Operation Stay Out of ER: failed.

As I previously mentioned, I went to the ER a couple of weeks ago and was diagnosed with pancreatitis.  The following week I had the honor of being poked and prodded to figure out what caused it.  No results yet.  I went straight from Houston to Ft. Hood to spend the four-day weekend with Zack and celebrate Independence Day.  I had so much fun being a lazy butt with him!  We are also in a random little pocket of space where the street before us says, "Leaving Copperas Cove" and the street after us says "Entering Copperas Cove".  So technically we decided we were allowed to shoot off fireworks.  It didn't really matter, everyone in the area was shooting them off and it was AWESOME!  Where I grew up, fireworks were banned in '99 so it had been a long time since I had seen a neighborhood all out enjoying fireworks.

Literally right after we come inside I start feeling a little off.  A little upper abdomen cramping and slightly nauseous.  I decided to eat a peanut butter sandwich because I'm hypoglycemic so I get sick when my blood sugar levels get low.  It got a little worse.  I went to look for my perscription meds from when I was in the ER and I had left them in College Station.  Stupid stupid stupid.  I had Zack drive me from Ft. Hood to College Station at 11 pm (it's a two hour drive and Zack is not a night person so this was like torture).  We had to pull over three times and by the time we got to College Station, I was in unbearable pain.  I took my nausea medication and hydrocodone and it did nothing.

So then I had Zack drive me to the ER.  I had to wait a long time to get an IV and then went through an awful 5 minutes of the ER nurse digging in my hand to get blood.  Zack could barely watch him, he said it hurt him just to look.  Finally the nurse tried another spot and the blood finally flowed.  TORTURE ISN'T NECESSARY!  Just try another spot!  They gave me nausea mediciation and morphine.  The morphine did nothing for the immense pain so they double the dose to bring it down to a manageable pain.  I was drugged out of my mind.  I wasn't coherent, I couldn't keep my eyes open, and I couldn't so much as roll over.  For the weak-stomached, I'll say I "lost my dinner" at least 8 times that morning.

Here's the kicker: my lipase levels were normal.  They had no reason to believe that it was pancreatitis.  The doctor thinks it may have been an unrelated stomach bug!  How can one girl be so lucky?

Operation Stay Out of ER: failed.

Love, Heather

xo