Touching Death In The Crotch

About two weeks ago I took ill, and fairly badly. I was experiencing the worst stomach pains I had ever felt, and I chocked it up to one of a handful of traditional explanations: alcohol poisoning (even though I had not consumed that much), the flu, male pregnancy etc.
The only relief I had from the pressure and pain, albeit temporary, was to force myself to vomit, as for some reason, my body did not want to do it naturally, which I did find quite strange.

The biggest sign that something was really wrong, was the fact that part of my upper abdomen was bloated and distended to about the size of an egg, even to the point that the skin around it was becoming discolored. Not a good sign. I just figured I had some sort of blockage in my intestine and some stimulant tea would cure what ails me.

Well, after almost five days of this, with virtually no improvements, I was finally encouraged by my dad to actually go to a real doctor to at least know what I was dealing with. So, with help, I was taken to the emergency room at a local hospital, run through cat scans and such and given a sexy gown to wear.

The news was great. Apparently I was suffering from what is known as an Incarcerated Abdominal Hernia. This is actually a bad thing. Imagine if you will (and you have no choice) the intestine and bowel getting kinked like a hose so nothing can pass through. Already pretty crappy. . .(pun). Then on top of that, imagine that this kink gets stuck in a tear in the abdominal muscles and is virtually caught right under the skin, which is not where it should be. Good times. Obviously no amount of juices, tea, and rest could have cured this.

The scary thing for me, was that the doctor then told me that if I had waited only a few more days, my bowel and/or intestine could have ruptured and most likely, I would have died. Yes died. In just a few more days. Now I'm not sure if that was accurate, but I'm not waiting around a few days to see if he was right. Just to hammer the death thing home, my electrolyte and potassium levels were so low due to all the vomiting, that I could have died from just that as well.

So I was put under and operated on that very night. I heard later, that kinked part of my bowel was literally dead, and part of it had to be removed, as well as portions of my intestine, though not much. Since everything was blocked up, the surgeon said that the upper intestine as swelled to almost ten times its normal size, and I didn't even get an award!

All in all, the surgery went well, and I began the extremely joyous recovery in the hospital. I had a tube shoved down my nose and IV's coming out of every vein. In other words, I've never looked better. My hospital stay lasted almost a week, and I can tell you that I've never felt more pathetic, feeble, and worthless. Even though my physical self was slowly healing, mentally and emotionally, the experience was quite devastating, which I never expected.

But that is behind me now. My dad broke me out of "prison" earlier this week and I've been fortunate enough to have a place to recover and heal, as I'm still not very mobile or self sufficient yet.

I'm improving day by day, but as usual, it's never fast enough. I have vocal takes to continue with, but I doubt I'll be in any good shape for pushing lots of sound through my diaphragm for a while still.

I'll get back to work as soon as I can, it's just an unfortunate set back. But hey, at least I'm not dead. . . . yet.