Feeling Green

I had a big week, on the calendar…in my mind. Nothing major, but a bunch of appointments and a desperately-needed date night, followed by a just-as-desperately-needed-entire day away from home to hunker down and work on the book I'm writing.

We made it as far as the movie theatre on date night. Ten minutes into The Hunger Games, my insides started twisting and I was writhing in my seat. Fifteen minutes in, I cried out loud and blacked out in the movie theatre bathroom, but thankfully did not pass out completely and break my neck on the public toilet. I did, however, crawl my sorry self through the theatre and down the aisle on my hands and knees to gather my waiting husband, so we could get the heck out of there before my abdomen exploded in the popcorn of the people next to us, which I was quite sure was imminent at this point. 

Sorta how I feel right now. Only greener. 

We stopped for puke breaks on the drive home. It was the kind of pain that should have landed me in the emergency room, but I was honestly hurting too bad to even consider a 30-mile car ride (but not bad enough to justify an ambulance). The ticket clerk offered us free passes as we rushed out the doors and I was in too much pain to care at the moment, but ticked off now that we hadn't taken her up on it. (I do, someday, hope to get a do-over and actually watch the movie). We got home, I found a position in bed (stock-still with short breaths), and got through the night. The pain was on the left side so I knew it wasn't appendicitis, and *surprise*, although this pain rates at least thrice as bad as drug-less childbirth on the pain scale, it happens to me about once a month since the age of 13 (with occasional periods of remission lasting from a month to two years).

This was the worst episode ever, but I've been to the ER with debilitating abdominal issues enough times to know the most they would do is pump me with something through an IV and I'd go home and sleep it off. I wasn't up for a waiting room or being poked at, and I figured I'd rather die in bed from an exploding spleen or whatever was going on than wait for 6 hours on purple vinyl chairs for a little intravenous Vicodin.

Nothing has never been diagnosed—sonographic evidence points to ovarian cyst rupture but it happens a little too frequently for that to be the obvious answer, and it always involves other digestive components, of which I'll spare you the gory details…and gory they are. It does, however, happen in a cyclical fashion at a predictable time every month (and no, it's not premenstrual).

I really hadn't intended on sharing all that. What I came to say was… I've been in bed for 80-some hours. The pain and other fun mostly subsided by yesterday morning, but I am weak and tired and left feeling like I recently survived an airplane crash while also nursing a tequila hangover. I've been in (the same) pajamas for two days, and so has my son. Not fun. Earlier this week, the girl child simultaneously had an ear infection and pink eye in both eyes and both ears, then a stomach virus that the youngest also picked up. I watched three of the saddest/most disturbing/pointless movies of all time (Like Crazy, The Descendants, and Shutter Island… and all three were a terrible waste of time, though The Descendants was watchable, unlike the other two.) I also watched the same episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition three different times. Help. Me.

Pajama-clad superhero. Day Two. 

On the way out the door to work today, my husband discovered that our front tire had not only gone flat but completely disintegrated in the process, peeling into several pieces. We missed three dentists appointments and somehow overdrew the bank account, despite being more careful than ever with our finances lately. Ugh. At least I'm in bed and can pull the covers over my head. I'm sort of wishing for the days when my biggest problem was what time Sesame Street was going to come on. I want to lay in my bed and have someone else bring me ginger ale and not think about bills or flat tires or making dinner for bickering kids with ear infections. I'm bracing myself to go pick up the kids from school in about 2 hours, and it seems monumental, at this point.

I'll be back to my busy self in a day or two, I'm sure, and the world will have survived a few days without me. Shocking, I know. Still, the longer I lie here, the crankier I get, so I will probably attempt a shower for the sake of humanity and maybe I'll use my current snarky attitude to write something other than blog fodder (read: a distraction against writing anything useful).

Blah. How's your week been?