5.5 hours

For the guys: You can read this post - but you may not appreciate all of it. Consider yourself warned.

My evening did not go as planned. We had lunch with friends today and that was fun. When we got home, I was going to watch a movie that was going to be on tonight...be in bed by 10pm and read my book and go to sleep at 11pm. Lovely.

Earlier today I had some abdominal pain. I noticed here and there, nothing terrible - but noticeable. By the time we got home, it was pretty bad. So now came all the questions of what is it and if I should go to the ER or what. I decided to go to urgent care.

6:30pm I leave and travel over to the urgent care. When I get there they tell me to have a seat in the lobby and as I am waiting I am looking around. I am noticing all the signs are up twice - one in English and one in Spanish...then I see another sign and realize it is all in English and there is not Spanish version. It is talking about having an HMO and how most HMO insurance company's do not cover the urgent care visit without a referral. I completely forgot that I have an HMO until I read this sign, which is completely unlike me. So I go outside to have the on call doctor paged...she calls me back and tells me that the urgent care visit is not going to be covered even with her okay and that I need to go to the ER anyway because they will most likely do imaging tests and the urgent care does not provide those services and they would just send me over anyway.

I was trying to avoid the ER. I honestly thought when I left home that I would be home by 8pm, maybe 8:30pm...especially since the urgent care closes at 8pm.

I get to the ER and wait to register. There are two women in labor - one is checked in waiting for L&D to come get her and the other one is registering. They ask her if her water broke and she did not answer as if she was clueless so they ask her if her bag, her bag of water broke...is it still there? She was completely clueless and said "I don't know" as if she did not know what they were referring to. How did you get to be this far along in your pregnancy?

I go into the triage room and they go through all the vitals and questions and send me back into the waiting room. Fortunately, I did not have to wait long to be taken back into a semi-private nook. Motel 6 was were I was at. I call them semi-private nooks because they are just separated by curtains...and I was in #6.

I am all by myself because I did not think this was going to be a big to-do. I change into the gown, I go pee in a cup, the lady comes asking for the insurance card and asks for money. Evan did not come because he was obviously home with Liliana. My mom is sick so I told her to keep her sick self home that I would be fine. But my family does not operate this way and so in walks my sister. She was very sweet for coming and stayed until I got a diagnosis. We had some good laughs from listening to the people on either side of me and good conversation.

The doctor comes in and asks questions and then says she thinks the pain is from my ovaries and she has to do a pelvic exam. Definitely not what I had envisioned for my Sunday night. So my sister leaves and I strip down and the doctor and the nurse come back and she does her little exam. I guess I do not have to go to the gyne to get my yearly pap done now, so there is one thing off the to do list. I also must say, ladies - this is why you keep clean and tidy down there. You never know when it will be exposed. And yes, I was all that and thankful I was.

After the exam I had the pleasure of having a catheter put in. It is an interesting procedure. They swab you with Betadine first and it is cold stuff, I think they pulled it out of the fridge or something. Then they do the inserting and they inflate the balloon to keep it in and there you have it.

At this point we wait for what seemed like forever to get the ultrasound. They come and transport me over to the ultrasound department and now the real fun begins. First things first, fill my bladder for me. As she is looking for the hook up on the catheter I tell her they taped the tube to my leg and so she has to take that off. It was a bit unpleasant as she peeled it off and that tape is so sticky that I still have the remnants of it on my thigh. So she hooks up the solution and my bladder fills. Once the bag is 3/4 empty, she starts the ultrasound. They really have to press to do the ultrasound and man it is not comfortable. Then she asks me if I am ok, I say yes...even though it is very uncomfortable and my eyes are welling up....only because my bladder is overflowing out of my eyeballs...so she says alright then I am going to let it fill a little bit more. She finishes that part and it is on to bigger and better things.

She opens the catheter and I could feel by bladder just collapse as the fluid came out. It was wonderful. Then she took the catheter out and went to throw it away and she said she would let me go to the bathroom. What? Everything just came out, what am I going to the bathroom for? So she came back and I told her that unless she needed me to go for some reason, I was fine. Strange. Now it is time for the internal ultrasound. Out comes the dildo. I am not kidding, this ultrasound wand thing is just like one - disclaimer: I do not have one. I have not used one. I must admit, I have been to a sex toy part and therefore have seen and touched one. So anyway, she has me insert it. It is a nasty feeling as if a condom is over it and I feel a little dirty inserting it myself. So I ask her, "why do you do that?" and she thought I was asking about the actual internal exam...then I said no - have us put it in. Bottom line is that it is for patient comfort that some people might feel a little violated if they just stick this thing inside them...but from now on, I am going to tell them they can just do it. Everything was going along fine until she hit the spot of the pain, I almost jumped off the bed. Luckily it did not last long and I was on my way back to motel 6.

I get back and this nurse that I did not have earlier comes in and this is the converstion, starting with her:
"I'm going to get hooked back up to everything."
"I wasn't hooked up to anything."
"Oh, um....am I in the right room?" And she goes out and comes back in and says she is in the right room and says
"Hooked up to the blood pressure"
"Oh, I wasn't hooked up to that before"
"Yep we just need to take your vitals again." As if she did not just walk into the room completely confused.

They finally come in and tell me that I had a cyst that ruptured and they will give me some medicine and blah blah blah follow up with your doctor and you can go.

My sister leaves and I wait to be discharged. This lady comes in and you can tell she wants to get me out of there faster than I want to leave, and I want to leave! She was like, so the doctor told you what you had, right? Yes. And she told you why you are having abdominal pain, right? Yes. So I don't need to explain it to you? No. (No it is okay, you do not have to take the time to explain it to me. I know that might be difficult for you and take much more time that you would like to spend in here) She says she has to take my blood pressure once more and then there are some papers to sign. She puts on the blood pressure cuff on my right arm and the pulse ox meter on my right index finger and lays down this clipboard and tells me where to sign. "I'm a righty." It took her a minute, but she figured out that I could not have my vitals taken with my right arm and sign her papers at the same time. She takes my vitals and puts the clipboard down again and tells me where to sign before even taking stuff off. Way to push a person out. I have to tell ya dear, I do not want to be spending the night here either...I will not be long, just give me a chance and the ability to sign, and we will be just fine.

So that was evening. 5 and a half hours of pure bliss, at least I got home 1 minute before midnight and so I can say it was all on Sunday! (have to find the plus somewhere!...besides that nothing is seriously wrong, just very painful)

On a side note - referring to a previous blog: as I was waiting to be discharged this lady in the nook next to me was talking to her family (her father was the patient) but she says it: "I have to go potty." I wanted to scream, but had to just laugh. :)

And now, it is time for me to get some zzzz's.