How I almost died (or : A real painful story with a slightly exaggerated title)

Okay, so it all started on the 12th of this month.

I'm trying to get some sleep, but I feel like I have bad acid reflux and I can't even lay down. 

Its uncomfortable, slightly painful and overall annoying because I just want to sleep.

The next day, the 13th, I'm exhausted because I got hardly any sleep.

While Kaleb took his nap I decided to make some ice cream with our little half pint ice cream maker. 

I remember Blake used to make milk shakes to sooth is acid indigestion so I figure it will be the same. 

Now this recipe calls for lots of sugar, heavy cream and bits of chocolate (okay, so I added the bits of chocolate, but can you blame me?). 

About an hour later I start to feel more acid reflux. I grab the last two tums, chew them and get them down with water.

Before I can even finish my glass, the pain suddenly intensifies. 

It is burning and burrowing inside of me.

There is pressure and what feels like cramping and so much pain. 

I hold my chest, my ribs actually, and wait about a minute for it to pass... it wont. 

It starts to get worse and I'm pacing in my bathroom. In my bedroom. Trying to keep Kaleb in the living room with Finding Nemo.

It becomes so bad, I start panting. Then I start crying.

I finally call Blake at work for no other reason than to see in he somehow knows of a magical cure.

He starts to say is probably bad heart burn and then as I start to sob he says "maybe its an ulcer".

He says he'll come home at lunch with some over the counter medicine.

I hang up and continue to pace, because I can't sit still with that much pain. Then, about 20 minutes later (about 40 total) I can feel it slowly subside. Then, finally, it just sits there. Hovering the line of discomfort and pain.

When Blake gets home, he empties a bag of goodies (tums, milk of magnesia, and mint acid reducing pills) and I devour one dose (if not more) of everything.

I start to feel better that night, and figure the acid reducers are doing their job.

Next morning its Valentine's day. I have to get up at 4:30am and start filming for a client, but I'm feeling good. 

While there, about two hours into it, I start to feel the tell tale discomfort that I know will VERY soon become a devouring fire that pushes and tears at my middle, just below my sternum. 

I excuse myself (as we're on a short break anyway) and RACE to the nearest drug store because I confidently and stupidly left all of the medication Blake got for me the day before at home.

I walk inside the store, striving not to cry or look like I was about to have a mental break down. I find something that also has a numbing agent, buy it, glance at the dosage before I just guzzle some down and start to grunt and moan until the pain subsides and I get out of my car and continue filming.

Now, this "attack" was not as bad as the night before, but it was still painful.

When I get home, Blake is wonderful and we have a great morning and afternoon.

While we're ending the night at a small theater with Kaleb, watching "Wreck-it-Ralph" and munching on some popped corn, I can feel it starting again. That awful pressure that becomes pain that becomes a nightmare. 

I get up calmly and walk to the bathroom. I'm not in there one minute before it goes away.

Awesome!

I go back to the theatre, and start to get comfy with my family again when it hits me... HARD.

I almost run to the bathroom again and lock myself in the nearest stall. I grab my chest, but pressing on it makes it hurt more. Not touching it makes it hurt more. BREATHING makes it hurt more.

In just a few moments I am sobbing and panting. I think I've taken off my shirt at this point because ANYTHING touching the area at the base of my sternum feels like grinding pieces of metal. 

After about ten minutes I can hear the main door open, Kaleb run in and Blake ask if I was ok. I say no in between sobs, so he says "Lets go home."

At this point my shirt is still off,  and I can't bare to think about how painful it will be to put it back on so I just say I can't right now.

Maybe ten minutes after that I manage to come out of the stall (full clothed and completely haggard) and slowly make my way to the car. When we get there, I can't even get in. The thought of just sitting there while my insides are burned and carved out feels like torture. 

Blake coaxes me and finally gets me in the car. Hes asks if I want to go to the emergency room (because its been well over 45 minutes since the first "attack" by now and the pain is still strong) 

I cry or scream or moan "yes!" and we start to make our way to an urgent care near by.

Of corse its rush hour though, and it takes forever to get there. All the wile I'm squirming and panting and trying to cry quietly so Kaleb can't tell anything is wrong (though I'm sure he does). 

By the time we get there, the pain has subsided and I tell Blake I just want to go home.

....

