On Hospital Stays & Bananagrams

I had pretty boring plans for the end of my school holidays. I wanted to lay low at home (easy, since Jase has been working the whole time and has taken the car) and finish off my teaching programme for the next term, while watching a few Melrose Place episodes for good measure.

Sunday threw a bit of a spanner in the works: while most people were enjoying their Easter morning, I spent the day sick as a dog. I'll spare you the descriptions of what kind of sickness it was, but to give you a rough idea I wasn't able to eat much that day without it coming straight back up again. I finally managed to have a small meal of oats that evening, and had an early night to catch up on some sleep.

3am that morning saw me woken up with crazy stomach pains. They continued every hour, on the hour, until 6.30am when Jase woke up to find me freaking out and hyperventilating because my abdominal pains were so bad. After a bit of worry about what to do, with Jase pacing the apartment talking to my parents on the phone, and with me rocking on the bathroom floor hugging the toilet, he made up his mind - we were going to the emergency room.

I'll admit, I was more than a little nervous. Aside from visiting, I've never been to a hospital before as a patient - and I wasn't sure if it was the right decision to make. I was freaking out and in pain, but didn't want to go to hospital if it was just stomach cramps. At the same time, I didn't want to stay home and do nothing while I felt like I was dying. And so, we went. Off to the hospital, in the wee hours of a rainy and miserable Easter Monday.

The regular side of the hospital was closed, so I had to be admitted as an emergency patient - which made me even more panicky about being there. I mean, I watch Grey's and ER: from all I know, the emergency room is for traumas and dramatic stuff, not for tummy pains! But then, there was me with my giant swollen abdomen and shooting pains, so tight that I couldn't get my jeans to do up - so I figured we'd just go with it.

It was pretty deserted and after going through the motions of my history, I was shown into a bed and a very, very unflattering gown while they took some blood and did a few tests. After a while, I was given morphine (whoa, burny light-headed feeling, jebus) as well as some anti-nausea and stomach-cramping medication. As you can see, I'm not very technical. ;) They also hooked me up to a blood pressure monitor as well as started a bag of fluids.

My official diagnosis was gastroenteritis, colitis and dehydration - all of which were combining together to form the abdominal bloating and pain. I stayed there for most of the morning and some of the afternoon, and several shots of morphine and a few litres of IV fluids later, I was set to go home. After Jason's big efforts to get me there and treated, he had to shoot off to work - so my lovely folks (who, I might add, stayed by my side all morning to keep me company) took me back to their place for the rest of the afternoon.

Thankfully, the pain relaxed and I managed to keep down some crackers later on. And to finish off my random, random day? A few games of Bananagram with my parents was the perfect way. There is nothing cooler than word games and shouts of 'peel!' 'dump!' 'BANANA'. It's enough to make anyone feel better!