Snowtember and my Trip to Urgent Care

I know, I know... I haven't been posting lately so there's a lot for us to catch up on. In my previous post I mentioned going to the hospital and being in urgent care. I actually really want to talk about this because I am passionate about spreading awareness for the disease that I have. 

So what happened? 
I was at work at the pet store, doing my job as per usual. I had a lot of 30lbs dog food bags to put away, and I'm relatively OCD when it comes to keeping my store clean and organized. I was very quite industrious, and I was all over the place putting food away, re-organizing dog toys, stacking cans, etc. I was also training a new girl and I wanted to set a good example. Our store is really quiet most of the time, so the new staff often mistakes that for being time to sit around. No. That means there's time to create the cutest most organized pet food store in all of Alberta. I guess I kind of went overboard (surprise surprise) because I started getting persistent pelvic pain. 

Let me stop right here and make it clear that pelvic pain is my life. I have a chronic and incurable disease called Endometriosis. I am passionate about talking about this disease because very few people know what it is and the disease is pretty damn horrible. Because it's not a fatal disease and only women can get it, there is very little research done on this illness and it takes (on average) 7 years for most women to get a proper diagnosis. There is no cure, and "treatment" for this illness is rudimentary, temporary, and rather useless. 

Anyways, so the pelvic pain. My pain started getting pretty bad, but I'm so used to it that I took a few narcotic pain relievers and tried to ignore it. The pain kept persisting, to the point where I could hardly stand and even sitting was painful. It worsened and worsened until I proceeded to vomit into the sink in the back of the store. I was in agony and I knew I had to go to the hospital. 

So I told the girl I was training that I called my boss, call if she has questions, I'm off to the hospital good luck have fun don't burn the store down. 

Kinda like this only not really.

So I went home and asked my dad to drive me to urgent care. He dropped me off and the wait began. I waited. And waited. And waited. And then I got sick again so I got an emergency cardboard puke bucket. I was lonely as hell so I named my puke bucket Harold and he kept me company. After a couple hours of waiting I doubled over in the waiting room and it was a little bit pathetic. They got me into a bed after that and the exams began. 

I drink a lot of water, but because of my vomiting, I was extremely dehydrated. By the time they had me in a bed, I was shaking and shivering and I was clammy and cold and gross. It took the nurse- get this- half an hour to get an IV in my arm. She spent half an hour poking needles in my arm, taking them out, apologizing, and prodding my arms. After 30 minutes of this she was like ah, fuck it and jammed it in the crook of my left arm. WELL then the blood came out. It was comical, because the nurse was like "Oh it's really spurting now!" we filled up the blood sample viles pretty damn quick. (Might I add that Harold was still by my side like the loyal little fucker he was). I did a urine test, and waited (not so patiently) for the results. 

says: INSERT PAIN KILLERS HERE.

I was rolling around the hospital bed in a lot of pain, so I was utterly thrilled when the nurse came in with a syringe of morphine. 

Here's the thing about intravenous morphine. It hits you like a fucking truck. One moment you're just kinda laying there, in pain. Then the nurse slowly squeezes the syringe into your IV line. Nothing, nothing, wait for it... wait for it..... oh sweet jesus. 

My face when the morphine hit

I find that it always seems to hit my legs first. Like my legs go numb and feel like they're floating and then the rest of my body follows suite. So I go from being that disgruntled pain stricken thing to a slightly happier disgruntled thing. 

If I had a dollar for every time I was called beautiful I would have $1 thanks mom

The morphine successfully took my pain down from an "8" to a "2" so I was very thankful. My urine test came back and I was informed that there blood showed up in the results. Blood in one's pee is, imagine this, abnormal. So the nurse thought it would be wise to get me into X-Ray asap. Now, here's when things got weird. The ER doctor came in. I do not want to refer to her as a doctor because she was just so horrible, unprofessional, and gross. (Like I think I saw her dancing on a bar at Road House last year). 

So let's call her Tits McGee. 

So Tits McGee comes in and asks me if I'm pregnant, and I tell her no, and that I also have an IUD. She says to me: "well it's still possible. I have one too and every time I'm like, oh-my-god, please work!" 

... uuummmm ok? 

She then goes on, "So you have blood in your urine but it's ok." Pardon? 

"You have blood in your pee but no infection so you'll be fine. Do you have any questions?" 

 

She didn't do any other tests. Didn't even test for kidney stones. I asked her if it was at all possible for my endometriosis to have spread onto my bladder and perhaps that's why I've been in so much pain when I pee and maybe possibly perhaps that's why I'm pissing blood. What did she say? She replied "no, I don't think that's possible." 

I'm no fucking doctor but I'm pretty sure that's in the realm of possibility. 

Here's a very interesting read from Endo Link Magazine for those who wish to get more information on endometriosis on the bowel and bladder. 

Again, I'm no doctor, so I'm going in to see my specialist tomorrow morning. Maybe he will have some answers for me, or some better pain relief.  

Now you gorgeous readers may be wondering why there's this "Snowtember" in this post title. Wanna know what snowtember is? Let me tell you. Snowtember is what happened when we got winter in summer here in Alberta. 

I talked about this premature winter a little bit in my post Winter is Here.

We got smoked with a huge dump of snow early this September. It was so bad that trees literally collapsed onto the streets, fell into homes, and bushes were crushed. Don't believe me? Here's the proof: 

A picture I took of my backyard early this September.

clean-up is expected to cost around 4 million dollars (Via Calgary Sun)

We Calgarians just rolled our eyes and got out the snow brushes early. (Via Windsor Star)

On the bright side, it was a wonderful opportunity to test out our barn! We got the horses in there all cozied up and they seemed to appreciate being out of the cold and snow!

Bella, left and Scooter, right, seemed to enjoy their warm stalls!

Ok, people. That's it for tonight. Thanks for reading!

Cheers!

-Captain Lakie, the Silly Mallard