, frankly, desperate. I needed relief, so I finally relented (have you heard that I'm stubborn as hell?) and asked George to drive me to the emergency room.
I fully expected to hear that I was either having a new and exciting symptom of my back problems (a new faction tends to present itself about once per year) or, less distressing but more embarrassing...I had gas. I was pretty sure it was the latter, but figured it was safer to get it checked out.
I am NOT HAPPY that I did that.
I'm going to complain a bit about the staff at Local Hick Hospital, but don't worry...there is humor to be found within.
I spent several hours waiting and being ignored while others (who arrived AFTER me and had LESS PAIN than I) were seen, and having very uncomfortable tests such as an ultrasound performed by a human-hating bitch who was apparently taught that her job is not complete until she has poked the ultrasound wand through my front and back out onto the other side of the table; I also had a CT scan (complete with the injection of dye into my veins...the joyful, joyful dye that makes you all hot and has the added effect of making it feel like you're peeing your pants) performed this time by two young girls who were Very Very Angry at their boss, Mr. Doctor Dick, and regaled each other with tales of his horrid treatment of them. The angrier they got over each other's stories? The less gentle they were with me. It was like I wasn't even there...that I was a piece of stubborn furniture needing to be moved around and they would shove me (on my gurney) here and there and everywhere, banging me into objects, poking me, yanking on my I.V., etc.
It was a treat.
After the tests were (I thought) blissfully complete, I was sent back to my cubby-hole room in the ER to await my results. By this point, we'd been at the hospital for at least four hours and it was nearing dawn. The doctor came in and I was thrilled. I was ready to be chided for wasting their time for a simple case of gas. I would happily accept the scolding, because all I wanted to do was get out of there. I wanted a cigarette and I wanted to SLEEP.
Instead? He told me that I had poisonous gall stones, my white cell count was close to 20,000 (I no longer recall how much over normal that number is, but I DO recall that it = WAY high) and that they were admitting me for emergency gall bladder surgery. Not just to get rid of the stones, no no...to remove the whole damned thing. They claimed (note how I believe very little of what I'm told...ever) that once your gall bladder created stones and got itself sick? Wouldn't ever be right again and needed to come out.
I fuh-REAKED out.
I am terrified of surgery. Of anesthetic. Of being removed from my normal routine. Pain I can handle. All those other things? Oh HELL no.
So of course I bargained and argued and denied it all. When that didn't work, I asked if they would at least let me step outside and have a quick smoke since it was clear that I was going to be there for quite some time and since I hadn't re-a-frickin-lized that I was going to be staying in this joy of a resort, I hadn't enjoyed my last cigarette in the LEAST.
Guess what they said to THAT?
Fuckers.
So I was wheeled upstairs (an hour later...sooooo emergency, right??) and George and I were all excited to see the plush room our new and wondermous insurance was going to provide and were shocked to learn that it would buy me a semi-private room, shared with a 100-year-old pissed off lady. Ohhhh, this just kept getting better.
The orderly left me on my gurney out in the hall while he prepared my bed and as he did, my new roomie began whining at him in the most perfect Wicked Witch of the West voice I'd ever heard: "Hooope I'm not still CONTAGIOUS!! Hoooope they don't mind that I have PNEUMONIA!" and my eyes appropriately bugged out at George. Um....I'm about to have my body CUT open...my immune system is on overload and they're shoving me into a room with Sicky McVirus?? Oh uh-UH. The orderly was incredibly pissed off when I said that I was not going to be sharing a room with her. He and the nurse assured me that she was lying, but I didn't care. Either they were lying to shut me up or they were telling the truth and she was a big enough bitch that she would do that and anything else she could to make my life a living hell for having the nerve to get sick that night. No thanks. So they put me in the room next door. 3 feet away, yet Mr. Orderly Prick acted like he'd had to actually carry me in his arms up six flights of stairs. Jerk.
George and I offered to slip anyone and everyone on the staff some extra cash if they'd give me my own room, but they claimed that all beds were full.
Okay, kiddos...that's it for Part I of Gracie's Big Day Out. I'm still sore as hell and sitting up like this is quite painful, so I'll have to finish up tomorrow. It does get funnier, I assure you.
I would like to leave you, though, with a little bit of humiliation on my part. See...due to the surgery and the gas they inflate your flesh with in order to perform the laparoscopic surgery, as well as having an ORGAN removed, I have been quite...bloated. Painfully so. And since my gem of a medical staff didn't feel the need to give me more than a passing glance as I was discharged six hours after my surgery, I had no idea if it was safe to take a product like Gas-X to relieve some of the pressure. So I decided to call the 800 number on the back of the box to ask.
I should have known it wouldn't go well, just due to the nature of the call alone. Little did I know....
