Jan. 31: I.V. League (ha ha ha splat)

Continued from yesterday morning’s post…

Friday was more of the same with my severe headache and nausea/pukin’. It was not fun to be me or anyone in earshot or noseshot, that’s for sure.

By 7:30 last night I’d had it. I felt sure I was dehydrated after keeping almost nothing down for two days, and my head was no better. And you know how sometimes an empty stomach can make your head pound? And so can retching? My nausea and headache were fighting it out and guess which was winning? WHO CARES? I was on the losing end no matter what.

Vic took me to the emergency room. We had hoped for Grandma to take the kids but we couldn’t find her, so we packed their Nintendo DS games and dragged them along with us. The only thing that bothered them was listening to me throw up in the car; even after I was done they wouldn’t take their fingers out of their ears. As they sat in the corner of my tiny little room in the ER, Vic and I agreed that choosing two DS systems over one Wii was probably the best decision we made at Christmas last year. We finally got hold of Darlene around 10 and she took them home with her. I love that woman.

One nice surprise was to see that my ER doctor was a familiar face—Kelli Dunks Westcott, a friend from Auburn and WWC. She was great, and I don’t think it was just because we knew her. I have really come to appreciate young doctors—not Doogie-young, but me-young. Which some people might say is old. To which I say SHUT. UP.

I was given an IV and two bags of fluids for rehydration, as well as Zofran for nausea and two big doses of Dilotin for pain. My nausea disappeared almost immediately, but the pain stuck around for a while. Later Kelli added another pain med. It helped, but my headache still hung on.

Oh, and remember in my last post I mentioned my back pain that didn’t seem to be muscular? It wasn’t. I have a urinary tract infection. I knew it. Listen to your body, people—you know what it’s telling you! Kelli said that there’s a connection between urinary tract infections and headaches in women, but they so rarely get treated properly because why would anyone make that connection? Interesting.

All the IV meds made me pretty loopy last night and when we finally got home around 2 a.m. I went straight to bed. Actually, I ate a banana and then went to bed. It felt so nice to eat. I also slept very well; I don’t think I moved much the whole night long. When I woke up this morning my nausea was still gone (hooray!) but my headache is back to an 8 on the pain scale. Grr. I’m hoping that will get better now that I’m able to eat and on antibiotics.

Right now Victor is out filling my prescriptions for oral nausea medication and antibiotics. I ate some breakfast and will probably spend as much of the day resting as I can. I’m supposed to help out at the big carnival at school this afternoon/evening so I need to get well(er). Vic and I are working the prize room and putt-putt game, and a puke-fest could really spoil either or both of those events. Vic said maybe he’ll start practicing his most sincere, “Sorry, let Mrs. Manullang wipe that off for ya.”

Here are two reasons you might not want my husband as your escort to the emergency room. First, he can make this item into a million different things, all of them R-rated and/or offensive:



And secondly, right after I got hooked up to all the IV and machine stuff, his shoelace broke and he goes, “Oh, MAN! Everything bad happens to ME!”

Lastly, I’m kind of embarrassed because now you all know I have a urinary tract. Please don’t blab it.