5:47pm March 18, 2015

“Is this normal for you?”

I know they have to ask that.

Don’t go under the cut unless you want semi-graphic descriptions of the “dreaded both ends” virus (simultaneous vomiting and diarrhea coming out both ends, a.k.a. OBE for “Out Both Ends”).

So I’m lying there in the emergency room sometime last week, having been brought back right as the delirium had started breaking up and I started knowing who I was and where I was again… only to shit all over my friend’s couch while puking on her floor.  (Yes, I’m replacing the foam for her couch cushion.  It won’t be expensive.)  And then I discovered my tube had pulled out, which my friend claims happened when a staff person set me up in an awkward position and the tube got pulled in an equally awkward way without my noticing.  She said it was actually quite amazing how out of it I could be and still be trying my hardest to take care of my tube.

Anyway so I end up on a stretcher, in an ambulance, and then they transferred me to a different stretcher in the room.  I kept asking people of various religions to pray for me because I felt so miserable I felt like I could use help from any god willing to help.  And most gods I’ve heard about don’t only care about members of their own faith. 

Anyway, so I’m lying there.  And I start going into this really nasty cycle.  Where I get terrible pain going up and down my abdomen, from my large intestines all the way to my stomach and back.  This is accompanied by horrible nausea.  And then I start vomiting.  And then the diarrhea starts pouring out.  And by pouring out, I mean I’m already wearing Depends, it pours out of the Depends, onto the stretcher, and then onto the floor, and it just keeps going, and going, and going, like some sort of disgusting Energizer Bunny of shit.

And a doctor comes in.

And he goes, “Is this normal for you?”

I know they have to ask.

I know for some people, nasty, explosive, orange diarrhea is normal.

But it still felt surreal to be asked this, over and over again, and to have to explain that no matter how nauseated I am, and no matter how bad my diarrhea is:

• I don’t puke.  I’m a former severe emetophobe.  I’m good at not puking.  If I am puking, something has gone badly wrong.
  
• I don’t shit myself.  Or rather, if I do shit myself, it’s easily contained within Depends. It’s not orange, it does not leave my Depends, and it does not flood out all over the bed uncontrollably.

Which of course is why they put me in isolation until they could run tests to make sure I didn’t have C. Diff.

But I’ve had so many times when I’ve gone to the ER only to have someone ask me, or worse, a caregiver who barely knows me, “Are you sure this isn’t normal?”

I get that a lot with swelling.  Like… they go “but you’re just fat, that’s not swelling” and it’s like “no, really, I know I’m fat, but this is not my normal fat distribution.”  I normally have a lot of trouble seeing swelling, so if I’m actually able to perceive it?  Then it’s real.

Anyway, I am so glad to be home.  Although I have to say that it’s been fun saying “dreaded both ends virus” to people, just because.

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