Winter Songs

A New Ordeal

A New Ordeal

I haven’t posted in several days, and although you may think I was just lazy, it wasn’t the case.

I woke up early Tuesday morning with a severe pain in my back. As you no-doubt understand, I don’t ignore these signals as they have often been the beginning of something far worse. So at 5am, my mother and I took the trip to Yale / New Haven Hospital to visit the ER.

They ran tests, took samples and generally gave me the once over. After a day of xrays and blood tests, the doctor concluded that nothing was wrong with me. I still had the pain, but was told to treat the pain as it’s cause was unknown.

The Friday before all of this I had been ‘tapped’. That is to say that liquid builds up inside of me, and after a while has to be drained. Something like a maple tree being tapped for sap. My doctor had removed over 7 liters of fluid and at 2.1 pounds per liter, I was anxious to weigh in at Weight Watchers. It always freaked people out to see that kind of loss in such a short period of time.

So after leaving the ER, I went to be weighed in, and I can report that I am now at 120 pounds lost! However, I still had the pain. I spent the rest of the day in bed, squirming and trying to find a comfortable position.

One of the medicines I take is called Lactulose. This stuff is thick gooey, evil stuff. I mix it with something sweet and hold my breath as I chug it down. Yeccccch. It is used to ‘clean me out’ and works very well at that. However, it occurred to me that maybe this stuff was the answer.

I took an extra dose, and waited for the Roto-Rooter effect to begin. Apparantly that was the problem. So a little thorough plumbing was all I needed. Go figure.

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Posted by bbrother at May 19, 2005 07:10 AM | TrackBack