Me!

*creepy music intensifies*

Let’s start at the beginning. Last week, I was sick! I felt supremely gross all over and there was a great deal of vomiting and general stomach unhappiness. I assumed it was food poisoning, because that’s what it felt like. However, as the week wore on, I got sicker and sicker with Sweaty Times featuring More Vomiting, No Appetite, Extreme Nausea, and more. It was the worst remix of all time.

By Friday morning, my “food poisoning” had powered up to the point where I couldn’t keep anything down, including water and Diet Coke. I’d drink to quench the hell fires within, then run to the bathroom to explosively vomit into the sink (sorry). It was .. familiar. TOO familiar.

While I didn’t have the brain fog I experienced last time, the speed and velocity at which liquid left my body was reminiscent of the ketoacidosis I experienced in 2017. We tried to call 811 to ask if I was just being paranoid but couldn’t get through, so I did the next best thing and asked Facebook what I should do. The answer was a resounding “go to the hospital you idiot” and I am susceptible to peer pressure when I’m sick so I got dressed, packed up a few essentials (device charging cables), and Ed took me to the ER conveniently located down the road (not gonna lie, this factored into why we moved where we did).

There was only one other person in the ER when I arrived (Ed stayed in the car because of the ‘vid), so I was seen immediately. My blood sugar was rapidly rising (I’d had two bowls of soup and three crackers over 4 days, so that wasn’t normal or good) and my vitals were fubar’d, so they ushered me into an isolation room in ER and took almost all of my blood and pee. Whatever those things showed must have been alarming, because I was given a bed in the ER and hooked up to many beeping things. Fluids were started. Waiting happened.

Ed was still waiting in the car at this point, but he had to rush home because we had forgotten about a weed delivery that was about to descend upon Halfwack. He raced home to meet the weed courier and just stayed there, because we had no idea what was going to happen and in the off chance they cut me loose, he’s like 5 minutes away so it didn’t make sense for him to sit in the parking lot twiddling his diddle. I laid in my ER bed all pathetic and sweaty for a long time – around 6 hours – before a doctor came and told me what had been discovered so far: while my vitals were improving with the fluids and my nausea dwindling thanks to some magic gravol, my blood work was “crummy” – so crummy that I needed to be admitted while my blood was sent off to the Blood Oracle for some divination.

Late Friday evening I was officially admitted to the hospital and sent upstairs. I was assigned room 404 (lol) and had it all to myself, which was nice. More fluids, some antibiotics, and welp good luck with sleep and stuff, but you’re gonna be here for a while.

Two days (long, boring, agonizing days) later, I’m still here and still attached to a damn IV that I have a) learned how to use – never leave a nerd alone with new technology – and b) really come to dislike intensely.

So, what’s going on with my insides?

They don’t know!

Living up to my reputation as a walking fucking mystery, they don’t actually know why the fuck I got so sick so quickly. Even though I drink water and Diet Coke for sport, I came in so dehydrated my insides were basically made of dust. Of the 47 hours I’ve been in the hospital, I’ve been hooked up to fluids for 44.5 of those hours. I’ve had three rounds of antibiotics, several doses of potassium, and some extra anti-nauseants whenever my insides threaten to come out and say hello. In the two 30-second conversations I had with the doctor (the second of which he abandoned me mid-sentence because his phone rang and as of this writing has yet to return), what I learned is this: my blood cultures came back from the oracle clean. Nothing nefarious is growing inside me, and nothing showed up that would cause the symptoms I’ve been experiencing. It’s apparently unusual to require this much fluid (I’m on like my 11th bag of goo), but my blood pressure keeps alternating between too high and startlingly low. Near as he can figure, I contracted some sort of viral stomach thing like Norwalk or something and was on the verge of ketoacidosis when I came in (and would have been in some pretty serious trouble had we waited another day or so). In addition to the weirdly severe dehydration, my potassium levels were really low (I don’t like bananas, okay), and I needed electrolytes like a colicky baby. And .. that’s it. That’s all they know.

Robert Stack will be around to film my segment for Unsolved Mysteries any moment now.

Frustratingly, my day nurse said they were planning on setting me free this evening, but the doctor was literally in the middle of saying “well I was going to discharge you this evening, but your blood pressure keeps spiking so –” when his phone rang and he left the room. I am meditating (aka swearing) to try and convince my blood to fucking behave so I can get out of here, but in the meantime, I have NO FUCKING CLUE when I’m going to be set free. Whatever charm and intrigue this whole adventure had has long since worn off and I am SUPER HANGRY (hospital food is already not good, and they have me on the diabetic menu which is a hundred times worse, and it’s all stuff that I can’t eat – steamed broccoli is an affront to several gods, they actually served me a processed grilled cheese sandwich and called it good, and I will never understand why they assume I will just willingly shovel naked cream of wheat and oatmeal into my person even when I’m my not-quite-literal deathbed) and bored and sad and tired (couldn’t sleep last night) and frustrated and hungry hungry hungry. Ed did drop off a bag of stuff for me on Saturday morning, but I didn’t think to ask for food because a) it’d prolly fuck with my expected numbers and I don’t want to prolong this adventure and b) I didn’t think they were SERIOUS when they said “you might be here until Tuesday”. With the exception of Ed and my cats, I have all the comforts of home: a laptop, my phone, my Switch, headphones, all associated chargers, no pants, secret Diet Coke – but I WANT TO GO HOME NOW PLEASE. THIS SUCKS.

Oh, and I did get swabbed for COVID – it’s why I have the room to myself, I was in isolation – but that came back negative so it’s one less thing to worry about (one less thing to worry about).

The cherry on this planet-sized shit sundae is that I’m actually supposed to be on Saltspring Island right now, cat-sitting for friend Renee. I had to bail on her last minute, which I feel awful about. They managed to find a local person to sit on Pixel, but it’s an unexpected stress and expense at a time when it is least appreciated. So, fuck everything, basically. So much frustrate.

TL;DR: They don’t know what’s wrong with me, because I am a walking Unsolved Mystery. I am nothing if not true to my brand at all times.