Bilious Emesis

Erpiness Abounds

Managed to avoid going to the ER for The Headache, despite its continued obstinance and persistance the last few days. However, yesterday I started throwing up and couldn't stop. Ended up in the ER dehydrated and with The Belly having fits. Had to wait hours to be seen as the swine flu epidemic is ongoing here and the waiting room was full of sick children. One of the nurses told me there were only a few ER rooms that were being reserved for non-flu patients, so waiting was necessary. I don't think I will catch H1N1 since I am pretty sure I had it in May.

I couldn't tell what was going on with The Belly. Could it be the pancreas? Could it be another UTI? Could it be something else entirely? I had taken 2 doses of phenergan to try to stop the nausea and vomiting, but it didn't help. The projectile vomiting also made The Belly start humping and jumping with pain. I also had mid and low back pain.

The ER doc was very kind and gave me an IV and also a big IV injection of zofran and fentanyl. The pain was bad enought the fentanyl didn't really help it much, but it did let me drift off to sleep while I got hydrated. The nurse came back and told me that I had a bad UTI, and he gave me a script to have filled. I have lots of allergies that were documented and never thought to check the script - it was for Septra a brand name I did not recognize. I got home between 1 and 2 in the morning. When I got up in the morning I looked up Septra and found it contained sulfa, a no-no drug for me. That's why I double check everything...

I then called my urologist to see if they could prescribe a better medication. All I got was voice mail, so I called my personal physician and at least got to talk to a nurse. They didn't know what the doc would do as far as prescribing a better antibiotic. I stopped by the ER on my way to work to let them know that a mistake had been made, and got a script for macrobid to replace the one for Septra. I then went to work.

The urologists office called and said I didn't have a UTI per their opinion because I had no nitrites in my urine so not to take any antibiotics until they cultured the sample. I didn't bother to explain to them that I generally have enterococcus infections, a gram positive bacteria that doesn't create nitrites. I have been down this route with doctors before.

When I got home, ready to drop off the macrobid for filling, the pharmacy said my PCP had called in an antibiotic, so I paid for it and am taking it. The nausea is going down some this evening but the pain at the level of my kidneys is still pretty bad - it could be a UTI or it could be pancreatitis. Who knows? I will pull my records tomorrow to see what the test results were.

I have an appointment October 12th for my endoscopic ultrasound (EUS). I had called Dr. Gnome's office to find out the number to call the Joplin GI doc who was going to schedule the EUS since it had been a week. The receptionist somehow transferred me to another location where they have an office, that person there figured out no-one has sent my info to the Joplin doc (which is what I suspected) and promised that it will be sent today, then the receptionist called me at work while I am still on the line with her office and left me voice mail saying she's sorry I had felt the need to hang up!! I think the receptionist needs to figure out how to use their phone system...she was friendly enough, just a little ditsy on handling the transfer.

Tonight I am up into the wee hours of the morning, still quite nauseous and with considerable pain in The Belly that I am pretty sure is the pancreas. It's doing its dance of pain like it does when it wants to complain, I will take some medication pretty soon and try to sleep. I am so afraid of getting a physical dependence to pain killers that I resist taking anything and wait too long sometimes.

The right sided head pain is pretty bad this evening. It's been going off and on all day. It's not pleasant but it's livable. It is a boring pain through my right temple back to my right occipital region. Heaven preserve me from having the hemicrania continua turn into entire cranium continua!