*Dedicated to My Immune and Digestive SystemI woke up, kind of abruptly, Monday morning, around 9, to intense lower abdomen pressure and queasiness. I didn't think much of, I've had weird shit like this happen before, little moments where my body betrayed me, but with the symptoms and ailments I've suffered in my life pretty redundant, I usually know how to handle this.
That was until I started vomiting uncontrollably. The first round (each round, in this anecdote, is about 5 lurchings of my throat, and within those 5 or 6 spasms, about 3 actual instances of reverse-peristalsis), that is. The second round was just spittle, foam, and blood. Clotted blood, actually. Third, blood again, just lighter. All in all, that's around 15. Everything afterwards was pure bile, which gave me some insight onto bulimia, and also what my insides look like.
Quickly developing chills and aching all over, I called my mom to alert her that I may be dying (in a Buddhist existentialist way, we all are, really), and we both googled my symptoms at the same time. Every result for "vomiting blood" has, in some weird winking fashion, dire instructions to go to the emergency room immediately, which led to the quick decision to call up my grandfather and have him accompany me to Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn. After he showered and changed clothes first (the men in my family are not what you'd call "reliable"), we rode there as I timed the trip knowing the length of time in between my spews. The malady form wasn't hard to fill out, it took me all of 4 seconds to check the boxes (I had ache, chills, dizziness, a headache, light-headedness, fever, and constant vomiting, to which I added "Blood and bile" under "other"), to which I was complemented for by the guy at the door of the emergency room (Greeter? Security guard? Mime? Who knows). My grandfather, not very comforting at all but doing a satisfactory job as my personal buoy, responded "Oh yeah, he's in college".
I thought, "It has nothing to with college, it's because I'm DYING".
And thus began the wait. I have a lot of criticisms of this country, government, religion, and politics in general, but I had never actually depended on haste in medical service before Monday so I agreed with films like "Sicko" but didn''t identify. The only other time I had been to Kings County was to butterfly stitch my busted open forehead after I was pushed headfirst into a desk by this douche bag I was friends with in 8th grade and I had already been cleaned and slightly mended by the nurse, so I wasn't in any danger then. This time, I was constantly feeling out my body to that telltale push in my mid-section telling me to rush outside and coat the asphalt in neon green Chris-juice and fidgeting from the chill and the ache. It seemed like about an hour or more passed until I got taken to see a doctor, after being seen in two different triage rooms and my mom coming by to take over for my grandfather and to make sure that her only seed didn't croak.
All thanks and praises to my ol' earth. Peace, God.
What followed was a lot more pleasant. I could barely move, but eventually, following a bunch of tests (Why do doctors feel the need to be rough when sticking things up your ass? My shit whistles in the key of C now.), having my doctor (or was she a nurse? Never found out.) butcher my veins in all three of the blood tests she took and introducing me to getting my blood extracted from where my pulse is (which hurts like an asshole) I drifted in and out of consciousness for 4 or 5 hours, waking up for said blood tests or asking for a cup of water or a taking a urine test or, the first time I woke up, going fucking crazy. Either from not having eaten for a while or being sedate and suddenly bright eyed or just being in a gurney/bed for an hour or two, I became stir crazy and complained about to both my ol earth and the doctor, which I know realize must've looked insane to them but normal to me.
"I...just can't. I need to move around...I need to get up or something. I'm going crazy and I just can't be in this bed anymore...seriously...I dunno I just can't...I can't get comfortable...I'm feeling really restless...I'm going nuts...I need to walk around...I don't know if that will help...I'm really uncomfortable, I can't relax, I can't relax...will walking help...I don't think so...please unhook my IV so I can walk around...I'm going crazy lying here...".
Then 20 minutes into me contemplating my mortality and stressing out and feeling bored and unable to relax, I was asleep again. Around this time, I noticed I felt better every time I woke up and had stopped feeling like I needed to puke, maybe due to the IV drips running in me. Eventually, it was determined I probably had a slight stomach virus (no shit) and that I should be careful what I consume and to return if I start spewing blood and bile again. (This is all very death metal, really. Very Carcass/Goregrind) I theorized myself that the fact that I quit milk 4 years ago or so and my acid-rich diet has left my stomach lining less durable than others and the huge amount of vomit irritated the lining, ripping or eroding part of it (the blood), and once that clotted and congealed, I couldn't process gas or food so there was nothing to vomit BUT bile. I go home, in a cab, suffer trying to force myself to eat soup and drink the Gatorade the doctor suggested. I couldn't have been enjoying life less.
Until this morning. Tuesday went better, I was starting to feel relatively alright, but since I couldn't really eat anything except jello and soup and porridge from Golden Krust (Shout-outs to my Caribbean people, wah gwan, finna dem irie battyboy, less fiyah), I was just a human soup strainer. I have gained considerable insight into my personal gastrointestinal system and how quick edibles are processed when in liquid form and when your insides are rotting, as mine were. Towards the end of Tuesday night, I felt around 76% or so and had eaten half of the porridge and a shitload of Gatorade (It's got electrolytes.) I knew I should've tried harder to eat more than a 1/8th of a meal, but I was still weak and from past experience, it's hard to get back into the habit of eating when you haven't in a while. Your stomach just won't let you.
I paid for it around 4 or 5 this morning, when I had a fucking seizure. I was shifting violently in and out of REM sleep in the middle of some weird dream that sort of combined the "Cube" movie series, MC Escher, and Ninja Warrior, and my character was some hulking behemoth that was the fourth to make it out of the structure alive. And for some reason, this led to me shaking violently and uncontrollably for fuck knows how long (keep in mind, my stomach is almost entirely composed of acid and bile still and nothing else, so this is the worst possible thing to happen). I was completely beaten and sore and dialed my old earth on my cell phone and she helped me out as I proceeded to explode from all angles and produce the most acidic fucking shit from my mouth I've ever experienced. It was pure Vitamin C. Concentrated ascorbic acid. Basically about a gallon of acid-enhanced Gatorade, like a fire stone to an Eevee. At this point, I was more concerned about my teeth and the delicate layer of enamel that prevents my bottom and top front teeth from being constantly irritated by cold air because of past incidents where they chipped (one was my dumbass fault, the other was my douchebag friend in 6th grade. I really know how to pick 'em.)
To prevent me from dying (my fever was 102-point-something so this time, it was a lot more possible), I was lovingly doted on and by about 8 or 9 o'clock (just in time for me to be cognizant and watch a little bit of the last season of "One on One" in syndication...Kyla Pratt can get it, but why the fuck is Ray-J on this show? Why have I seen Ray-J's dick? And why does this show suck so much? Regardless, Kyla Pratt can get it. And by "it", I mean my stomach virus.) and eventually my fever broke and I felt myself out a bit and figured I could handle real food, and it'd be necessary to stop my constant draining and to get stronger and stop the gas build-up and the intestinal rot, so I downed some Cheerios and headed to bed. Woke up 12, and started my day, knowing I wouldn't be able to make it to the Bronx for my final mentoring, which is kind of a downer, and now I'm stuck trying to get back in sync with my life and the world after being out of it for a good three days or so. After the seizure and events of Monday, it's hard for me to avoid being existential and contemplate decisions and my path, but there is a lot of shit I need to be doing now, and the clock seems to be running out now that I'm 20. And also, it's made my posts late.
All because of two pieces of cornbread and an orange soda I had Sunday night.
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