I decided to start this piece in a dramatic manner. Maybe with something like:
After I vomited out the last of what remained in my stomach into my toilet I saw something that concerned me. The only thing in the bowl was something that resembled a crinkle cut french fry, except that it looked like it was made out of flesh. Did that come out of me? God I hope that isn't a piece of some organ I can't spare.
Then I curled back up into a ball and reached for my cordless phone to call for help. I got up off the floor of my bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. I had puked so hard that the blood vessels around my eyes had burst. I had to try calling a couple of friends before I found one that was awake and he agreed to come pick me up and take me to the hospital. By the way, that was easter monday, about 12:30 am.
To backtrack a bit let me explain some stuff. Last weekend was the easter long weekend. On that sunday I rented a video and went over to a friends house to watch it. The movie was the incredibles, which was good, but I wouldn't call it incredible. Anyway while we were watching the movie, lets say around 9 ish, my stomach started to hurt a little. So I ate some tums and figured that would be that.
But by the end of the movie my stomach hurt worse. So I went home and drank some pepto biZmol, but that didn't help much either. So I kind of thrashed around on my couch and stuff trying to ignore the pain and tire myself out for bed. But that didn't work. And then my stomach flip flopped and I ran to bathroom and barfed. At that point I figured that whatever the problem was that it was now out of me and everything would settle down. Well not exactly.
The pain became agonizing pain and after half an hour I was back at the toilet hucking out flesh fries and wondering if this was gonna get better quicker, or more than likely, not quicker. When my friend arrived he took me to the hospital where they put me on a gurney to look me over and pretty much ignore me while I asked them to give me a shot of anything for the pain. I said it was agonizing, so they would wander off saying they would be back right away. They weren't back for half an hour. Then they took some blood and were gone for an hour. Then they finally gave me some shots around 3:30 am, one of them was demerol and gravol and it didn't do anything. I had the feeling they weren't taking me seriously. But the demerol did help me to sleep.
I tossed and turned on an emergency room gurney the rest of the night and was woken occasionally for something medical. I was usually awakened by this young nurse shaking my arm and gently saying "Jack ... Jack ... Jack. We're going to take some blood."
As it happens my name isn't Jack, but Jack is my middle name and I guess she transposed my first and middle name somehow. I lacked the constitution to correct her the first time and after that it wasn't going to happen. So then they did an ultrasound on my belly and couldn't find anything. Once I was awake enough to talk to the doctor sensibly I asked him what he thought it was and he said maybe the flu. I asked if the flu has symptoms like this and he said "... Sometimes." The blood test showed my white blood cell count was high, and that meant I might have an infection. So I said "... okay."
Then the doctor said he didn't know what else to do but that I probably didn't have any failing organs, so he discharged me. He also made a special note that he had no diagnosis. I asked him what that meant, he said "I can't make a diagnosis."
"I see."
"I recommend you make an appointment with your family doctor and get a barium swallow."
"Sure thing doctor." I say. Note to self, find a doctor to make an appointment with to get a barium swallow. Did he say barium swallow? I know he said barium in there somewhere. Swallow, that sounds wrong, barium something. Well whatever, a doctor will for sure know what it is anyway.
So I go home and spend the rest of the day sleeping. Then I spent most of the night with a fever and sweating more than Mike Tyson would at a spelling bee. So anyway, I think I had the flu.
Now I'm going to jump around a little since that leads me to some global current events.
You may have already heard about the public health fears over certain avian flu's making their way to Canada and North America and causing an epidemic or maybe even a pandemic? The big problem is that these flu's could be a serious problem because they can kill you.
I saw on the news the other day that 65% of Canadians aren't worried about the possible spread of killer flu's to Canada. What I am taking away from that is that 65% of people aren't going to wash their hands, or at least take the idea of curbing an epidemic seriously. Well that isn't smart ladies and germs. Sure, the idea of a killer flu seems like fearmongering, but after how much of a pain in the ass it was for me to get medical treatment for my little flu, imagine what it would be like during an epidemic with everybody seriously fucking sick and emergency rooms packed.
I don't take every panic seriously but this one has all the makings of something to take seriously. But you can call me crazy. Just don't expect me to hear you from inside my airtight land sub.