Yesterday was a bad day!
I woke up at about 4:30 in the morning with some really bad pains in my lower abdomen around into my low back. I figured it was a pulled muscle or something and tried changing positions.
Pain. Pain. Pain.
So I got out of bed and went to the bathroom. No change.
Walked around the house for a little while. No change, in fact, worse.
I called my sister. It's convenient having a nurse in your pocket. She gave me her usual advice after the barrage of questions, "If it's the worst pain of your life, go to the ER." Now I have a severely skewed pain scale not entirely attributed to my endurance activity habit. A few years ago I managed a bout of meningitis which is by far the worst pain I could ever have imagined so my pain scale is often 1 to meningitis. That scale puts a broken leg marathon at a 3 if that gives you any indication of my perception. I try to use a "normal" pain scale when appropriate and that would make broken leg marathon a 10 which put last night's pain at a 9.5.
To the ER we go.
I try to make it a habit to avoid unpleasant places and the ER has to be on top of that list. I'd rather be just about anywhere else. I'm going to spare you the details of my misery including but not limited to the drunk man snoring, farting and screaming NURSE as he wandered shoeless around our little pod, the elderly woman moaning incessantly because she's constipated from refusing her laxative and stool softeners and has approximately 5 POUNDS OF POO sitting inside of her, the man on vicodin who was unnervingly conscious and didn't understand why he couldn't drive himself home (side note: I was on vicodin with the meningitis and slept for about 2 weeks straight and don't remember any of it), and the other elderly woman who ate a lot of peaches and now felt sick with gas.
Long story short, I still don't know where the pain came from or what caused it. Maybe a kidney stone or ruptured cyst. I have to do some follow ups with my normal doctors and maybe we'll get it figured out.
So what was the small victory? My vital signs were amazing! The triage nurse told me as she hooked me up to all kinds of things that my pulse and blood pressure might be elevated since I was in some pain. I managed a blood pressure of 112 over 70 and pulse (heart rate) of 60! Those numbers actually are a little elevated from my norm but if you'd like to better understand blood pressure, here's some info from the American Heart Association. Basically you want the first number below 120 and the second below 80.
The best news is that I also don't have any pain anymore so I guess it was a fleeting, random occurrence?
I'm getting better at finding those silver linings :)
I woke up at about 4:30 in the morning with some really bad pains in my lower abdomen around into my low back. I figured it was a pulled muscle or something and tried changing positions.
Pain. Pain. Pain.
So I got out of bed and went to the bathroom. No change.
Walked around the house for a little while. No change, in fact, worse.
I called my sister. It's convenient having a nurse in your pocket. She gave me her usual advice after the barrage of questions, "If it's the worst pain of your life, go to the ER." Now I have a severely skewed pain scale not entirely attributed to my endurance activity habit. A few years ago I managed a bout of meningitis which is by far the worst pain I could ever have imagined so my pain scale is often 1 to meningitis. That scale puts a broken leg marathon at a 3 if that gives you any indication of my perception. I try to use a "normal" pain scale when appropriate and that would make broken leg marathon a 10 which put last night's pain at a 9.5.
To the ER we go.
I try to make it a habit to avoid unpleasant places and the ER has to be on top of that list. I'd rather be just about anywhere else. I'm going to spare you the details of my misery including but not limited to the drunk man snoring, farting and screaming NURSE as he wandered shoeless around our little pod, the elderly woman moaning incessantly because she's constipated from refusing her laxative and stool softeners and has approximately 5 POUNDS OF POO sitting inside of her, the man on vicodin who was unnervingly conscious and didn't understand why he couldn't drive himself home (side note: I was on vicodin with the meningitis and slept for about 2 weeks straight and don't remember any of it), and the other elderly woman who ate a lot of peaches and now felt sick with gas.
Long story short, I still don't know where the pain came from or what caused it. Maybe a kidney stone or ruptured cyst. I have to do some follow ups with my normal doctors and maybe we'll get it figured out.
So what was the small victory? My vital signs were amazing! The triage nurse told me as she hooked me up to all kinds of things that my pulse and blood pressure might be elevated since I was in some pain. I managed a blood pressure of 112 over 70 and pulse (heart rate) of 60! Those numbers actually are a little elevated from my norm but if you'd like to better understand blood pressure, here's some info from the American Heart Association. Basically you want the first number below 120 and the second below 80.
The best news is that I also don't have any pain anymore so I guess it was a fleeting, random occurrence?
I'm getting better at finding those silver linings :)
I'm very proud of your silver lining finding! :) I'm glad the pain didn't continue!
ReplyDeleteSo glad it wasn't anything serious.
ReplyDeleteBodies are a weird thing with their aches & pain & moans & groans... better to safe though - glad you went to the ER!
The ER freaks me out.... with the people & things that happen around there. I think there should be more reality shows from ER's :)
I had that once in college. It was such sudden intense pain I thought my appendix burst or something. After the night in the ER and the pain just went away the doc said I must have just passed a larger egg than normal. ??? Who knows.
ReplyDelete