SURGERY

       So...I had a CT scan booked for today. So effing glad they didn't make me wait! I was in the most pain and discomfort I have ever been in, more than I thought was possible. Puking and sweating and shaking so hard. I'm sure I made a lot of people feel uncomfortable, especially when I did that screaming thing when I was retching. Ew. But yeah, I don't know if I was screaming because of the effort, because of the pain, or because that's just how people puke. I don't do it a lot.

      But on Friday, I think, I was hospitalized a third time. Ugh. This time the doctors actually conversed about my X-rays and started wondering if it was a kidney stone. No hesitation, they get on the phone and arrange for me to have my CT scan that same day; next thing I know...well, I'm still in the same uncomfortable chair puking and trying not to cry, but after that I'm flying down hallway after hallway in a wheelchair by the most amazing hospital transfer guy. I'm wearing a nightie, and I'm afraid it'll fly up, that's how fast he was going. That or he just had really long legs...everybody's tall to me.

      A couple more hours of pure torture later, I'm in the CT with a needle in my hand (which was in there for 2 days straight, thank you very much!) feeling this dye, this incredibly warm dye, spreading through my entire body. I was transferred by wheelchair and I'm still sitting in the wheelchair in the waiting room, trying not to watch this overly-affectionate couple; I mean, she was all over him, kissing him all the bloody time. You're in a loving relationship, great! Time and place, people.

      Then I get wheeled off to a waiting room, where I get to my feet because unfortunately, Transfer Guy has to leave. He was awesome; very skillful in maneuvering me, and he played good music. So there I sit, in a haze of unbelievable pain and nausea, trying to converse with a receptionist who clearly thinks I'm stupid, because she was scoffing and rolling her eyes at me when I couldn't recite my mother's new phone number without looking. Anyway, the bitch takes me to another waiting room, though not before holding up traffic so she can gab to someone. Dumps me in a narrow curtained space with about six chairs in it and fucks off.

      At least twelve hours go by. Twelve hours of puking, shaking, sweating, and listening to this poor guy with fluid in his lungs; I hope he got in by now. Jeez. A nurse comes along, finally. Fiddles with my IV, fucks off. More time goes by. More nurses come and go, but they're not mine. Finally a nurse comes back to me and I ask her to check my IV, to make sure it's in correctly because it looks like it's coming out. Doesn't even turn her head, just says, "It's in correctly," like every-body there is infallible (luckily the bitch was right, but I was in such a bad mood that when she left, I mimicked her words and muttered, "Fucking turn your head." I was so miserable I didn't care, but I think I made the guy beside me laugh. Small wins, right?)

      Guy beside me eventually goes in for kidney stone surgery. I don't see him again. Boom, doctor comes up to me, I have to go in for kidney stone surgery. What was it, the kidney stone waiting room? I don't care, I'm just so happy to finally be going somewhere; I wanted surgery days ago. I think I was a highly cooperative patient. I put up with three enemas that did nothing, used the commode a bunch of times because at least they are not embarrassed, and didn't hesitate at all to have a medical device go up past my urethra. But when I woke up...oh my god. No more pain! I could think. I could breathe! I almost cried again.

      But they inserted something that does stretch you out a little down there, so things can pass, including stones. It makes me want to pee, like, all the time. I'm looking forward to getting it out in two weeks, but I also want it to stay in. Apparently I'm too narrow. I don't want this to happen again. I wouldn't wish this on my enemy.

      But yeah, my doctors and nurses... Man, if I was religious, I'd have called them all angels. And you know what? Tylenol keeps the pain away. Oh, right, the stent they put in me can cause pain, which is the same pain I had before my surgery. So that sucks, but at least there's Tylenol. And I am now on four different prescription meds... Well, we'll see. Two of them are these gigantic pills that I'm not sure I can do, because they don't want me crushing them or breaking them. Something I have always done, because I choke easy. I'm trying them out soon, unfortunately, and if I can't, well, then I just won't. In two more weeks I'll have another surgery to get everything nice and wide down there, and hopefully the stone will be no more.

      I just wish I could remember that nurse's laugh. I know it was beautiful. I remember one of them saying I had "stellar" blood pressure, which is shocking, because I've been under the impression it was high. You know, after someone told me it was. And today, my mother's friend said I "looked good"...which is also shocking.

      Anyway, this has all been slowly escalating over the course of a month, probably brought on by that whole big thing with my neighbor. And I haven't slept very much this whole time, so I think I'm going to try to choke down my meds and lie down. Not like there's a bloody point. Even feeling this good, I'm still uncomfortable. I think I can feel that thing in me. Fun fact; people sometimes remove it at home!

      No thanks. I'm gonna let the pros do this. You know, I have had some horrifying, traumatizing stuff happen to me in hospitals; but over the course of the past four days (or whatever), I'm just not afraid anymore. The doctors and the nurses treated me so well, I actually dreaded coming home. I mean, I can't get the help I need here! What if the stone shifts? What if I'm allergic to these pills?

      Now I hate it here. I feel so unsafe now. I know stress might be a factor in kidney stones and I'm trying to be calm, but... I never have been. People think I am, because I don't express it, but I am always so anxious. Hello, I used to be a shut-in who called her mother if she heard sirens. I don't think my family remembers that. I tried taking my life when I was a child; don't think they remember that!

      A doctor told me there are so many factors to stones that they don't even know the leading one. They don't even know, and I'm supposed to be calm. Knowing I can feel like this again. Seven years from now, a month from now, tomorrow!

      I just want them to make me like a foot wide down there. Okey-dokes? Pretty please? It's not like I'm ever going to be using my womb, so let's just swap it out! Use it for experiments or something. Try to impregnate an animal, or see if a shoe fits in there. Use it as a planter, I don't care, but make me wide.

      I can't even sleep now without dreaming of hospitals and doctors. Which is fine, until I wake up and realize how helpless and alone and without a clue I am.