Wind In My Head: Surreal much
Wind In My Head
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Surreal much
I spent last night in hospital. Not for the kids. For me.Late yesterday afternoon, I had tummy cramps. I'd had them before. Gastric cramps. 3 weeks ago. I didn't think i was going to see a reoccurence so quickly. Anyway, we had a course to get to in the evening and half way there, I said to Packrat that I didn't think I could make my way through the entire 3 hour course. So we went home.
The cramps came in waves of 3. A little one. Sort of like an "aura" cramp. A mid-level pain one. And once that ebbs, the full on motherload one that left me climbing walls, biting pillows, banging headboards just to keep myself from screeching in agony.
Of course, Packrat decided that a GP wasn't going to be good enough, plus parking at night at Holland Village borders on the ridiculous so why waste time? It was straight to Emergency where thankfully, the staff saw that I was dire enough to whisk me right in. Apparently, it would have been bad PR to leave me waiting with the rest of the patients in the waiting room.
Once they got the pain under control, which incidentally took them a good 3 hours because what they started me on didn't work... I took a look around and then wondered if I was lucid or if it was one of those dreams that seemed that like reality but was actually a doppel-world.
There were people of all sorts. In my brother's (who did a couple of ER rotations) words, "lots of weirdos in the ER at night".
1. There was a drunk guy who was yelling at the staff for not allowing him to go to the bathroom. He was wearing an "I'm cool, what's it to you?" t-shirt that in my moments of clarity seemed stangely out of place but apt on him, at the same time.
2. There was a guy who kept yelling for drugs.
3. The one who snored like a fog horn beside me despite all the noise and lights in the ER.
4. The one who had bags and bags of vomit and was still going at it across the room.
5. An entire group of sombre people trooping in and then trooping out, leading me to think someone must have died.
6. The malingerer who kept saying that he had a brain tumour in his head because he had bump on his head and wanted to stay in hospital for a week.
7. Another one who was having chest compressions done to him.
8. Hearing all these terms like 'craniotomy' and 'lipoma' and actually hearing them use the term "push some tramadol".
9. Being able to watch Grey's Anatomy (without sound) while in the Emergency room.
10. Watching my blood spray onto the blanket and floor when they removed the drip and then wonder what sort of blood spatter pattern it was making in CSI terms.
Someone should make a tv episode through the eyes of the patient. It would be plenty bizarre.
Incidentally, to answer the oft asked question, I don't know what I ate. I thought very hard about it and the strange coincidence I could find between the two episodes was that I had raisin bread both times and nothing else for lunch.
Added: For some of the medical readers out there who wanted to know more details than I put in, I had 3 bags of saline pumped into me, 2 shots of tramadol which DID NOT work, 30 ml of VERY vile tasting antacids and finally some Buscophan which stopped the cramping and led me to wonder why that wasn't the first course of action. Apparently, it was because I had said that I had taken some and thrown it up so they thought they'd let the residual Buscophan in me take effect. Only 3 hours later when I was still climbing the rails of the gurney in agony did they figure they had better give me another shot. After which, I was lucid and wanted to go home but they decided to keep me in for observation.
And my observation of the whole thing? Childbirth must feel like that with the waves of what is actually uterine cramping also known as labour. And it led me to think that I could not do natural delivery without pain relief although I was swiftly told that I could and pain was all in the mind. We shall see... if the opportunity ever presented itself.
Technorati Tags: Singapore, hospitals
Ondine tossed this thought in at 10:49
2 thoughts...
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At 11:45 pm
Unknown said... You poor thing. are you ok now? rest rest rest. hugs.
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At 1:49 pm
YY said...
Oh dear, did they explain to you why you got those cramps? It's not renal colic, is it?
If a 'next-time' happens (touch wood), just straight-away tell them that Tramadol doesn't work for you and only a buscopan shot works.
YY.