My Give-A-Sh*tter Gave Out

That's what my dad said to me at the end of our phone conversation today. "My Give-A-Shitter gave out." I can relate. I've been trying to keep a cheerful demeanor, think positively, blah blah blah & it's just not there.

Remember my Christmas day trip to the ER? I experienced the joy of another ER trip this past Wednesday when an aspirin, a tiny coated aspirin, not a big chunky Excedrin, lodged in my throat denying even a drop of spit to pass. Alarming is an understatement. After an hour of trying to swallow the pill with no luck, we left Katie & Hailey at home while Carl drove Hannah and me to the local small-town ER. I left a note for Sheri, knowing she would probably stop in for her mail-delivery break.

At the ER a nurse, moving like molasses, showed more interest in my vital signs (oh, my blood pressure is high? No Kidding!) than in the fact that something was lodged in my throat and might at any moment get sucked into my air passages and kill me. OK. I'm being a little sarcastic here. Finally, after about twenty minutes (no exaggeration) the nurse practitioner, who looked all of eighteen years old, paid me a visit. After three banal questions by the NP, I interrupted and asked, "What can you do to push the pill on down my throat?"

"Oh, honey, we probably can't do anything here."

Don't honey me! (I didn't say that, but I really really wanted to!) I did say, "Then let's stop wasting time and figure out where I need to go." I wasted 45 minutes at that little pit-stop before Carl drove me to Joplin. Yes, we could've driven just 20 minutes to Parsons, but they weren't sure a doctor would be available to do whatever needed done. I took their word for it and made the 45-minute trip, as I said, to Joplin.

The Joplin ER was an entirely different story. Friendly, fast, efficient. They had my insurance info on file, papers signed, and a verbalized plan in five minutes. In another five minutes they took my vital signs and wheeled me to my own room. Carl could barely keep up.

Ten minutes later four nurses arrived. Actually, one nurse and three nursing student. Inwardly I groaned, having no desire to be a guinea pig that day. I was doing good to keep my wits about me so I didn't scare Hannah half to death.

Fifteen minutes later I saw a doctor. An actual MD. He had the yellowed remains of a black eye, but I kept my tongue (believe it or not). After having me try to swallow some water to prove that I really could not even swallow my own spit, the MD suggested that I first try a medication that would relax my esophageal muscle. It dawned on me: any medicine I received would have to enter my body through a needle. Could this day get any worse?

Enter nurse and one nursing student with two trays full of every possible needle, syringe, prep pad, yuck, yuck, yuck.

"I'm a real needle weenie. If this medicine doesn't work, will you have to stick me again for the other procedure?"

"Oh no. We'll be real nice," the nurse replied and began discussing the appropriate needle size with the student.

As they approached me and I attempted not to recoil I asked, "Which one of you is going to stick me."

After a noticable hesitation, the nurse replied, "She's going to stick you but I'm going to stand real close." Does she think I'm stupid? What does it matter how close she stands if newbie nursing student misses my enormous vein???

I replied, "How about you stick me and she learns on someone else?" And that is, indeed, what we did. To condense the remainder of this story: the relaxation meds did not work, the nurse put me under, a different MD ran a camera down my throat to photograph the aspirin, pushed the aspirin down and sent me home with a presciption for Prevacid.

Swallowing hurts like a you-know-what, I haven't eaten well since Wednesday, and here I sit with my broken Give-A-Sh*tter. Thank God for Sheri. She took care of the big girls while I visited the Joplin ER, she picked up the same girls from school for me on Thursday and brought Hailey home from her basketball game today. That's been a pretty one-sided friendship this week, for which I'm extremely grateful. If it weren't for Sheri & Carl & everyone who has listened to my tale of woe this week, my Give-A-Sh*tter would have probably exploded altogether. As it is, I can probably repair it...at least I hope I can.