So, scratch ALL of that

From October 9, 2008


Yesterday morning at 5 am I start vomiting blood again. And it won't stop. Again. I called the office & they paged the doctor on call. She called me and told me that no, this was NOT normal and to meet her at the ER. Fantastic.

I jump in the car and get down there. She checks around in my throat and determines that part of the wound in my right tonsil hasn't been fully cauterized and as the patches are coming off it's bleeding and leaking into my stomach. So she fills a needle with lidocaine, shoots up my tonsil, and cauterizes. I am sent home. On my way home, two blocks from my house, I spit blood again. I turn around and drive back to the ER. The surgeon I saw that morning was in surgery but wanted me to gargle with ice water to knock off the clot on my tonsil and stop any bleeding, and she would be over when she was done. I do this and am sitting in the waiting room spitting clear into a cup for about an hour. Then it's blood again. Alot of blood. So I'm vomiting blood again and I'm trying to gargle ice water at the same time to stop the bleeding and they put me in a room and decide to give me an IV.

The nurse says she's going to take some blood and she gives me an IV at the same time. In the bend of my arm. That is the worst place. I hate it there, do not want it there. Then she refuses to put a piece of tape over it so I can't see wheere it's going into my skin because it really makes me uncomfortable. She said they need to be able to see the injection site incase something goes wrong with it. I say awesome, thanks. I stand up at the sink to try and gargle more ice water and I have a panic attack. I can feel the IV fluid in my ear and my face, I'm suddenly light headed, my heart is racing, I can't breathe, I'm yelling and gasping for breath and looking around the room for a call button. The door is wide open but no one is hearing me and I am just losing it. I crumple over on the gurney panting Oh God, Oh God, Oh God, and things seems to be calming down, as a nurse comes by and asks if she heard me calling out. Um, yeah. Ya might have.

The surgeon shows up, I lay down normal on the gurney, I'm hooked up to all kinds of machines, she pokes around in there some more looking for the bleed spot. But I'm not bleeding anymore. I get up and jump up & down some, dance around, sit down with my head between my legs, massage my throat, suck really hard on a straw trying to make it bleed again so she can see exactly where it's coming from. No luck. So she fills another needle up with lidocaine, numbs up a larger swath of my tonsil, and cauterizes deeper and wider than before. This time there's the smell. The stench of burning flesh and it makes me want to vomit. If you've never encountered this smell count yourself lucky. I got the bonus of it being in my mouth which comes with it's own unique taste. Fucking nauseatingly disgusting. We determine that our work here is done. They unhook me and send me home telling me if this happens again to of course call the surgeon and come back.

So I drive home. And I sit down. And my hands are still covered in blood and that stench is in my nose, and my throat is sore and I'm scared to cough or talk and I keep spitting into the sink to make sure there's no blood. But that's no gaurentee of anything. I was spitting clear at the ER and then started vomiting again. I just pray to God that this is it, this is over. There was no stench the first time she cauterized that morning so I'm hoping the job is really done now. I have a popcicle that kind of comes back up, and come vicodin. I'm assuming it's alright to take since no one told me otherwise. On & off the phone with my parents. Lay down on the couch and fall asleep.

So far, no more blood. No more nausea, still a lot of pain. I'm more confident that things are alright now, but I'm still scared. Vomiting blood is horrible and I've never had a panic attack before and I am just done with all of this. Don't ever have your tonsils removed. No more surgeries, no more needles, no more blood. Please God, let this all be over now.

Blood Simple

From October 08, 2008

I spent yesterday afternoon violently spitting up blood. You ever done that? It's motherfucking terrifying.

So I had my tonsillectomy a week ago. Everything went swell, mom and dad were there to take care of me, lots of liquid Vicodin, lots of popcicles and pudding, Gatorade and movies. The first day was rough but then things smoothed out. It was relaxing, calming, entertaining and full of wonderful drugs. This weekend I went to Urgent Care because I couldn't breathe and they diagnosed with my pneumonia. Beautiful.

Yesterday afternoon I'm sitting on my bed, watching the Sex and the City movie, eating some pudding, when I started coughing. No big deal: cough a little, you figure you're coughing up some phlegm and you swallow it. I did this like three times and then my brain flashed with the remembrance of reading info about possibly coughing up blood after this surgery. When I coughed again I spit into my hand and sure enough, bright red blood.

I jump up and race into the bathroom and spit up some more and then it becomes more and more and more. It's coming out of my nose, it's pouring out of my mouth and now it's coming in waves. I run back to my room and grab my phone. I call Melody. She's my roommate and a doctor. I get her voicemail. I call the hospital as they were a recent call in my phone. I tell them I had a tonsillectomy a week ago and I am spitting up blood. They asked me if I called me ENT. I'm like I AM SPITTING UP BLOOD! It's gurgling out of my mouth while I'm trying to talk. She said to be sure to call my ENT, and either call 911 or go to the ER. I say cool, will do.

