It's gettin' hot in herrrrr

Where should I even start... I'm going to go stream-of-consciousness with this.

I am in such bad pain right now. This is by far the worst pain I've experienced since the ER on Thursday. It's partially my fault, too. I tried to wean off of the pain pills for work, but I really made a bad decision on trying to tough it out. It's so weird because my pain is an 8 on a 10-point scale, and I hadn't gotten over a 4 since Thursday. I just know it's because I didn't adhere to the pain pill schedule, but frankly I was sick of being out of it. Life goes on. I have taken four Percocets in the last eight hours. It's weird because, when I breathe in, I feel a click in my right kidney. Good or bad? No idea. But painful.

That brings me to my next point, which is that the doctor's appointment today was a complete waste of time and money. I really want to walk into a doctor's appointment and hear something I didn't already know. Telling me to drink water is kind of irrelevant at this point. The doctor told me that he only needed to hear from me if things got worse. Well, his wish came true. Congratulations. He also made it sound like there are more than two of those silly suckers in there. Whateverrrrrrrrrrr.

While I'm being depressing, let's talk about my air conditioner. When I got home from rehearsal last night, it was making a weird clicking noise, much like my kidney is right now. So, today an AC guy was supposed to come out, but he called after 3:00 p.m. to say he wasn't going to make it. Thanks for the heads up, punk. Here I am, it's mid-80s in my house, and my new roommate has seen one disaster after another. I swear I feel bad for everyone who knows me right now.

I was in an improv show tonight. Did I think this was a good decision last night? Yes. Did I think this was a good decision this afternoon? No. I definitely toughed through it, but it was hard to fake it near the end. There were probably about 90 people there, 60ish being under the age of 18. Wow. I played Sounds Like A Song, Dialects, Narration Switch, and Musical Styles. Despite the pill-popping, I had an enjoyable time. It felt good to be back on stage. Honestly, I can't even believe I played Dialects, but I guess that's the bonus of doing a show while taking medication for kidney stones.

I think I might sleep like a baby tonight... on the couch.

I just re-read this post to look for errors since I'm not all here right now. It's amazing how pitiful I sound. I know it's annoying to hear someone who is being negative all the time, but I truly need a free pass to Negativityland right now. Yowzers.

You've gotta be kidneying me

Seriously.

I woke up today and got out of bed, ready to head to the gym. After I'd been standing for a few minutes, I was in excruciating pain. Now, though, it was more localized in my abdomen than in my back. I got in the shower to tough it out, and literally couldn't stand. By the time I got out of the shower, I was just in tears. I called my mom and just started bawling like a tiny little baby.

She was headed out to my place and I couldn't take it anymore. She called my sister, who came to get me so that we could get a head start. We went to Emory because it makes it so much easier for the doctors to know everything about me. I was that person in the ER doubled over, crying out in pain. They got me back to a room and my blood pressure was hovering at 160-something over 100-something.

In all seriousness, it was pretty scary. There were moments when I wasn't sure I was going to make it through. I have never been through pain anywhere near this bad at any point in my life. The central theme throughout the day was that "people say they'd rather have a baby than a kidney stone." I was in a room just bawling and yelling at the top of my lungs for more than an hour. Finally they started giving me IV morphine, which worked for a few minutes and then wore off.

At this point a doctor came in, heard the story, and was pretty sure it was a kidney stone. She ordered another painkiller that's good for stones, and got me scheduled for a CT scan. The painkiller did wonders and I was able to lay flat for the first time all day. I went to get the CT scan which showed two kidney stones. One of them has already made it through the toughest parts and is hanging out just before my bladder. The other's just chilling in my kidney.

I got to come home after 10 long hours, and don't really have to go back unless I vomit, get a fever, or have the severe pain again. It's about time for another pain pill. I'm on four different medications while we wait this out, but it should take care of itself. We're just hoping the second one stays put in my kidney. Jerk.

Thanks to everyone for helping minimize the accident drama from last night. Honestly I've forgotten almost all about it since I didn't get to call the insurance company while in the dungeon.

I've already found a crew shift replacement for tomorrow night, and am going to try to wait it out and attend on Saturday if I'm functioning. I know some folks who are on crew Saturday and I bet someone would drive me (!) if I'm still on all of the medicine.

This has got to be the end of this series of events.

Trial and error

Well, today was a big ol' waste of time.

