Thought I'd tell the tale of my first valid visit to the emergency room, mostly just to have it for my own records, but also for your reading enjoyment.
The backstory (pun intended):
Around the time I started tattooing full-time (this may have no actual relevance and be mere timely coincidence), in September of 2008, I'd started having incidents of serious back aches, that seem to come out of nowhere. They would last for a couple hours, coming on slowly, and growing in intensity until I was literally unable to stand. They would slowly pass with the apparent help of ibuprofen. The pain is sharp, like a knife, in my upper/middle back, just below my shoulder blades, and always just to the left of my spine. Those back aches happened a handful of times over the fall and winter, lasting a little longer each time, maybe by an hour, until I had a worse one in February of this year. I traveled to Chicago for a meeting with some fellow camp counselors of Marwood. During the meeting the back pain started. It tapered off with the help of some stretches and a bit of back massage from Morgan, another counselor. That night after the meeting, I stayed at my aunt's house in Oak Park, and took a nap early to try and sleep off the residual pain. It came back, and in much more potency. The pain gradually spread from my back almost directly forward to my abdomen, and a what I can only describe as a "bubble" grew in my solar plexus. it was painful to touch, and kept me lying down only on my back, and not my sides. The pain in my abdomen turned into nausea, and I spent the following 6 hours puking my guts out every 20 minutes. I couldn't even keep a sip of water down, so no pain-killers I took had enough time to break down and get into my system. I took a hot shower around 4am to get my mind off the pain, and finally fell asleep after out of mere exhaustion. The last thing I remember was thinking I wish that I would just die, so it wouldn't hurt any more. I woke up the next day tired, and with a sore stomach, but otherwise feeling like nothing had happened. I didn't have health insurance at the time, so I couldn't realistically seek medical attention.
That incident caused me to rethink the way I position my body when tattooing. From then on, I sat my clients higher and myself lower, to straighten my back, and hopefully give my stomach a rest. I started going to the YMCA regularly and doing stomach and back-strengthening exercises to hopefully reduce the risk even more. With the exception of a small hour-long episode at Kristen's back in May, I've not had any more incidents.
The Incident:
This weekend I traveled to St. Louis on Saturday morning to visit Kristen. I hadn't seen her in over a month and with us both having been through very difficult times lately- the loss of her mentor to cancer and I losing my job at Voluta, we finally had a chance to reconnect and see each other again. Saturday was great. We caught up, spent time with her friends, watched SNL. As SNL was ending, I felt a familiar strain starting in my back. I immediately did some stretches, and repositioned myself to take any and all pressure off my back and stomach. It didn't go away. I figured it would be another small episode like last time, coming and going quickly. I'd been taking good care of myself, so I wasn't worried about another "Chicago." We went to bed around 12:30, and I knew I wasn't going to sleep any time soon. I got up, did more stretches, and tried to stay calm. Panic was welling up inside, and I got really scared. I took a hot shower around 1am to try and relax my muscles, hoping I could just fall asleep after that. I got out of the shower feeling nauseous. From after my shower until 4:30am I was throwing up and having diarrhea every 15 minutes. I tried to sleep on the floor of the bathroom in between, but I couldn't. I finally woke up Kristen and had her take me to the ER at a nearby hospital. I shivered and shook uncontrollably the whole way there and threw up more outside the ER. I was admitted, and had to tell 3 different people at 3 different stations the same information, before my 1/2 hour long wait to see a doctor. No pain relief, no help. Finally they called my name after several trips to the bathroom, and I got to my room. They put a tube in me, gave me fluids, a high dose of morphine, and other drugs to help with the pain. I found that as the pain lessened a little, it didn't go away. I only cared less about it than before, which seems unfair in a way. I wanted the pain gone. Over the following 9 hours they drew blood, ran tests, gave a rectal exam, found blood in my stool, took x-rays, and mostly left me waiting, doped up and half-conscious for hours at a time, Kristen sitting in a small chair at my bedside for the entire thing. She slept, in strange positions across 2 chairs, on and off between doctors coming in to ask me the same questions the ones had asked previously. Out of the whole thing, I remember most clearly being asked my birth date at least 10 times. The final verdict- Gastritis. Gastritis is an inflammation, irritation, or erosion of the lining of the stomach. It's basically an extreme case of Acid Reflux. It can be caused by a variety of things: Stress, a boost in acidic drinks like coffee or alcohol, spicy food, and H. pylori- a bacteria that lives in the stomach and causes ulcers, and sometimes leads to stomach cancer.
The Doctors did however say that blood tests showed that aside from the gastritis, I am in "perfect health." So..... With that I'm on my way. I've got some painkillers that I won't need for the pain I don't have right now, and some other stuff that will help to regulate the acid level in my stomach. I feel like someone whisked up my stomach with a hand blender and I've got a bunch of knots on my back that need some deep tissue work. Other than that, I feel fine.
As of today I'm no longer drinking coffee, my hot sauce obsession is now kaput, and I am officially past my "gin and tonic" phase. Time to get in more "perfect health," whatever that means.