The Longest 24 hours.Ever.

So tonight I have to combine the last two days, only because they never were what I expected them to be. Before I get into the latest updates on my life. I will say I did get out for a run yesterday, even if it was slushy, rainy, and not ideal running conditions. 

Needless to say by the end my feet were soaked, along with my legs up to my knees after having to try and leap either puddles, and still landing in 3-5 inch puddles, or attempting to jump through snow banks to get around the piles and still sinking into the snow.

Nice and Rainy

Again not ideal sidewalk conditions

Not at all.

But I did manage to get 4 miles in according to the schedule I am following, so that felt good.

So then... everything kind of came to a halt.

Here's a somewhat timeline

4:30-5pm: I'm sitting at my desk and begin to feel some extreme back pain.. I'm thinking it has to do with the shoveling from Sunday, but something about it is a little bit different. I couldn't quite "stretch" out the kinks or do anything to really make it feel better. I attempted some ibuprofen  but nothing was really working. 

7:00pm: I get home and find myself sitting at the counter hunched over still feeling the back pain, which was slowly creeping around the front of my body up under my ribs. I attempted a hot bath, but just could not get any relief. At this point, no position, standing, crunching over, laying flat, or anything could comfort me. I was in sheer pain. 

8:00pm: I call my parents in complete hysterics and just in an unbearable amount of pain from whatever it was that was happening to my body. They didn't like the sounds of my tears, or the description of my pain and told me I should either try and get a friend to bring me to the ER or get a cab or call 911 if needed. There was seriously nothing worse I have ever felt than this pain. It hurt breathing, so crying on top of it didn't help the situation.

8:15pm: I get in touch with my good friend 1.0 and she immediately comes to get me and bring me to MGH Emergency Room. She's seen me battle through all my field hockey injuries and at this moment, she was seeing me at my worst. I was in so much pain that I could not stop crying. She did a great job asking me questions about my pain and any typical registration questions in the car in case she needed to speak for me at the hospital. 

8:37pm: We arrive at the ER, and lucky for me it wasn't that busy from what I could tell, but they also immediately got me checked in and next thing I knew I was being taken back to the urgent care unit where I would find myself for the next almost 10 hours. 

Once I was placed in my awesome hospital gown, I was started on an IV of fluids and morphine to try and help alleviate some of my pain, and in hopes to get me to stop crying, although I was pretty much out of tears at this point. 

I hate needles. And I didn't take this photo until probably 5am

So after my initial dose of morphine and speaking with 2 nurses, a medical student, and the physicians assistant. The pain was not staying away. I was again ordered for 2 more doses of morphine to try and help ease the pain.

They ordered a couple blood tests and deciphered that I had high levels than they liked in my liver and were a little bit concerned.

After retelling my situation and answering the same questions 9 different times (and swearing to 1.0 that if one more person asked me these questions I was going to punch them in the face), I was sent off for an ultra sound to take some pictures of my abdominal area.

The initial diagnosis thought was that my common bile duct tube was enlarged and possibly had some gallstones, but they weren't sure because they couldn't see them on the ultrasound. 

Still sitting in my room in pain they ordered a stronger dose of pain meds and I was given some Dilaudid which let me tell you, went straight to my head making me dizzy and woozy, but at least helped some of the pain.

Insert the Surgeon Team.

In comes a younger male doctor who was really nice, and immediately warns me that he has to ask me all the same questions... Me being a little loopy from the Dilaudid, 1.0 warned him of my earlier threat and he promised to make it quick.

After his examination he told me that they were a little concerned but that I remained a little mystery as certain symptoms weren't adding up, but that they could clearly see I was in pain. He mentioned a possible CAT scan, but stated they didn't like to have younger females have too many of those, and I had already had one back in 2008.

He then went off and consulted with other doctors and came back concluding that they would try and X-Ray and some sort of drink to see what was going on. Which both sounded better than the alternative of a camera down my throat. 

So off to X-rays I went, and then I came back and they had me drink this god awful stuff that numbed my tongue and throat... which I still don't know the point of... 

Poor 1.0 stayed with me the whole time...

sleeping in the chair

After waiting a few more hours, insert 6:15am, and me still not having slept, still not feeling 100% fine, and the doctors still not knowing what was wrong with me. They felt comfortable discharging me since they had knocked off life threatening or serious conditions, but still wanted me to follow-up.

They are currently treating me for a possible ulcer in my stomach and/or intestine, and I'm currently catching up on sleep, trying to get comfortable, and keeping my fingers crossed this medicine starts kicking in and working soon. The pain under my ribs has subsided, but the back pain continues to be somewhat persistent... 

I'm now on a crackers and clear fluids diet and also told to "rest". Not exactly what someone training for the marathon on an already shortened training schedule wants to hear.  But I guess there's nothing I can do about it. I have to follow-up with the doctors in another 24 hours to check on some additional tests that they are 

And to top off matters even more I wasn't feeling well enough to attend tonight's Bruins game... For me to miss a Bruins v. Rangers game that I had so much been looking forward to... you know I'm not feeling great.

Hopefully this will "heal" itself quicker than expected and the pains start to go away...

I'll keep you posted...