I Am A Bruised Blueberry

Just call me Violet Beauregarde. You know...the girl who turns blue and swells up into a blueberry in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. (Or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory if you're of the younger set...in which case I don't like you because you probably don't have stretch marks or poor abdominal muscle tone.)

It was 2:00 am when I sat straight up in bed and propelled myself quickly toward the bathroom. I grabbed a hair clip on the way because I was pretty sure I knew what was coming. I clipped my hair up as I broke into a sweat and began to shiver. Then the pain hit. It was like a never ending labor pain. There was no 'breathe through it until it stops' because there was no stopping.

I grabbed a bucket and headed back to bed because lying back down might make it magically go away. It didn't. I laid on my left side. I laid on my right side. I got on my hands and knees. I stood on my head. Okay, I can't stand on my head but I did seriously consider it. I told my husband I had to go to the hospital.

This. Cannot. Be. Happening. (I am being brave sharing this really wretched pic because I want to share
the true essence of the experience with you. I'm generous that way. I'm also still on good drugs. )  

Hospitals are fabulous. They have morphine. That stuff is awful going in, but after a few minutes...wow. Just...w o w. I had an ultrasound during which I'm pretty sure the tech actually perforated my gallbladder and broke a rib. Then I had a CAT scan. Then I had a sadistic shot from hell lovely shot of something that stopped the abdominal pain and some antibiotics and I was on my way to room 401 to be scheduled for emergency removal of my gallbladder.

They scrubbed my body with blue surgical scrub. Blue! It is much more attractive than that putrid yellow I have seen before, but blue? Hence, I look like a blueberry. But wait! There's more!

I have only 5 small incisions or puncture wounds. The wounds are not really the bear of this surgery. The bear is that they use one of those little openings to fill your abdomen with carbon dioxide so they have more room to work and greater visualization. In other words, they inflated me like a balloon. And holy hell, that hurts! So, I look like a big, plump blueberry. With band-aids.   


I am a true believer that everything happens for a reason. I cannot for the life of me figure out what the reason could possibly be for my needing emergency surgery in the final weeks of our fire recovery. I suppose maybe I complained one too many times about shopping and packing and sleeping in the rented bed and this was just meant to be a distraction. Who knows? 


At any rate, I have no insurance. I am in some serious pain. And they scarred up my perfectly beautiful, stretch-marked, saggy belly. How dare they! I even have a new stretch mark, I presume from all of that carbon dioxide inflation. 


Because...WHY NOT?!

Apparently, I have a new allergy to add to the list.

Update: My arms are on fire. As if I have a serious sunburn. I'm itchy. Yup. I'm having an allergic reaction. The doc has called in a different pain medication which I needed two hours ago. I feel like having a tantrum and saying ugly things but that would require actually moving my belly so instead I will sit, very very still, and pout.