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Monday, September 9, 2013

4 tests, 6 vials of blood, and 1 IV: How I still don't know what was wrong


This will be ungodly long as one post so I'm splitting it up into parts.

With one week left in the month of August, I gave you the 5 main reasons that I need to lose weight. As I typed that list up, I was in a little bit of pain. And that little bit turned into a nightmare the very next morning.

Backing up to the previous Wednesday night:
I had a slight pain around the top of my ribs on the right side of my body. I felt the pain the most right next to my right breast. For the next few days, it bothered me slightly. I was still able to work out Thursday and Friday and even threw in a little rowing machine that Sunday evening. The pain got worse as the weekend went along and I finally mentioned it to my husband that Sunday night.

Monday morning, it was more painful when I woke up. And the pain had spread into my right shoulder, specifically the top front. But after sleeping a little longer, I was okay for the rest of the day. But we were up most of the night because the pain got worse. Before bed, my husband checked the hours of the walk-in place next to our house, just in case.
I was finally able to fall asleep at 6:30am.... and was jolted awake one hour later feeling more pain that I have ever felt in my life. (Worse than back surgery or the 5 years of pain leading to the surgery.)

It felt like someone was branding me with a hot iron on my shoulder, mainly right at the top in the back.
I sat up and tried to figure out what was going on. At first, I thought it was a muscle so I stretched my neck a few times. The pain lessened and I went to lie back down... only to have to bolt up again in more pain that before. I tried to not wake my husband but that was impossible. He awake to find me writhing in pain and crying hysterically.

It was 7:40am by that time so I got up, got dressed, and drove straight to the walk-in clinic. I was the first patient there. And they took me back immediately.

The physicians assistant came in with a med student and they began to ask me questions. And then they wanted to poke around on my stomach since it seems that I was describing classic gallbladder symptoms. But I had ZERO pain where the gallbladder is located.

So they took some blood (3 vials) and then gave me a chest X-ray to see if they could see anything in my chest area. The X-ray was normal. So they called an imaging place to set up a CT scan a few hours later. (I had just enough time to go home and eat breakfast before I had to fast for 2 hours for that scan.) But before I left, they did an EKG and that was normal as well.

Let me say this: going to get a CT scan was a little intimidating to me but not eating? That would have been fine had it not been for the fact that the imaging place has a SUBWAY SANDWICH right next to it. It made me hungry beyond belief.

The nurse had to insert an IV, the right arm since the blood was taken from the left one a few hours earlier. The IV was for the dye that needed to run through my veins for the scan. She said it would make me warm up in the chest and throat area... and I'd feel like I had peed my pants. I kid you not, she said it. AND IT WAS TRUE! For a split second, I thought that I had peed all over that machine. That was the strangest feeling I think I have ever experienced.

As soon as the test was over, I booked it back to the doctor to find out the results.
CT scan results: Negative
No blood clots, no lumps, no masses... nothing.

They were stumped. The doctor told me to come back in the next morning and get the blood test results.

I couldn't sleep that night. I tried to sleep in the bed, lying down flat. But a few hours into sleep, I was in horrible pain again. So as not to wake my husband, I went to couch and tried to sleep propped up. It did help a little but I spent more time awake than asleep. If I tried to lie down flat, the pain in my shoulder was excruciating.

Oh, and I had a nice FAT bruise where the nurse took blood on my left arm. The bruise was at least 3 inches wide.

And that was all on Tuesday.





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