Saturday Night Emergency Room Fun.

Erik likes to tease me about all my visits to the emergency room and the insta care. He says it is my favorite place. In the last year since Erik and I have been married, I have made 3 trips to the emergency room and 7 trips to the insta care. This weekend I added another couple to the tally. I managed to visit both the insta care and the emergency room all in one day. How did I do that you might ask? Well it all started with some rather mean stomach cramps.

I had been really sick with a sinus infection and up all night till about 4am on Friday night. I finally was able to fall asleep. About four hours later, some really painful abdominal cramps in my upper abdomen woke me up out of my deep sleep. They got so intense that all I could do is cry and moan. So I crawled to the living room to get Erik. We both knew something was really wrong, so he was going to take me to the insta care. Well, I could only manage to get from the floor back to my bed. They just got worse, so Erik panicked and called 911. The pain continued to get worse, and all I could do is scream so Erik did the only thing he could. He gave me a priesthood blessing. As soon as he finished and took his hands off my head, the pain immediately went away, and the paramedics walked in the door. Since I didn't really have much pain, I didn't see any reason to go to the hospital. So I sent them away and promised to go to the insta care. I am really thankful for the power of the priesthood. I know it was the only reason my pain stopped. It also saved me from an expensive ambulance ride (from previous experience those are about $1000). So anyway, they left, and I went back to sleep for another 8 hours since I was sick and feeling awful.

Well when I woke up, the pain started to come back but not as bad, so I tried to ignore it. My sinuses were also making me so miserable, that Erik took me to the insta care to get antibiotics. He made me mention my stomach pain, and the ambulance visit from earlier that morning. So the doctor checked me out and ran some blood tests. Since I still had a lot of pain, and my white blood cell count was abnormally high, the doctor made me go to the emergency room.

When I got to the emergency room, they ran more blood tests and palpated my stomach. The E.R. doctor had the same concerns as the insta care doctor, so he wouldn't let me leave. He made me stay for seven hours and get a bunch of tests done, to make sure I didn't need emergency surgery. All I wanted to do was go home and sleep. I was really sick, I ached all over, I was blowing my nose every two minutes, I had a headache, It was really cold, the bed was uncomfortable, and I started having menstral cramps halfway through my visit. I was really not enjoying myself. But alas I had no choice, they wouldn't let me go home.

So after all the tests, the conclusion they came to, is that I most likely have a stomach ulcer. They gave me some expensive meds for my stomach to take over the next couple of months and some antibiotics for my sinus infection. They also said I need to make an appointment with the a GI specialist, to get more tests done, and see if it is an ulcer, or something else with my GI tract. Yeah, more tests. So yeah...that came out of the blue. Didn't see that one coming. Life is sure full of suprises.

So that is my latest visit to the emergency room. With my bad luck, and past history, this may not be my last E.R. post. I sure hope I am wrong though. I have had enough of that place! As much fun as Erik thinks I have there, I would much rather be anywhere else.

For entertainment sakes, here are a couple pictures to commemorate previous visits.



This is a picture from one of my two visits to the emergency room during my honeymoon. One was from complications from my herniated disk. The other was from a bad kidney infection. Apparently the insta care on Maui won't take care of these sorts of things. They sent me to the E.R. instead.



This was from a plasma donation gone wrong. This picture was taken about a week after when my arms have "healed." This one cost me a visit to the E.R. and a chest x-ray. I learned the hard way that there is no such thing quick buck.