As you know, I emailed the doctor in the middle of the night to try to get some sort of answer for the unusual pain I was having in my chest/lungs. Well, I got a return phone call right as I walked into an 11:00 a.m. appointment at work, so I made a quick exit. The nurse recommended that I go to the ER because the pain in my lungs was concerning and the doctor didn't have clinic hours until Thursday. Sooooooo, one of my coworkers and I headed over to the ER. Mind you, I hate the ER, so I hope that illustrates the desperation I was facing.

Upon arriving, we had to wait practically forever to check in, even though I marked chest pain and shortness-of-breath as symptoms (two of the top things to acknowledge according to the signs all over the walls). When they finally took me back to check out my vitals, my blood pressure was by far the highest it's ever been - 154/96. That's absolutely unheard of for me, but they didn't seem too concerned.

After a while, they opted to do some bloodwork and a chest x-ray. The bloodwork came back showing elevated white blood cell counts, and the chest x-ray came back looking really good. Soooo, thinking the x-ray would be the tell-tale sign of what was causing the lung pain, we were left with really no indications. However, we got one of my doctors on the phone who highly encouraged that I be admitted to the hospital, but I wasn't quite buying the argument since there aren't any symptoms that are typical of when I have a lung infection that requires IV antibiotics.

So, after spending six hours in different holding areas of the ER, I walked out with a prescription for a different, higher-dose oral antibiotic, as well as prescription pain medicine. I promptly went to Target and got my prescriptions filled and enjoyed a medicine cocktail for dinner. I'm not even sure what to think of today's colossal waste of time, but I guess it's relieving to know that they didn't see pneumonia or a collapsed lung or anything. I was honestly terrified after the way last night went.

Well, I am just ready to try to sleep. I haven't yet decided what I'll do workwise tomorrow, but I guess it will depend on if I feel well-rested after tonight. I'm happy to report that nothing seems to be overly concerning...just the usual shenanigans.

Thanks to everyone who was looking out for me today. :o) If I didn't get back to you, that's where I was - between the guy with the sliced-open hand and the perforated-bowel dude.

Oh my face

My face tells me that it's allergy season. I have been fearing this time since last year's shenanigans. It's funny (not 'haha' funny) that allergies paralyzed me more than this silly disease of mine ever has. Oh man. It's scary to even think about when I got taken to the ER and missed almost an entire week of work. My face has been aching and I have slept more than should even be humanly possible. The counts are telling me to stay indoors.

Yesterday I took four - yes, you read it right - FOUR naps. They totaled about six hours, which is just ridiculous in its own right. Last night, I went to bed before midnight and woke up in the middle of the night feeling like I was burning alive. I ended up sleeping another 10 hours last night, and truly only got up because of all of the stuff I have to do today. I am finishing up my breathing treatments right now.

As you might have been able to infer from the uncanny amount I've been sleeping, this weekend hasn't been very productive. I've tried to write on a few different occasions, but it's hard to feel inspired in the few hours that it fits into my calendar. Any of you artsy people out there know what I mean. I wish I could just be inspired when it works with my schedule, but that's not how it works... back to the drawing board.

I'm excited because a friend and I are in the midst of planning a vacation for this summer. Her aunt has a timeshare that she's not going to use, so I truly can't pass up the opportunity. I have been on short weekend excursions here and there, but the last REAL trip I went on was the family cruise we took in July 2008. I mean, that was the last trip where I truly got to be away for an entire workweek. I plan on doing it up big this summer because I feel like my mind's going to explode.

Umm, I just forgot what I was going to say. I don't know why I'm commentating now.

Oh yeah! It's nearing time for the CF walk. I'm not quite ready to launch the fundraising campaign since my video is in its final stages. I'm hoping the video will be inspiring and that it will be best to really get my raise on when I have that as a visual aid. We'll see! I have a reaaaaaally good feeling about this year.

Time to go see what kinds of sinus medicine I have up in here. I pray that I'm done with sinus surgeries.

Dee-Rugs

Hi. I am home from work. Ill. It has been a ROUGH week. I ended up having to go to the ER because I literally was almost passing out coughing so hard. Despite all of my home 'remedies,' it was impossible for me to get to sleep. They said it was the worst case of seasonal allergies that a person could have. You should have seen how big of a mess I was.

I was coughing my brains out, and barely choked out the words, "Will you take out some stiches?" So, the doctor took out the stitches in my shoulder. Meanwhile, I am coughing and holding my sternoclavicular joint because it feels like it is dislodging. They were like, "Are you okay?" and my mom told the doctor about the joint incident. You could tell the guy thought I was the most pitiful little thing he had seen.

Regardless, they ended up putting me on some steroids to try to stop the bronchospasms and narcotics so that maybe I could stop coughing temporarily and sleep. Booooooooy, are those relaxing!