A Real Pain In The Neck

It’s safe to say the last few days did not go the way I imagined, not even close. I was supposed to work a short shift on Sunday over lunch, where I would have been thrown into the deep end, left on my own to run the show with the boss around only if I absolutely needed him.

Unfortunately I spent most of Saturday night up in pain, with what I thought was strained neck muscles. I was pretty clearly exhausted and in pain when I showed up for work Sunday morning so my boss told me to take the day off. He gave me some painkillers he had and his son got me some Deep-Heat (like A5-35) and they seemed to work for a short while but I still spent most of the day in pain. I went to the drug store in hopes of scoring some muscle relaxants but apparently you need a prescription to get that sort of thing here.

I continued to use the drugs and the rub that Chris and Cooper gave me and eventually they stopped providing any form of relief at all. I was up most of the night in excruciating pain and by morning I was officially in the most pain I had ever been in, in my entire life. I texted Chris asking him if there was a walk-in clinic in town and he replied several hours later telling me there wasn’t but if I went to the doctor’s office across the street and they could see I was in distress they would have someone see me. I called my insurance company who asked about a million questions, leaving me in tears because my neck had become so swollen it was difficult to open my mouth, before heading to the doctors office.

Since I wasn’t on the books I needed to be seen by the triage nurse, who more or less wrote me off as soon as she saw me. Like me she thought it was just a muscle strain and suggested I go see a physiotherapist. I ended up waiting over an hour to see a doctor but it was worth it because it turns out it wasn’t a muscle strain at all. The doctor wasn’t completely sure what was wrong but he knew it wasn’t muscular and told me I should be admitted to the hospital. I burst into tears with this news. Not only was I in excruciating pain but now I was going to have to stay in the hospital, pray the insurance company would cover it or my time in Australia would be ending faster than it even started, and what about my new job? I have only worked two shifts and have already called in sick, really not making the greatest of first impressions.

I was a giant ball of stress, pain, and emotion as the doctor tried to calm me down and convince me this was the best course of action. Eventually I agreed and we began the half-hour process of setting an IV in my extremely dehydrated veins. All of my friends who work in hospitals notice how ‘nice’ my veins are but this never seems to be the case when someone actually needs to find one and stick a needle in it. Once the IV was finally set the doctor drew some blood and sent me off to find my own way to the hospital.

I headed back to the hotel and packed a few changes of clothes and some toiletries, along with the paperwork and test tubes of blood the doctor gave me, before begging my boss to drive me to the hospital. I had pretty much checked out due to the pain by the time we reached the hospital and the lady trying to admit me gave up fairly quickly and just sent me to my room after I gave her my passport as the insurance company had already called her and I was useless at answering questions.

Since I already had the Iv set in my arm they wasted no time and started pumping drugs into me almost immediately. I spent the rest of the day drifting in and out of sleep and watching terrible daytime TV. During one of the brief periods I was awake a nurse suggested I eat some ice-cream. Since I hadn’t eaten anything since the night before, (and projectile vomited everything I consumed) I figured food would probably be a good idea even if it was only ice-cream. My body did not agree. I could not open my mouth far enough to fit the spoon in. I tried to just suck the ice-cream off the tip of the spoon but I almost screamed when I tried because it caused so much pain. Apparently my stomach was going to remain empty a little while longer.

After several hours of sleep, 3 rounds of IV antibiotics, a couple different kinds of pain killers, some steroids, and some anti-inflammatories I was able to open my mouth just enough to fit a spoon inside. This was no small victory because it meant I could finally eat something. The nurse was so excited she brought me two ice-creams and a yogurt, perhaps a little ambitious or hopeful on her behalf as it was about 10pm and I was completely shattered. I ate one ice-cream and continued to sleep off and on until about 4am.

Day two in the hospital went a little better. I was in no pain at all when I woke up, a miracle as far as I’m concerned, but was still tired, and was getting pretty lonely. Not having any visitors was bad enough but I kept getting stuck with some pretty unfriendly nurses. In addition to not being very personable none of them seemed to be on the same page about anything. Some of them were checking my vitals every 2 hours, some of them were letting me go 8 hours between checks, and some of the nurses insisted on monitoring my urine output while others didn’t seem to see the point. I really would have minded if the ones who insisted on monitoring it actually bothered to check and empty the bowl I needed to pee into because when I called them to empty it I waited for about 15 minutes for someone to show up while they all chatted it up at the nurses station just down the hall from my room. No one every hurried when I hit the call button, it really is a good thing I was never in distress.

I had an ultrasound scheduled for 4pm but it ended up happening much earlier in the day than that. The only other time I have had an ultrasound was when I had mono and my fever was so high I was hallucinating and as I was watching the screen I thought there was a horror moving taking place inside of me, not a good feeling at all. This was a much better experience, except the tech kept taking pictures and although I know that is her job I was worried she was taking pictures of things that were wrong, but she assured me everything looked okay.

When the doctor came in this morning he told me the ultrasound looked okay and that he wanted to do one more round of blood work to make sure I had this bacterial infection under control. He told me he would be back to see me around noon and if the tests came back okay then I could go home. I was pretty sure I was going to starve to death if people continued to serve me a diet of pureed veggies much longer so I was stoked about this news until 12:00 when there was no doctor in sight and the nurse hooked me up to an IV that took at least an hour and a half to run.

I was sure I was going to be in the hospital for another night and I started to sulk. I just wanted to go home and sleep in my own bed. Not really a lot of difference between the two, the hospital even has a better cable package, but home is just less depressing, plus I can eat what I want and not get questioned for not eating mushy broccoli.

Luckily the doctor just got held up in surgery and I ended up being discharged in the early afternoon. I am not out of the woods yet and I know that but it it’s nice not being hooked up to machines and feeling like I have some control over my life. Not worrying about the bill I'm racking up for every night I stay there is also nice.

Now I get to start the process of jumping through hoops for the insurance company, worrying about whether or not I still have a job, and trying to get better of course. I picked up a prescription after I got back home and have a follow up appointment with the doctor on Friday.

Clearly I haven’t managed to achieve my goal of hitting the ground running but really things could have been much worse. I have no idea where this infection came from and it is possible I contracted it while in Asia and it just took its time to hit me. If I had gotten this sick in a third world country where no one speaks English I think I would have been in a lot of trouble. I need to be thankful I didn’t get sick while I was in Asia, and that I still had a few days remaining on my travel insurance when I did get sick. It’s been a pretty trying few days but I’m trying to stay positive. That being said I could really use a hug so feel free to send them my way!