The Unwalkable Disease

Nothing like a trip to the ER at 11PM to make for an interesting day. Here's what happened: Yesterday I woke up and had a stabbing pain in my left boob. And the left boob (or right for that matter) is not a place you can rub in the middle of teaching class to make yourself feel better. Then about three o'clock I started to feel achy everywhere and decided I must be coming down with the flu and went home bent on having a miserable evening in the company of the toilet. But no. What started happening was I would get stabbing pains in my hips, knees, foot and boob and then my whole body would cramp up. It was bizarre for sure. After about three hours of that, I called my momma who asked a lot of questions like, "Are you sure you didn't ingest anything? Like, do you always know where your drink is at school?" I was pretty sure that my water hadn't been laced with poison by a student angry with his grade, but you never know. I wouldn't say it was the worst pain of my life because the last time I said I had the 'worst headache' of my life I got a spinal tap and then as a side effect the really worst headache of my life, but it was bad. I thought maybe I was going into the labor with the baby that was causing all of my back problems. I made a deal with Randi that she would let me squeeze her leg when it hurt, but Randi didn't really like that idea when I started hurting. Earl tried to help by sitting on top of me, but it didn't help at all. My mom ended up coming over and realizing that my foot was quite swollen insisted by pestering me until I was worn down that we go to the ER.

The ER was standing room only with all of the variants of the ER patrons you can get, though as an ensemble there really were no standout performances worth recounting. The doctor examined me and said that maybe I had a 'bit of gout.' And sent me off for an x-ray of my foot and an ultrasound of my leg. (I heard my femoral heartbeat.) I, in the meantime, was crying out every time my body cramped and nearly fainted when they took my blood because I do not like that part. Then, at 1:30am I got two Vicodins and a shot of Tordol which knocked me on my ass and finally, finally stopped my body from cramping up. The doctor said all my tests were normal and I didn't have a blood clot, but that I needed to check up with my doctor within 48 hours because of the gout and maybe see a rheumatologist as well. And finally at 3:30am, I snuggled into bed, cramp free and curled up with my Pack of dogs.

Today I am not at work. My doctor must count 48 hours as 48 working hours because I have an appointment on Tuesday. The Pack was so traumatized by all late night activity that they didn't move until 11am either. I've discovered that EDub and PDub have added new moves to their aquatic UFC matches which are quite innovative. EDub now throws out her wing while she's on top of PDub, preventing PDub from lifting her head above water and PDub has started grabbing a hold of EDub's tail with her beak so that as EDub tries to get away she's just pulling PDub around the pool.

The most awful part of all of this isn't that I've been sick for the nicest three weeks of weather we've had all winter; it isn't the pain or the fact that now I've got something else potentially wrong with me...it's that if you have gout you're supposed to avoid alcohol! Quelle horreur!