Warning: This post contains discussions of an "intestinal distress" and "visit to the hospital" nature. Also, it is lengthy.
I was pretty sure I'd end up at the Emergency Room on the day of the Dyke March this year if Katr decided to offer her brilliant marketing ideas to radical lesbians and trans persons in person this time instead of via her blog. So you can imagine my surprise when I ended up there HOURS before the Dyke March and for a completely different reason! A reason that rhymes with "bamoebic bysentery".
I'm not the kind of person who says things like "I know my body", because the truth is, I kinda don't. But I DO have a great memory. So when I started to get sick on Wednesday, I thought "Heeeey, wait a minute. This feels . . . familiar! It's kinda like six years ago when I had what I thought was food poisoning, but turned out to be a kind of infection that kills people in Third World Countries!"
I spent Wednesday night in the ladies' shitter a) pleading with my intestines to "Pleeeeeeeeeease stop hurting meeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!" on an hourly basis and b) wondering if I would make it back to bed before I fainted or if I should just aim for the laundry pile. But then Thursday morning, I felt a little better, so I decided to hold off seeing a doctor. But then Thursday night rolled around.
It was like Wednesday night all over again EXCEPT that as an added bonus, my brain had decided to replay a song over and over in my head, you know, to comfort and anchor me in my faint and shivering state. And that song was "My Humps" by the Black Eyed Peas.
Words cannot express how much I LOATHE "My Humps" by the Black Eyed Peas. When I first heard the song, I thought it was a Saturday Night Live parody of an actual song. It wasn't. I've heard the song three times in total and somehow I know all the words. I don't know what was more hideous - the hourly visits to the bathroom, the sickly sweet energy drink I kept sipping to keep from dehydrating or hearing "Mix your milk with my coco puff, milky milky coco, mix your milk with my coco puff, milky milky riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight" ONE MILLION TIMES. By morning I was a broken woman. It was time to go to the doctor.
The last time I had the amoebic dysentery (which, by the way, is my catch-all term for long-term intestinal distress), I saw the doctor at a walk-in clinic. He gave me antibiotics on the understanding that I would not take them without returning with (gah) a sample. We will not speak of it. I agreed to his terms, since the testing would take three days and I was on the edge of killing my houseguest AND myself. Literally minutes after taking the first pill, I felt better. One day later, it was like it had never happened. And a week later, when I went back to the clinic in the pink of health to get the test results, the doctor said "Wow. Good thing you took those pills when you did. This thing you had kills people in Third World countries." Good times!
Armed with this story and sure I wouldn't get in to see my family doctor on short notice, I went to the nearest walk-in clinic. After waiting for an hour and nearly passing out in the waiting room, I got to see the doctor. I told him my story and that I needed antibiotics. He told me to take some Immodium and asked me if I'd heard of Gatorade. I fully cried in this man's office, people. "What do you think I'm going to do with them? What's the street value of penicillin?" He patted my arm, wrote something down on a prescription pad, and left. I looked at the prescription. It said "Immodium".
Later that day, by some miracle, I got in to see my actual doctor. I told her my story and that I needed antibiotics. She told me to take Gravol and drink Gastro-lyte, because Gatorade has too much sugar. The phrases "try to ride it out" and "go to the E.R. for fluids if you get really dizzy" were used. I like my doctor, it seemed like she was taking me seriously and I wanted to believe her. So I took the first doctor's Immodium and the second doctor's Gravol and split the difference with Powerade and the dysentery got worse and that's how, early Saturday morning, Katr and I ended up at the E.R.
Dr. Carrie Weaver was not present.
"Sorry for the wait," the triage nurse said as she got all set to sign me in. "I just had some drunks in here and they pissed in the lobby."
I got a kicky bracelet and a tiny bed and a lovely red-haired nurse whose name rhymed with "Beslie". I told her my story (even the part about "My Humps" - she seemed so sympathetic) and that I needed antibiotics. She hooked me up to an IV and then attempted to take some blood. It didn't go well.
"Hmm. You're pretty dry. Maybe here . . . noooo. Okay, make a fist, make a fist . . . [slap slap slap] Okay, this one looks good, let me just . . .Oh, lord love a duck."
Beslie went over her two-poke limit and had to call in another nurse. We'll call her Bernice.
Bernice was clearly busy and put out. She didn't fuck around with ducks. Bernice stuck me quick and hard, just below my thumb joint. And then, when the second vial didn't fill as quickly as she wanted, she jammed the needle in harder and ROOTED AROUND, like she was looking to hit the Hope Diamond. I nearly puked. There was no love from Bernice. She told me to hold a cotton ball down on it and took off. My hands looked like a crime scene. I felt very butch.
That ordeal over, Beslie came back with some stool sample gathering accoutrements and encouraged me to make use of them. Know what's hard? Crapping in a cardboard box while you've got an IV stuck in your hand. Fortunately, before I had to experience the full horror, the doctor came in. He barely made eye contact and it was like Katr wasn't there at all. But he DID give me a prescription for antibiotics.
The fluorescent lights behind him glowed like a halo as he passed it to me. I have never seen a healthcare professional look so beautiful.
Katr filled my prescription and took me home and generally took care of her whiny-like-a-man girlfriend for the rest of the day. And the next day. And I started to feel like myself again almost right away. Only tired. And a little thinner. But not so much so that I would advocate amoebic dysentery as a weight-loss method, so don't get any ideas.
I will never drink Powerade again.
