I can take...

the pain, its the vomiting I can't stand. At least, that's what I told myself yesterday morning. I woke up with pain in my abdomen, unfortunately a familiar feeling for me. I was under the impression that this was going to be all over after my litany of surgeries last year.

Four hours later, the pain had gotten worse and the vomiting started in, I knew this feeling, it seemed like something was causing an internal blockage. I called my doctor and headed to the emergency room. When I got there they set me up to take some tests, but decided not to give me pain medication.

Two hours after that I was begging. The pain got progressively worse and worse, every minute seemed like an hour. I asked once for medication for the pain. Then I insisted. They eventually gave me morphine. Narcotics never felt so good. When someone puts morphine into your IV, you can feel the numbness pouring through your body, within seconds alleviating all pain. Sweet relief. Then you immediately become groggy and sleep for hours.

One set of x-rays, two CAT scans, and fifteen hours of emergency room fun later, my problem had passed and they let me go home. By the time they were able to set up my second set of CAT scans the blockage had gone away, and no definite answers were arrived at. The emergency room doctors suspect another adhesion, which may have gotten twisted off, causing blockage.

I lived for ten years with intermittent hospital visits exactly like this one, and don't want to do it anymore. Because of my little adventure yesterday, I had to skip the race today, as well as cancel a movie date scheduled for later today with a friend. Other people get a cold or the flu, I get intestinal blockage.

I am going to make an appointment with my surgeon to investigate potential solutions for this problem; I do not want to live the rest of my life having to go through the ordeal I experienced yesterday.