Day 140- The Day It All Began

NOTE: This post may get a little graphic, but if I didn't give all the details it wouldn't be as real.

Today marks the 2 year anniversary when my entire life changed. It actually began though two days before on August 16, 2011. The night before I had gone to a late movie with a couple of friends and didn't get home until about 1AM. I had to be at work the next morning at 9AM, so when I woke up at 5AM with horrible stomach pains my first thought was that I would end up working all day tired. I thought it was just normal stomach pains I've had before. I would put a heating pad on my stomach and an hour or so later I would feel better. When that didn't happen I called my boss and said I wasn't feeling well and wouldn't make it into work. I thought maybe I just needed to clean my system so I had my brother drive me to the nearest CVS to buy some stuff to help with that. It didn't. By that afternoon the pains in my stomach were so bad and I was dry heaving every 30 minutes or so. I called my mom at work and asked her to come home so she could take me to the doctors. I knew, deep inside, something was really wrong. I didn't want to say anything though because in 2 days my parents were getting ready to go on vacation for three days.

When we finally got to the doctors they immediately tested my white blood cell count to make sure I didn't have appendicitis. When that came back negative they diagnosed me with diverticulitis, an infection in my intestines. I was given some anti-biotics and told to take it easy. The next morning I was feeling a little better, but not well enough to go out and to work. When my mom got home from work that night I still wasn't doing great so we went back to the doctors. They noticed I was extremely dehydrated and in a lot of pain so they gave me an IV filled with fluids and some pain medicine. They also took an X-ray of my intestines. They said there could be a blockage there, so that if I wasn't better the next day I should probably go to the hospital.

The next morning my mom went to work. She wasn't even gone 30 minutes when I started to throw up black fluid. I called her, she turned around, and we went to the hospital. We were lucky enough to know someone at the hospital, so everything was ready for us in the ER as soon as we got there. After all the initial paperwork, I was taken off to get a CT scan of my entire abdomen. It was then that we found out what the problem was.

Since I have had so many surgeries, including my abdomen area, I have developed scar tissue in there.  At some point over the weekend I must have become dehydrated. When my stomach cramped, which it often does when you are dehydrated, the scar tissue in my stomach got twisted around my small intestines. Everything I had been putting in my body for the last few days had no where to go. It was just stuck. I had a blockage in my small intestines. (Note: This was all theory. No one was 100% sure this is what happened. That unknowing was what caused the majority of my anxiety. I felt like I never got an answer. Without that answer, I was never given certainty that it wouldn't happen again.)

When I heard this I figured they would go ahead and pump my stomach for a few hours and I would be home by that night. I learned that I would have to get what is called an NG tube that goes in my nose, down my throat, and into my stomach. They told me that before they could do anything else they would have to let my stomach slowly empty and that this would take a few days. I was going to be in the hospital for about 5-7 days. I was devastated.

Once we were finally put in my room my mom and I made our phone calls. We had to tell my dad, my brothers, my work, and a few friends of mine who had been checking in on me, what was going on. My parents also had to call and cancel their hotel because they were no longer going on their trip. I will say that first day I was lucky though. My nurse was about the same age as me so she actually hung out in my room a lot and we talked. I had a few friends visit that night and my mom spent the night. I also has a few doctors come in who explained the process to me. They would slowly pump my stomach for a few days, then they would try and flush the remainder of the blockage out with fluid and monitor it's movement every hour for about 8 hours. If it cleared up, they would spend a few days feeding me fluids and things like Jell-O to make sure it didn't block up again. If it didn't, however, I would need surgery to unblock it.

The first few days were okay. I was in a lot of pain so I was getting pain medicine every 4 hours. One of my doctors actually told me that the pain from having a blockage is about the same as child birth. It wasn't until the third day that I had my worst day. My stomach had been pumped enough that they were ready to try and  flush the rest of it out with fluid. The process for this was that the would flush the fluid with a syringe through the tube that was still in my nose. For the next hour they would take an X-Ray every 15 minutes to make sure the fluid was traveling through my intestines. After that, they would take an X-Ray every couple of hours for the next 8 hours.

The woman who was suppose to flush the fluid through did not hook it up correctly, so I got covered in fluid. The second time she did it correctly, but at this point I was dripping wet. Since I would be there for awhile she told me they would get my mom to keep me company. She told me to lay down while I waited for my mom. As I laid there on the X-Ray table in the freezing X-ray room I was literally dripping wet. I felt so degraded, embarrassed, and unimportant. I was just left wet, in a cold room, and all alone. I remember thinking "Why Me?" Just then I remember feeling like I was going to throw up. My mom got there just in time to help me up and get me a bucket. Over the next hour my pain medicine started to wear off and I was in pain. But the hour actually wasn't an hour. We didn't have a clock in the room, but my mom and I could tell that we were were forgotten about. My mom finally walked toward the open door and down the hall to grab someone. We ended up being in that room for two hours before being brought back to our room.

The good news was, the fluid was moving. As long as the blockage didn't occur again when they began giving me something besides IV fluid, I wouldn't need surgery. Six days after my last real meal I was given Jell-O, chicken broth, and sorbet. It was very hard to eat but a welcome change. Two days later I was able to go home. The thing was when I left, I wasn't given any instruction. I wasn't told when to increase the type of foods to eat, how to follow up doctor wise, or why this happened. It is those specific reasons that I was so afraid to eat. For weeks after, every time I ate I was afraid if what I was eating would get stuck. I became obsessed with how much water I was drinking, and overall living in a constant state of fear. It wasn't until I finally went to a doctor a few months later who specialized in gastrointestinal medicine that I was given some kind of piece of mind. I was able to eat without fear, but the anxiety was still there.

It's amazing to me that all this happened 2 years ago this week. It seems both so recent and so long ago. It seems recent because I still know so many details, but so far because so much has happened since then. I have a completely different life now than what I probably would have if this never happened. It really is amazing how what can seem so little becomes so significant and life changing.

Day 140....Song I Love-Snow Patrol- Set The Fire To the Third Bar

While in the hospital my mom brought me our portable DVD player and a few movies. We ended up watching the movie The Notebook. This song is not from that movie, but it is from the movie Dear John, which is another movie made from the author Nicholas Sparks, who also wrote The Notebook.