So my health went on a little vacation recently.
A thousand apologies if you’ve been missing my blog posts. Although to be fair, if you’ve actually been missing my blog posts, you probably have some bigger issues going on.
Anyhoo, I beg your forgiveness and present my justification for being a truant blogger.
Looooong story short, here’s what happened:
I wake up most of last week feeling like sewage. Not just suburban sewage, but like festering homeless person sewage that marinates for like 3 days on the hot summer street. I self-diagnose myself with the flu, mainly because I’m an English major and my educational training primarily focused on generating things that aren’t actually there.
Finally, I visit Doc A and he tells me it’s actually a “bronchial infection” and an “inflamed prostate.” I’m 27. I’m not Wilford Brimley so color me skeptical. I take the medicine though and continue about my suffering. Mainly, it’s this MASSIVE headache that I can’t escape.
I bet you’re thinking that this is a migraine. NOT SO FAST MY FRIEND. It most certainly was NOT one. I get migraines and THIS was no migraine. If a regular migraine is like Steve Sanders, this one was like Dylan McKay when he drinks. I really don’t know how communicate that any more clearly.
Jump ahead to Saturday and the headache STILL won’t relent so I go to the ER. I expect to see Dr. Meredith Gray and patients like Mandy Moore’s character, but most everyone is Cloudy With A Chance of Grumpiness.
I see Doc B who tells me I have a sinus infection and unrelated to anything that I should watch Food Inc. I thank him for the recommendation and again color myself extremely skeptical given my propensity for sinus infections that don’t feel like somebody has a pair of pliers clamped on my eyeballs.
A few vomit sessions later, including one at Walgreens, (sorry Guy At The Urinal, I know I probably interrupted an otherwise peaceful urination) I’m back at the ER again vomiting (sorry Guy At The Sink. I know I came in like the S.W.A.T. team, but thanks for not cursing at me).After a few hours of waiting behind car wreck victims and chain saw victims (true story), I got some face time with a doctor. He recommended a spinal tap and when he did the test, it came back positive for FREAKING Meningitis.
I felt a fair amount of worry, but the short term part of me felt like shaking my fist at Doc A and Doc B. Inflamed Prostate…Sinus Infection, YOU SAY? I should have Derek Sheperd come choke you both out RIGHT NOW. And he would. JUST LOOK AT THAT HAIR. He’s one magnificent human being.
So for those of you scoring at home, that reads Bronchial Infection / Inflamed Prostate begot Sinus Infection / Movie Recommendation begot meningitis. I don’t think it’s rash that I’m considering changing primary physicians.
So a few days in the hospital and a long week of drugs and I’m sort of back. I don’t ever feel myself when on a cocktail of prescription drugs, but it’s much better than feeling like my brain was replaced by a water bed of pipe-bombs.
If it’s any consolation, I have to miss my half-marathon this weekend and I stayed in the wing of the hospital where guys like Morty, Eugene and the rest of The Greatest Generation were located.
Maybe there’s something to this Wilford Brimley thing after all…
What’s your most fond memory of the ER?
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Soooo glad you're alive and kicking again!
My most memorable experience at the ER was between an 8 year old and his dad.
It went something like this…
boy: crying hysterically while holding his eye
dad: "Stop crying. You sound like a girl."
boy: still crying quietly
dad: "I told you to be quiet. This is ridiculous. How in the world did you get a nail in your eye?"
The kid was HOLDING the nail while it was STILL in his eye.
Dad needed to be stripped of all responsibility immediately.
Gald your back. My foundest ER memory is when your wife took me there because I had a tumor sized mass on my face and she had to hold me down so they could give me a shot in the butt. Then I couldn't walk and she yelled at the lady at the pharmacy to give me some freakin medicine. Oh good times.
When your wife, at a mere age of 3 months, went AWOL over a dose of Tylenol … which at the time was being laced all over the country with cyanide. Her new parents were convinced that she was the next victim so we rushed her to the E/R only to have the examining physician congratulate us for having a newborn with a red hot temper. Nice.