OF COURES as soon as we start driving again the pain hits me full force and I'm struggling to breathe and keep it together.

We decide to go to a near by emergency room and (thanks to traffic) by the time we get there the pain has muted a bit and my thoughts turn to "do we have the money for this?" because I'm unsure what our insurance will cover and when it will cover it and without the desperation of pain, I decide to go home and wait it out.

We do and Blake cuddles me  while I look up acid and ulcer and all sorts of things on webmd and then I can fall asleep.

The next day (the 15th) I call our insurance, make sure everything is in order and intend head back to the Hospital because I was all alone with Kaleb and I could not wait until I was in pain to drive there. 

Before I left I spoke with my grandmother. I described my symptoms and could not understand why it was so painful. Could it be an ulcer? I couldn't imagine it was simply heartburn.

Thats when good ol' grandma told me that my great grandmother, my aunt and she, herself had all suffered from these symptoms. It was gallstones. 

Yes. That made sense. At least I could see the Doctor and have SOME information and medical history to give them.

I arrive at 11:30am.

After waiting, a fluid test, more waiting, a blood test (which Kaleb HATED. As soon as he saw the needle he start crying. The whole time they were drawing blood from me I told him it was ok and that mommy was fine, but it wasn't until the pulled out the needle and I say "all done" that he stopped crying and said "all done".  My poor baby) and, of course, more waiting, I decided to call my grandma and ask if she can keep on eye on my fidgety, restless Kaleb.

I'm still afraid to eat, and all I've had is water and a granola bar, so when they do an ultrasound its pretty clear that theres something there. 

Grandma comes and walks with Kaleb outside just as they call me in again, but this time give me a gown and a room.

The doctor tells me I definitely have gallstones, but they have to do another test to see if its an actual emergency or something that can wait for treatment.

That red explosion doesn't even beging to explain the horridness. 

They hook me up to an IV and I feel like I wait forever.

Grandma comes in and sits with me as Kaleb sleeps in his stroller. 

I call Blake and my Dad to let me know whats going on.

I wait some more.

Finally...FINALLY someone comes to get me and I'm wheeled upstairs where they do a test where they inject me with radioactive isotopes and watch its progress through my liver, gallbladder and intestines with this huge, flat camera type thingy placed an inch above me. If it falls, it will crush me (at least thats how I feel). Oh, and the test will take at least an hour.

I'm also told that I will technically be radioactive and need to stay away from pregnant women and young children for three days. 

Awesome.

While I'm lying there my dad comes in and says hello. Hes so worried and I just feel silly because even though the pain was AWFUL, I know its not life threatening or anything like that. He still makes me feel better though. I love my dad.

Then Blake comes in and sits and we talk about what we will do with Kaleb for the next three days and play phone yahtzee. 

When the test is finished, they wheel me back to my room (and when I say "wheel" I mean on my bed, not a wheel chair. They wouldn't let me get up) and, you guessed it, we wait some more.

When the Doctor comes in he tells us that they're there. But its not technically and "emergency" so I can talk with my normal doctor and make arrangements to have surgery  because if I want the pain to stop, thats the only way to do it. 

In the meantime, the doctor says I need to change my diet to reduce the likely hood of another "attack"

So anyway this is all I can eat now:

• Fresh fruits and vegetables
• Whole grains (whole-wheat bread, brown rice, oats, bran cereal)
• Lean meat, poultry, and fish
• Low-fat dairy products

and this is what I can NEVER eat:

• Fried foods
• Highly processed foods (doughnuts, pie, cookies)
• Whole-milk dairy products (cheese, ice cream, butter)
• Fatty red meat

At least if I want to stay "agonizing-pain free". 

He also writes me a prescription for pain killers (which I HATE, but I hate the pain more, so we get them) and we go home.

I spend the next few days alone and aching for my son. I had never been away form him that long and it was AWFUL! 

I only had to take the pain killers once, but they kicked in about half an hour too late, so thats a bust. 

Since then I haven't felt the awful pain that I did on the 14th, but I have felt "lesser" pains that still burn and bring me to tears if not sobs. 

Now, just to put this into perspective, I went through 20 of my 30 hours of labor before I shed a single tear. And when I finally did, Blake demanded I get an epidural (which I humbly obliged.) 

Chew on that. 

Now I'm just waiting to schedule something with my doctor and get this time bomb out of me. 

Oy Vey!