Posts
* If you are squeamish stop reading now.
As most of you know I rarely, if ever, miss school. However, all that changed Tuesday night. I was quietly watching a special on Jupiter’s moons around 6:00 PM when I began to feel “odd.” I lay down on the couch, and my little girl came to check on me and asked if I were ok. When I told her I felt bad, she wanted to help. My little one got a coffee cup, filled it with red Hawaiian Punch and dropped a few ice cubes in. I took it and sent her on her way in case I was contagious. I began to feel worse with a dull pain right below the center of my chest at the top of my stomach. It grew worse, and felt like it was increasing in diameter. I made my way to the bedroom to lie down early for the night. I told my wife that I just didn’t feel well. The pain grew worse and the weird feeling in my upper stomach grew larger. In a few minutes I began to feel intense nausea. This was horrendous and reminded me of what many pregnant ladies have described. However, certain that I was not pregnant; I rushed to the restroom where I began a trip to a place I have never been before. We had ordered pizza for supper. I began to vomit. I regretted the pizza immediately. I expected to feel better after the initial upchucking and was not disappointed. I felt better for about 2 minutes. Then I noticed that the pain in my upper stomach had started again. The nausea returned even worse. I raced to the restroom where I once more delivered pizza to the porcelain patron. I knew at that point that I was in for a wild night. About every 10-15 minutes, I returned to place my face closer to a toilet than I care to remember. It was at my second or third delirious visit that the notion that this was not a “normal” puking came to me. It was so much more. I threw up in a way that makes elephant birthing seem easy. I hit the toilet; I was at an intensely close range. However, I also managed to launch projectiles to the floor, the surrounding walls, and the splatter effect nailed my shirt, hair, and face, until after each session I needed a washcloth bath. I started removing my T-shirt prior to puking. (Yes, I had that much fine control.) I could tell when it was about to happen. I imagine I made a grand vision of masculinity when my wife would check on me. I would yell between gags, “Get out of here!” or “Don’t come in here!” I knew that if I were contagious that I didn’t want to give this to my family. I was certain that the bile geyser would soon cease. It had to. There was no way that I had anything left to donate. However, for some reason, I managed to keep going like a male Emperor Penguin regurgitating force fed food into the toilet. I threw up things from another dimension. This was more than disembarking dinner. I was violently ill. At this point my large intestine apparently felt left out. (I’ll not go into to this one.) Suffice it to say, that I experienced unique and amazing bodily coordination. My entrance and exit only hatches worked in eerie concert to empty my body of fluids not to mention the rivulets of cold sweat that raced down my face like rain. I am told that all this is what drug me down into dehydration. I had never been dehydrated before. At last I experienced a brief refrain from the gastrointestinal equivalent to the last days of Pompeii. As I lay panting on my bed in exhaustion, my wife quietly asked from the door.
“Is there anything I can get you? Is there anything you need?”
“A bullet.” I quipped.
The dehydration was making me feel so bad that I have trouble describing it. I can only say that you have to experience dehydration in order to truly understand it. I thought my heart was going to stop, and I wondered if I might die. I am not a complainer and my wife takes me serious when I do. I usually tough out things, but this time it was not to be. I told my wife that I was not going to be able to manage this by myself, and that she needed to call my dad to get me to the emergency room. When my dad arrived, he stood waiting on me. My wife had to dress me, which in another situation might have been fun, but at that moment I felt like a bloated toad in a pie pan.
My dad got me to the emergency room where I stumbled in and sat at the admissions desk. After buzzing the call button, and waiting a bit, the clerk arrived. My head was down, but I managed to give them my insurance information. I wondered what they might think if I were to hurl all over the desk. They took me back and placed me, not on a bed, but what I think was some sort of mobile gurney used in an ambulance. It was very narrow and the whole time I felt like a walrus on a surfboard. The nurse came in and took my vitals and used the automatic blood pressure cup. These things operate like a boa constrictor. I thought it might crush the bones in my arm. After this came the IV. To the nurse’s credit, she hit my vein on the first try. The slow process of rehydration had begun. Hours later I still lay shivering on the surf board bed despite warm blankets. I could not drink, but they did allow me to eat ice chips. The ice was delicious but made my shivering worse. They kept coming in to use the constrictor cup to take my blood pressure while I lay in the bed. They would then have me stand up and retake it along with my pulse rate. You have not lived until you have to stand up with a blood pressure cup on your arm, an IV in your vein while sick and freezing. I was told this was how they determined if I was still dehydrated. My readings should be about the same if all was well. They never returned to normal, and the doctor spoke about admitting me to the hospital. I was able to talk my way out of admission. (You all have seen our deductible.) I was finally sent home around 4:30 AM. My wonderful dad raced to get the truck to pull around to the ambulance entrance so I would not have to walk far. Little did I know, until the next day, that he threw up in the parking lot. Thankfully, he did not get as ill as I did, but he still stayed in bed a couple of days and got very sick. I stumbled into my home and made my way to bed around 5:00 AM. I was to stay there for the next two days. Finally, on Friday, I began to feel some better, and at lunch my wife and I went to get something to eat. It was not pizza.
I’m back today and glad of it. The residual effects of my ordeal are fatigue. My energy level is low, and I feel foggy headed. However, I can function. I wanted to thank all of you that contacted me while I was ill. I appreciate all the folks that I have run into today that have asked about me and wished me well. All the people that handled my absence by either delivering my lesson plans or helping the subs out are deeply appreciated. This is one of the reasons I love Edinburg. The concern we have for each other here speaks well of this little school. My wonderful wife took care of me and put up with my dark humor through all of it. (She has to cope with that all the time anyway.) I have never been that sick before. Maybe it was harder because I am older. Thank God for family and friends. Thank God for health.
