Diverticulitis

It's gonna be that kind of post.

Last Wednesday I started having stomach pains. Fast forward to Friday when I found myself seeing an NP at my doctor's office because I was in increasing abdominal pain, my right side was tender, I had a small fever, and I was starting to worry that it could be appendicitis. She started to worry about that as well based on my symptoms, and sent me to the emergency room.

I'm no stranger to the emergency room around here. I'm a bit of a hypochondriac, I admit it, and I follow the rule that if I have insurance there is no reason I shouldn't go see about whatever it is that's freaking me out. Better safe and slightly poorer than dead. I've heard too many horror stories about people who've had headaches or aches or whatever and didn't bother to get them checked out for some reason, only to find later that it was some sort of intestine-eating virus or tumor that they could have fixed if caught earlier. If I feel a lump on my boob, I'm in that week to get it checked out.

I rolled in and they put me through my paces. They started out with an Xray and ultrasound, and found nothing wrong. Then they did a CT scan and found my enflamed colon. Sweet. I have to say, nothing makes you feel good like having people duck out of a room while they bombard you with radiation. At least the woman doing my CT scan was gorgeous. That helped.

This whole process took pretty much the entire day though. For the most part it was actually pretty comfortable. They gave me a blanket out of the blanket warmer and I snoozed in my little side room while they were in and out over a period of hours. They finally kicked me out of the room though because someone sicker came in, and I had to suffer the indignity of being one of those people chilling along the side of the wall in a roller bed. It is actually quite embarrassing; everyone can see you, and you don't have anything to do/look at so you're making eye contact/not making eye contact with everyone who strolls by. My phone was also at the end of its tether (because batteries in Androids last for shit) so I couldn't even amuse myself with fanfiction or Candy Crush Saga. Boo.

They finally sent me home with a prescription for antibiotics, painkillers, and a mandate of a liquid diet for a few days. I pretty much didn't eat anything solid from Thursday afternoon until some time on Tuesday. Yet, I still had to go to the bathroom. I'm happy to report that as of now I feel better. No side pain, and I'm able to eat most things I think without too much problem. I'm all freaked out now though because I'm worried this might be a sign of some sort of stomach/colon/other cancer. I still don't feel 100% and I'm hoping it's because of the antibiotics, which I finish up on Friday.

In light of my sickness my new challenge is two-fold: hydration and poop. I don't typically drink a lot of water. And by a lot, I mean any. I can —and have— gone days without a drop of water. I drink other stuff, like coffee, but I am not the kind of person to seek out a glass of water unless I get extremely thirsty. That's not good for me so I'm forcing myself to drink more. As far as poop goes, well...I'm bathroom shy. Like, extremely. I'm the person who has to wait until everyone is out of the bathroom before I go. I hold it as long as I need to to ensure an empty bathroom. I will also wait out anyone who comes in after I've already started. It's really pretty bad, and this is apparently part of my problem. So, I need to drink more water and poop more freely. Not easy for someone like me, but if I have to suffer a little embarrassment now to avoid being back in the hospital with diverticulitis, so be it.

Bye Bye Calzona...For Now

Before I launch into this rant, I have to make a confession.

I don't actually watch Grey's Anatomy.

I know. What the fuck, right?

I don't watch any tv show religiously any more. I think the last time I made a concentrated effort to tune in to a show on the regular was Buffy, Season 6. Even then I was actually doing double duty, watching Season 6 once a week while watching reruns of seasons 1-5 on FX to catch up because I was a Buffy noob. See, the thing is, I have issues with waiting. I'm an instant gratification kind of girl. Waiting a week between episodes or living through the little hiatuses that shows would have—you know, the ones that would inevitably include some ridiculous cliffhanger just in case you were going to forget the show existed in the interim—proved to be too much for my little impatient self. Luckily, technology trends agreed with me and now I can either wait until everything is available on Netflix and gorge myself (looking at you, Pretty Little Liars), or catch all the relevant clips on Youtube when ready. Netflix even went ahead and said, "You know what? Here. Have a whole original series in one go."

Anyway, resources are plenty for attention-challenged peeps like myself so believe me when I say that even though I've only sat down and watched a couple of episodes in the entire run of the series, I'm up on the Grey's. Between the After Ellen recaps and Youtube, I'm all set and prepared to rant like an expert. Sort've.

The episodes that I watched, by the way, were two pretty pivotal Calzona ones anyway. One was the shooter 2-part episode, where they got back together after almost dying, and the most recent 2-episode arc with the storm where Arizona's skank self cheated. Getting ahead of myself? Yeah. They were great eps too, and simultaneously made me understand why so many are addicted to this show while also confirming my belief that my little heart could not survive the waiting.

On with the show.