ER- Night and Day.

While some of you follow me on facebook, some of do not. Count yourselves lucky, while I vent on my blog, I sort of had two freak outs on facebook. I don't normally, but it happened. I have also been doing a few updates on my situation there. Anyway, I thought I should do an update here as well.

I did go to the Emergency Room, finally. It took a lot of pain, tons of bleeding, pure exhaustion, and Amanda calling my Mom, and having my mother order me to go. I was hesitant to go for three reasons. 

1. I don't like medical people touching me don there. I have mistrust from an event in my childhood. I was 5 or 6 and the tube between my bladder and kidneys was not closing and causing back was of urine and making me sick. A tech was doing a probe/ catheter sort of thing and got it stuck in my urethra and basically yanked it out. I remember my mother chewing her out. I remember the pain and sobbing over it. Later when I had surgery to correct the problem, the doctors wouldn't let my mom come with me or let me wear my underwear. It was terrifying, uncomfortable, has never left my mind.

2. I was afraid of how I would be treated. the last time I went for this, the hospital I went to was simply awful to me. 

3. Sometimes, I think, unconsciously, I need permission to do big things. I don't understand why and it is something that I am trying to work on.

Okay, so here is what happened. I went. The doctor who saw me was at first, a little skeptical. He explained what I already knew and I told him as much, and then explained that this was much worse than it should be. He decided to monitor my vitals every 30 minutes and run some blood work. He got a copy of my previous blood work as well, and had a little chat with an OBGYN at the OBGYN office I go to.  After a bit he returned to tell me that a normal persons hemoglobin is stupposed to be between 12 and 16 points. My intial blood work states that I was at 9 and anemic. My doctor had prescribed iron supplements to help. My blood work at the hospital revealed that I am not at 7.5 and that's really not good. The doctor was saying without saying "you're bleeding to death." He prescribed a different hormone regimen to slow down or stop my bleeding. Next he prescribed anti-nausea medication and some pain medication. I expressed that I have been taking Advil and it wasn't cutting it, but that I wasn't trolling for drugs, just something to make this tolerable. 

(you should have seen how my blood pressure went from high back to a normal level when the pain began to ease, it was fascinating to watch)

Now this doctor did some other things too. He insisted to the OBGYN he spoke to my OBGYN needs to see me this week, as soon as possible. He also told me that if the bleeding does not stop, if it gets worse, or if I feel woozy, dizzy, or unsafe, to get my butt back into the ER and he would hospitalize me to get the bleeding to stop and to stabilize me. 

This experience was so positive it really puts my previous experience that much more to shame. I was telling my Dad about both and he told me that the previous hospital I went to was used to junkies coming in and trolling for drugs. That shouldn't matter, I hadn't been. I just wanted to pain and bleeding to stop, and they treated me horribly. I am so much happier with the hospital I went to yesterday, you have no idea. Amanda and I both want to write "thank you" letters to the doctor and staff who saw me. 

As of right now, I do have an appointment with my OBGYN on Thursday. hopefully the ER visit will be the push to get my hysterectomy sooner rather than later. As for my bleeding- since beginning the new hormone regimen, the bleeding is down, I feel more awake and alive. I actually think I might be able to sleep in my bed tonight instead of sitting up on the sofa with towels beneath me. 

I do have a confession to make. When all of this is said and done, and my hysterectomy has taken place, I am getting cute underwear and cute pajamas! It will be so heavenly to have things won't have blood all over them!       

Happy Lunar Near Year, hospital is looking more and more appealing, yesterday was almost a complete disaster.

Happy Lunar New Year! Assuming Amanda and I can muster the energy, we are planning to make Chinese food for dinner. I am trying to keep going despite everything going on and this was something I really wanted to do. Okay, so my Chinese food will consist of Egg flower soup and sesame balls with a main dish of Katsudon (which is actually a Japanese dish, but Amanda wanted it), but they are easy, quick things I can make. 

On to yesterday's nightmare. I woke up early to go to the bathroom and to drink 16 ounces of water for my ultrasound an hour and a half before my appointment. Except that first thing in the morning, the first liquids I drink typically go straight through me. On top of that, having an ever pressing need to pee seemed to aggravate the cramps from this revenge period all the more. I had already awoken angry because I knew I had overfilled my pad and was going to have to do some exhausting clean up. On top of that, I was in pain, hungry, and knew the ultrasound was going to be painful because ever ultrasound technician I have ever had seems to delight in digging that damned thing into me. 

Well, I arrived at my appointment to have the receptionist on the phone. Okay, no big, I can wait. But when she was finally off the phone, I told her who I was and what I was there for. She looked at me confused and informed me that they don't do ultrasounds at that location. I lost it a little. I lost it because I had expressly asked the woman that I had made the appointment with, if both the appointments we were making were at the Liberty Lake location. She said yes, so I wrote them down and even got the street name from her. She fucking lied! Granted the extent of me losing with was in a raised voice exclaiming "WHAT?!" and then me quickly apologizing to the woman, telling her it wasn't her, and then asking if I could use the bathroom straight away. 

Now, what I was in the bathroom, Amanda was out in the waiting room for a few minutes and the receptionist didn't ask her anything, didn't tell her anything, didn't even offer to call the other location and tell them we were late. Nothing, she just sat there, completely unhelpful. I on the other hand was in the bathroom making a mess on the floor and had to have Amanda come in and help me clean blood off their toilet and floor. 

During the 15 minutes it took us to drive back to Spokane Valley and swing by McDonalds (because I was really hungry thanks to trying to do a fast for blood work and I said fuck it to due to number of people in the office and my horrible cramps) and finally get home. I had over filled my pad so much that it was literally dripping when I took it off. I also had a very large clot. I cleaned up as much as I could and just went into the living room, and lividly sat crying off and on. Getting up every so often to change my pads and clean up. I vented about it even on facebook and a couple of my friends want to have "Come to Jesus" talk with the doctor, to tell him that the behavior of his receptionists are unacceptable and so on. Other people are sympathetic. Others want me to go to the ER or the hospital. My resistance in going to the ER or the hospital is that I have been down that road before. All they will do is give me Advil, make me wait there for several hours, have a dozen or so people interrogate me and ignore me, and then send me home. Why go through all that when I can just take the Advil from the comfort of my own home?

In effort to distract myself from all of it, I watched an anime with Amanda. Our friend Rachel came over to dye her hair and I decided to do the same. I wasn't going anywhere, it really doesn't take that long, and it might make me feel a little better- at least mentally. Amanda did it for me, all I had to do was sit on a chair. It really was a nice distraction. 

Today however, the hospital idea is looking more and more appealing. I ate 4 Advil two hours after I woke up this morning, it did slow some of the bleeding down, but not by much. It has helped the cramps a tiny bit, but I have been a bit woozy and although I am eating as much protein and iron rich foods- tuna, red meat, and salad- as I can, I am still very weak and more often than naught cold. I talked myself out of going to the hospital twice today, telling myself that I can deal, I can handle this, I'm not going to waste my time or Amanda's in going. But now, despite trying to stay hydrated, I'm dehydrated and having all the problems that go along with that. So, it is a very real possibility that may end up there during the night, if only so they can help me get re-hydrated safely. We will see.