As this blog is written mostly for the people who know me personally, and would like to keep up with some of my daily life, I’ll write a bit about my recent life. The last few days have been very painful and culminated in a huge event for my life thus far: my first visit to ER. To give away the ending early, I’m fine, although with some mental trauma. Unfortunately, I can no longer claim to have never been cut open.
Friday. Discover odd bruise on my posterior. I haven’t done anything to merit it. Uncomfortable, but I just shrug it off.
Saturday. Late night IM’er convinces me that I should go see a doctor anyway. I agree, thinking it’s free in Canada anyway.
Sunday. Walk-in clinic in the morning. Wait around for an hour, which in retrospect is pretty good for a Sunday clinic. At this point, it’s distressing to sit, but I just bear it. Doctor observes red and swollen, diagnoses an abscess (pus-filled bacterial infection), says I’ll be lucky if I don’t need it drained (I later discover how fortunate it would have been), prescribes some antibiotics for two weeks. Start popping pills, immediately start sleeping around the clock.
Monday. Still sleeping around the clock. Took sick leave hoping the antibiotics will kick in, it’s rather painful to walk, stand up, or sit down. Motrin is useless. Terrible time sleeping, head hurts (too much sleep? too much lying down?).
Tuesday. Head feels better. Still problems moving and sitting. Figure I may as well give work a try, but first another walk-in clinic to get a second opinion and maybe something better than Motrin to stop the pain. Pain-sweats just standing on the subway for the 20 minutes. Two hours waiting to see a doctor (why I thought of going to the most convenient walk-in clinic in the downtown Toronto core…?), doctor takes one look, tells me it’s bad, I’d best go to ER to get the abscess drained. Off to St. Michael’s.
As I shuffle-limp my way to the subway and to St Mike’s, I wonder what ER will be like… crazy line-ups? Long waits? Lots of traffic?
Turns out it’s pretty empty just before noon on a Tuesday. Wait briefly to register, friendly staff. Waiting to be admitted… Freezing in the waiting room, the “concierge” brings me a pre-heated blanket. Also chats with me how he had the same problem that I had and the only way is to “bite the bullet”. After an hour (told to expect two), they send me to a room. I then learn that getting a room and the humiliating gown is not the end. Two BORING hours of trying to sleep on an uncomfortable pallet, with an uncomfortable gown, under a couple of blankets, the intern comes by and the truly perspective-changing event begins.
I’ll spare the gory details. I don’t want to consider them myself – if I reflect on them I start to tense up and break out in sweats again. Basically they used local anesthetic, cut me open, squeezed it out (disgusting I know), and put in some cotton filler (temporary). That description glosses over the ten freezer needles which have to go into unfrozen areas (full sensitivity in an area that’s already painful to light pressure), that this anesthesia doesn’t work well for deep tissue (they went in a couple cm!), the half-dozen times I experienced un-anesthesized sensations (we’re talking, literally, biting the mattress, screaming into it, and trying to break the metal bars by crushing them), or the dozen less-than-screaming-more-than-numb sensations. Longest 30 minutes of my life (I was told to expect 15).
All I can say is that I pray I, or anyone else that I know, will not have to go through that again. It really redefined my notion of “10″ on the pain scale. I think my previous “10″ is now a “5″ or lower. I also have some sympathy for the doctors (staff and his intern who did the procedure). It can’t be easy inflicting that much pain on people on a regular basis (dentist syndrome). I also have these lovely narcotics that are allowing me to type this. Great stuff, though I’m afraid of what happens when it wears off.
I really, really, hope, with more emotion than I recall having had in a very long time, that I heal properly and I don’t have to go back again. It’s been awhile since I last cried, and being told something like that would just about do it.