Stuff starts coming up with the blood. All this bloody gunk, and it's sticking to my tongue and it still won't stop and it's still coming out my nose. What if I lose too much blood and I faint? I have pneumonia, am I coughing up lung? Did I fuck over my liver with too much Vicodin? Did something go horribly wrong in the back of my throat? Am I dying? Is this going to stop? What the FUCK is going on?! I had tried to maintain my composure and a level head about this for as long as I could but I was done. I'm in terrified panic mode. Who do I call? I have to call someone. I can't call my mom, she's 500 miles away. Do I call 911? Is this 911 worthy? I don't want to be alone, I don't want to be in charge any more, I need help. Choking and gurgling on blood I called Jeremy. He was always so very good of taking care of me with all of my health scares, and there were many of them, and I knew he would be there for me in an emergency. When he answered I lost it. Through gagging and tears I told him I was coughing up blood, I was scared, and I didn't know what to do. Alarmed and level-headed he asked me my address, said he was calling 911 and then come over. I said ok and hung up.

All this bloody mucus has now clogged the sink and it's filling up. There's blood all over the sink and my toothbrush holder and my soap, and I'm desperately trying to pull the stopper out of the drain and mash all this crap down the sink and I'm doubled over crying and spitting up, trying to clean all this blood away. And I'm wishing Jeremy was just here already. I need him to materialize at the door because I can't be alone anymore and things are out of control now.

Then I thought ok, I need shoes, if I go to the hospital they're going to want to know what drugs I'm on and I don't know so grab all the bottles and put them in my purse, wallet with medical ID in purse, Mark still has the key to the back door so I need my garage door opener out of my car if I'm going to get back in the house, and why isn't anyone here yet?! There's a knock at the back door and the fire department is all standing out there and I have to tell them the door is locked and to go around to the garage. I open the garage and the 5 or so EMTs come in, Jeremy on their heels. They pull a cooler over and have me sit down and start taking my vitals and asking me questions, and Jeremy gave them all my information. They asked me if I was on any drugs and I said yeah, a shit-ton and I couldn't name them all, so Jeremy went into the house to get them and came back with an arm load. They looked in the back of my throat and said it looked pretty raw back there. I said yes, I'm sure this is all related to my tonsillectomy and is probably somewhat normal, I was just concerned that something had gone horribly wrong. They said my vitals were fine and I didn't have any pain anywhere and that if I felt well enough to be on my own I could sign off on the ambulance, that had just showed up, and everything would be cool. Agreed.

Jeremy stayed with me while I called my doctors and calmed down. I thanked him for being there when I needed someone. He's always been wonderful at that and I will forever love him for it. I was so scared. So incredibly terrified. Even thinking about it now still makes me cry, I was so scared. To feel that out of control and unsure and alone, and there was just so much blood. It looked like I vomited an abortion. It was horrifying.

My surgeon is out of town for the week, of course, but her assistant returned my call and assured me that this was all normal. My information sheet said to expect blood streaks in my saliva, but didn't mention violently spitting up blood. The patches over my wounds are supposed to come off and apparently you end up swallowing them and then they come back up, and all this happens about a week after surgery. Right on time. So at least I know this was supposed to happen, it's not unusual, nothing is wrong, and I can rest easy in that knowledge. But the events of yesterday are replaying in my mind and now it seems so distant and yet I'm still right there in the moment, doubled over the sink, terrified.

I'm no longer spitting up blood, and I'm healing well. But right now, I'm done. I need a break from this. Check, please!

Tonsil Hockey

Oh, tonsils. Those dirty little bastards in the back of my throat. They've been evicted and their move out date in 9/29.

I hear it's going to be pretty damn awesome. And by awesome I mean wicked painful. I'll be off work for two weeks, without pay which makes it double awesome, and living off liquidy type things. I hear tell I'll lose 10-15 pounds that I'll put right back on when I start eating again. So I'm just not going to eat anymore. I mean, screw food. What has it ever done for ME?

Both of my parents, count 'em - both, are driving out to take me to the hospital and bring me home. I knew it would take a medical malfunction to get my parents to come visit me. They don't get out so much.

I get tonsillitis at least twice a year, usually in the summer and then around Christmas. I have to see a doctor 3 times for each infection they're so bad. Sometimes they swell up and touch each other in the back of my throat leaving me a pea size opening to breathe through. Those are the best times. Then I go to the ER and get shot full of morphine and vicodin and go home and halucinate strange creatures jumping out of the shadows trying to kill me. I know you're jealous.

So I've had about enough of that shit right there. Time to scrape 'em out. I've read some down right horror stories about how painful it is and I'm trying not to think about it. I'm just tired of being sick and hopefully this will cure me of that. I'ma see if they'll let me keep them. In a jar. I can shelack them and make an amulet. Who wants first dibs?

Fuck Alcohol

Seriously. Fuck it. I can't do this shit anymore. I am so far out of practice that I am half past embarrassed by the amount I can put away anymore. Put away and not be on my knees, swimming in my own insides on my college roomies bathroom floor.

I can't do this shit anymore. The two-day hangover is not worth it. The no longer being able to remember all the events of the evening is not cool. Being hosed the entire next day and forced to eat at McDonalds to cure the gut rot is not acceptable. I drink like I still go out six nights a week. It must be the end of an era. I suppose it had to come sometime and it's never when you expect it. If I could get shitfaced without hurling to the point of wanting to die and begging my babysitter to take me to the hospital because I'm convinced I have alcohol poisoning, and without being laid out all day feeling like an utter pile then I would be all for it. Hell, if I could manage to simply have A cocktail. One. Singular. Solemente. But it's a slippery slope and I slide fast.

It's no longer fun. No longer a good time. Someone sign me up for a class on moderation because I apparently have lost my capacity for it. And I've got trips planned, people. Send help. Quick.