There's Always Room for Jell-O!

Or so the commercial used to say. Does anyone actually like Jell-O? To me it just says, "You're too sick to eat anything else!" I hated it when I was a kid -- apart from the mother-irritating pushing it through my teeth part; I very much enjoyed that -- and I hate it now. Yesterday morning, really the previous night, I started having the worst pain just under my ribcage and into my back. It kept me up most of the night. In the morning, I thought it was better. It was, briefly, and then my side started cramping up so hard that I had to curl into it. It was on the left, so I knew it wasn't appendicitis, but I had no idea what it might be. I took a shower in the hopes of feeling better. (For some reason, I always think taking a bath or shower will cure whatever is ailing me. When my kids are sick, it's usually the first thing I tell them to do too. Sometimes it works, but mostly it doesn't.)

It got so bad I could barely sit up straight. The ongoing pain was at about a 7 on the silly smiley-face pain scale. When the cramping hit, the pain shot up to at least 8 1/2. I went to the emergency room, and the doctor was fairly sure the problem was kidney stones. Because I had driven myself, he gave me some crappy painkiller that didn't do anything. I had a CAT scan -- no stones. But the doctor said there was a big air pocket in my upper GI tract. He said that would cause that kind of "rolling pain" and it would "get my attention." Yes, it did. Oh, and did I mention that they tried to start an IV, emphasis on the tried. Someone finally got it, but today I look like I spent the weekend at Fight Club.

As soon as the doctor decided I could leave, within just a few minutes, I was out the door. He gave me a prescription for narcotic painkillers (of which I took just one all day) and a "muscle relaxer for my intestines." I don't know what that was called, nor do I know how I ended up with an air bubble in my upper intestines (if I correctly understood what the doctor said). My usual MO when doctors try to explain what's wrong with me is to half-listen and just follow directions afterwards. I am not a doctor, so I have little interest in the details; just make me feel better. I rested most of the day yesterday. My son and his girlfriend brought over some soup -- I'm supposed to be on a clear-food diet, which is really hard -- from Panera and hung around for a while. I'm better today and just got home from my night class. I won't take any more of the pills; if I've made it through the day, I'll be fine. On the upside, we did get a lot of rain today, which we really needed. Ta-ta for now.