aaand I'm back. Sort of.

Holy cow. So I was in the hospital Sunday at 11:30AM through yesterday afternoon and let me just say I never want to go there again. Unless to visit or if I'm having a baby. Because let me tell you people, it's not all it's cracked up to be. I was helpless for like over 48 hours of my life, and I hate that because I ask for help when I need it. I was being fed and letting my mom give me sips of water and juice. It was pretty ridiculous.

You know, I never mentioned what I was there for. I will probably have to repeat this story to a whole lot of people but maybe I've directed you to this blog because of that reason. So here we go, anyway... I guess it was Thursday that I started not feeling so good, because I didn't go to either of my classes. Not completely characteristic of me because I don't like missing class, nay miss my personality theory and research class because I'm doing very poorly in there and it would be in my best interest not to miss class. I'm starting to feel a little woozy as I'm writing this out so if I have to cut short to take a nap then I will. Anyhow, I was in bed pretty much Thursday through Saturday. Friday marked nausea, vomitting, all the gross stuff that comes with feeling sick, and dizziness. Saturday my mom came to check me out because I was feeling so bad that I was considering having Alex take me to the hospital. But she said just wait until Monday and we'll get you to the doctor.

So Sunday morning I went to the bathroom, sat on the toilet for a while and pretty soon couldn't see anything. I was really really dizzy and nauseated. My vision was like how you feel if you think you're going to black out, everything is dark and fuzzy. But the scary thing is that it wouldn't go away. I tried to shake it off, and I freaked out because it felt like things were closing in, and I literally felt for a minute like I was dying. I needed to get some help before I passed out or something. I called my mom and she came and took me to Tempe St. Luke's.

They took us about an hour after we got there, around 12:30 not a long wait, and the woman told me to sit in the chair. I started to get really dizzy again and leaned over in my chair. She said I needed to get in a bed so they grabbed me a wheel chair and took me to a temp room with a curtain. My blood pressure was really low. High fever over 100. Still feeling sick. It was horrible. They set me up with an IV in a most awkward place in my arm that made it nearly impossible for me to bend, rendering my right arm useless, and after 2 bags of saline they said I was ready to go home. That was fast, I thought. I stood up and I felt really dizzy still, started to black out, sat back down, the doctor, not the nurse who was about to send me home, said we should take my BP again. Sure enough, extremely low. They set me back up with a new saline bag, some antibiotic, and it wasn't until about 11Pm that night we were able to get a room.

I didn't get much sleep, if any at all. I had weird hallucinations when I closed my eyes so I was staying awake. They took my blood a lot. Poked me with lots of needles (which I absolutely hate, not that anybody really likes being poked with needles, unless you're into that sort of thing...) and was looking forward to the morning where the doctor would hopefully tell me I could go home. Turns out I was really dehydrated, so by this time I'm on my like 5th IV or something. Over the course of my stay I had my blood drawn like 6 times, once from an artery (most painful thing I've ever experienced in my life, wouldn't recommend it to anyone). And just as a guideline, any doctor who brags about how good he is at something is usually not that good at it. He stuck a giant needle in my right wrist, poked around, couldn't find this hidden artery, then tried again in my left arm. Ah, there it is. Frick, that hurts. Doctors have like no idea. I would put that pain second place to giving birth and I don't even know about that yet.

Anyway, the artery blood drawing was yesterday, but Monday morning they told my mom there was no way I could go home that day because my blood pressure was still too low, so they pumped me full of more saline. All together my stay in the hospital rendered me 12 bags of the stuff. My belly is still very swollen and my belly button looks like a horizontal line. I'm having kind of a hard time walking around, I'm guessing because of the swelling in my legs, or from the fact that I've very literally been in bed since like last Thursday... I had my mom take a picture of my arms all IVed and wrapped after all the needles they poked in me so I'll post that at some point. But basically it was one of the worst experiences of my life. I am resting at home fairly comfortably, still not feeling 100% but much, much better than had you talked to me Thursday through Sunday before I went to the hospital. Now it's just a matter of all this swelling going down. Yeah I look chubby but I think you can expect that when they force 12 bags of fluid into my body over the course of 48 hours (makes me sick just thinking about it).

That is basically my story. I had a gastric virus, dehydration, and a UTI. Still not sure where all that dehydration came from that made me so dizzy and sick, you guys see me nearly always toting a water bottle or some other liquid device. But I am glad we didn't wait until Monday to see campus health because I would probably be in much worse shape. Thanks for all your good wishes and concern! I love you. I want to get back to Tempe as soon as possible, I miss you all very much, plus I have so much homework to do, I just can't get myself to do it when I am still feeling like this. And hopefully this blog answered all your questions haha :)