a little over 2 weeks ago, i was suffering from a ridiculously high fever (103) and swollen lymph nodes on the right side of my neck. I had experienced this sort of thing before. Sometimes my saliva glands got infected, and sometimes that made my lymph nodes swell and ache, but i was usually able to ride out the infection without medical intervention, and it was fine.

Until this time, when it wasn’t.

I had picked up that my body was suffering on a Friday night. Saturday morning, i was supposed to go to work on an earlier shift than normal. I got through about half of it before telling my manager that I was not feeling great and I wanted to go home. My manager, being awesome, said that I could take Sunday and Monday off, get through my usual off days of Tuesday/Wednesday, and then hopefully come back for my regular shift week.

Honestly, i never made it.

By Tuesday morning I felt awful. Nothing I was doing made me better, and I asked J. to take me to the Urgent Care Center in town.

The Urgent Care folks took one look at me, and said that I should go to the ER. This was beyond the scope of what they could deal with. As it wasn’t COVID, the flu, a cold, or some simple infection. It was serious. And cue me being panicky and anxious because, I DON’T THINK I COULD AFFORD GOING TO THE HOSPITAL

But I went to the ER. Got blood drawn to figure out the infection. They could not figure it out in the ER so they had to admit me.

Wednesday was a bit of a blur as I was poked and prodded while the doctors and nurses tried to figure out the best solution to my problem. They had to prick my veins multiple times since i have shitty tiny blood vessels and they needed to get and IV in so i could have fluids (I was not eating or drinking and my mouth was super dry, which was not helping my health). By the time I was out, I had both inner elbows tapped, and both wrists tapped. (Which both hurt like a motherfucker). The IV line that “took” ended up being on the top of my right hand. I had a CAT scan to check my neck. It looked like an abscess that needed to be drained. On Thursday night, i had surgery to cut a small hole in the side of my neck to relieve the pressure and hopefully help clear out the infection.

First time going under the knife. Really interesting experience. I was speaking with the anesthesiologist about my concerns. I get severe motion sickness and I’ve heard that sometimes the anathesia will cause nausea and they assured me that everything would be fine. They have anti nausea meds they can add. And then they pumped it into my IV

And the last thing I remember is answering them saying the IV wasn’t hurting

Next thing I know, I was being woken up and told the procedure is over. Damn I wanted to do the whole “ count backwards from ten” before going under.

For all I know this happened but my brain decided not to put that short term memory into long term memory. Alas.

On the upside, I started to feel better immediately after. I was able to come home on Saturday afternoon and I slept better that night than i’d had in over a week. It was July 5th, the day after Independence Day.

Though it was bizarre watching fireworks out side the window of my hospital room the previous night, as I was still in the throes of pain from the surgery.

but now i’m anxious about insurance, which is the stupidest thing to be worried about. It’s ridiculous in America that we still have to worry about some future possible debt vs. trying one’s best to recover from a hospital stay.

America’s health care system sucks….

Also, at least I learned that opioids really FUCK ME UP.

I was given norco post-surgery (which is apparently hydrocodone and acetaminophen) and i basically had a panic attack while on it. i felt tetherless and floating and i hated not having something to ground me to reality. i could not feel *anything* except woozy and i hated it so much.

i know some people would adore being able to separate themselves from their pain and i know that’s who these meds are for but i guess my brain wants to feel something, even if it’s still pain, otherwise i don’t feel *real*. I don’t even know if that makes sense, but man, it was terrible and horrifying but i’m happy i experienced it weirdly so i don’t have to do that again

And then i heard from all the nurses saying basically “yeah that shit fucks you up lol”

Well then why did you give it to me???

Also thinking about how useless the 1-10 Pain Scale is for someone who has chronic pain. Like…i told the nurses at the hospital that my pain level was 3 and they didn’t hesitate to give me a dang opioid. But i’ve still stayed at work when i had a migraine at a pain level 7 and it was awful but i could still function?

And, yes, tolerance is completely subjective and i probably should’ve kept that in mind when using the Pain Scale and i know my own body more than the pros at the hospital, for some things

Like when i was woozy from the meds and the nurse kept telling me to look up and open my eyes bc the dizziness would just be worse if i had my eyes closed. My dude, if i lift my head too far back, i get dizzy spells and shutting my eyes is the best way to deal with dizziness for me….