So for the third time in my life a small particle of residue has forced itself through my urethra and caused me a day of pain. Yeah, so in case you don’t know, I have a propensity for getting kidney stones. And yes, kidney stones is that wonderful health problem which ranks #2 on the list of most painful experiences. Over time, I’ve kind of grown accustomed to them – it’s super painful, but I know what it is and can kind of deal with it. The first time it happened I was pretty sure I was dying. Rolling around on the floor of the student health ward while vomiting bile probably ranks as one of the top ten most awesome experiences of my entire life.
So this weekend I had a feeling one was coming – I had some abdominal pain and then it kind of snuck around to my sides. By Monday morning I was 90% sure what was happening, the greatest indicator being the small dribble that came out when I was trying to go to the bathroom. In preparation for the event, I bought two bottles of water and threw a pillow on the floor, as to make the fetal position I was going to assume a bit more comfortable. Things were going pretty well – and by that I mean I was in agony – when I had the urge to throw up. Throwing up during the experience is pretty standard for me – the physical pain is so excruciating that it just comes naturally. So I go to the toilet and start vomiting – and mixed in with all the water I had been drinking were clouds of red. I kind of got a little nervous, and then my entire last eruption was just pure blood.
This freaked me out a bit.
So I kind of throw on some clothes and amble out of my room. I go upstairs to Chris’s room and knock. It’s worth noting that Chris’s really attractive girlfriend is in town now. So Chris opens up the front door with a friendly, “What the hell do you want, punk?” (That’s just kind of how we great each other around here.) He sees me hunched over, asking to go to the ER. He immediately rushes around and gets ready to go – his girlfriend doesn’t know what’s going on so she’s like, “Hey Tedd!” I kind of look up at her, and I can only imagine what she thought at that point. Thoughts like, “Who let the gremlin in?” probably passed through her head; what a great impression for me to make. I just counted myself lucky I didn’t vomit a stream of bloody puke all over her.
So we get in the cab, and evidently the cab driver thought we wanted to re-enact scenes from Driving Miss Daisy, as he drove about 10 miles an hour and took the long cut to the hospital. He jovially drove slowly, waving school children and old women who were waiting at cross walks (and had red lights) to walk in front of us, he took us down slow streets covered in speed bumps for added bumps and length, he thought we wanted to enjoy scenes of heavy traffic and start and stop movement, as he hit every light on our way – it was great. Especially as my stomach was heaving and it felt more and more like death was coming for me.
We finally arrived at the hospital and were met with a group of Koreans. Chris has been in there several times for chest pains, so the head doctor immediately went up to Chris and said “Williams! Chest?” and started awkwardly moving to second base with Chris. I would have promptly made fun of him had my insides felt like they were going to explode. Chris managed to pry the doctor’s hands away from his pecs at which time they hurried me to a curtained room and I began the long process of explaining what was wrong with me. I promptly explained that I knew it was a kidney stone, but I was vomiting blood. For some reason vomiting was difficult to get across, which led Chris and I to pantomime vomiting several times. I.e.:
“He’s BLEEEEH!”
We finally got it across and then the doctor named a litany of tests that I was going to be given. At this point I was just squirming around on the bed and hoping that Chris would just do whatever to get things done. The doctor comes toward me and in broken English says to me:
“Well, I think it is cancer.”
To which I stopped squirming and looked up at him with wide eyes. He however continued..
“This is what I say to you if you were old man.”
I just looked at Chris and shook my head. I said, “You can’t say that! How do you lead off with that!” He goes on to say it’s probably a small tear in my esophagus from the vomiting and it’s no big deal.
So the doctor takes some blood and then I pee what little I can into a cup. At this point they bring in a long tube and some jelly and tell me they are going to shove it through my nose and into my stomach.
I’m pretty thrilled about this. I stick up my hand and just say, “No! I’m not doing this.” The doctor, however, told us it was mandatory and I had to do it. By this time our Korean friend, Jed, is there with us and he explains to me that I have to do it as well. So the doctor lays me down and starts shoving it down my nose.
I can honestly say this is the worst experience I’ve ever had. It feels like you are starting to suffocate and your gag reflux automatically takes over. Why they didn’t give me a puke bucket, I will never know. So I sit up and puke all over the bed and my clothes and finally yell, in my most diva voice, “I can’t do this. I can’t do this! Get it out!” So they pull the tube out of my nose and I’m gasping for air and sitting in my own vomit.
Chris and Jed are kind of looking at me repulsed and I just look at the residue on my shirt.
“No blood,” I say to Chris. “That’s good right?”
Another doctor is coming in at this point, however, and has another tube. I look at Jed and he’s like, “They have to do this.” So this doctor takes the hose and just looks at me. He was, however, better at this whole thing, and had me sit up and put the tube in. It took no time at all to put it in. For the next 15 minutes he proceeded to drain the entire contents of my stomach, with me intermittently sitting up to vomit into a plastic bag that they finally had the foresight to bring. When it was all over, I felt like I had just been beat up by about forty-seven different people.
At this point I’m completely exhausted and I ask Jed how much longer I have to stay. The nurse comes in and I hear her say 4 or 5. It’s 2 pm right then, so I thought – “Eh, it won’t be so bad to leave around 4.” Jed, however, turns to me and says, “You’ll have to be here 4 or 5 more hours.”
Great…
So my other Korean friend comes around then with some extra clothes for me. Chris has to go get ready for work, so Jed, Jason and I hang out in the ER for like 5 hours. The rest of the afternoon consisted of 3 X-rays, a CT test, and ended with an endoscope test. After my experience in the morning I was pretty terrified about the endoscope test – I didn’t know how I was going to survive another tube being shoved in my face – this one was much better, however, as they knocked me out completely. I think I was flagged as a tube-face trouble maker, because I don’t think everyone gets the anesthetic.
As the process started, I was lying on my side and the nurse came up to me. She had a needle and says, “Sleep.” I was pretty terrified, wondering what would happen if I couldn’t go to sleep, or if they didn’t have enough anesthetic for a giant foreigner. She put the needle in however and in like 5 seconds I was completely gone.
I woke up back in the ER with the best buzz I have ever had. The gastro-intestinal doctor came up to me and I was really out of it. He proceeded to tell me that everything was okay – it was only a small tear in my chest and would heal in a couple days. He told me that I had to eat slushy foods for a few days at which point I was like, “Only ice cream, Doc?” He didn’t get the joke, so I proceeded to tap him on the shoulder and say, “I’m just kidding, Guy.” The ice broken the doctor went on to tell me that I look Mormon. He then again reassured me that I was fine and that it was only a small tear – at which point, under the power of the anesthetic, I felt it was appropriate to give him a fist pound.
Jed, Jason and I thought we were in the clear, only to be told I had to have a 4th X-ray. I was pretty thrilled about this. This one came back negative, however, so they let me go free at 7 pm; seven whole hours after I had gone in.
I felt pretty good just being out of the hospital, so I went to work and taught my last class. The speech topic for the class was “What is the most pain you’ve ever experienced?”
Oh, Korea. I’m glad I got to have one awful, awkward hospital experience while I was here.
And if nothing else, at least now I know I look Mormon.
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