Making sense of life via Lists (note: do not read if squeamish)

Things I do not have:

1. a fever

2. kidney stones

3. gallstones

4. diverticulitis

5. a viral infection

6. a bacterial infection

7. any sort of infection whatsoever

8. appendicitis

9. slightly high or maybe low liver enzyme, I can't remember what the doctor said

10. any clue what day of the week it is let alone the actual date

Things I have (within the last 36 hours):

1. extreme abdominal pressure (see yesterday's? post about being inflated Looney Tunes style)

2. weirdly mobile abdominal / back pain

3. odd fizzy bubbling (like a freshly opened can of coke) in my gut

4. excess saliva

5. dry mouth

6. vomit (probably the cause of the dry mouth)

7. the shivers. seriously I cannot warm up.

Things I have (current):

1. growling gnawing hunger

2. a fear of eating even a very small bit of something utterly benign like toast because I do not want a repeat of yesterday's vomiting or today's nausea (I forgot to put that on the previous list, my bad) where I was almost wishing I would vomit again so that possibly the nausea would stop. or I'd choke to death while vomiting which I almost did last night but fortunately I was in the ER at the time.

I don't remember where I left off in the "my gut is full air like a tricksy yellow bird or possibly a very aggressive mouse forced an air hose down my throat" post. And you don't want to read all of the details anyway. To sum up: I called in sick, I threw up, I felt better, I napped, I stupidly ate a super blah basic lunch, I felt horrible, I said I'd go to the ER if I vomited again, I went to the ER, I had tests (blood, CT, urine), I threw up in the surprisingly efficient vomit bag the nurse gave me, I almost felt not freezing when the CT dye hit and I didn't pee my pants even tho it felt like I had, I passed up morphine since I drove myself, I got some sort of xtreme ibuprofen which helped a lot, I confounded ER staff by not having a kidney stone or anything else wrong according to all of the aforementioned tests, I learned my cousin's husband died, I slept pretty well considering the med was already wearing off, I woke up kind of still iffy, took my morning meds, ate toast since the morning meds require food, took a med to help with nausea, drove to work, I64 -- just ugh, realized that driving in a hot car was seriously contributing to the nausea, continued to drive with heat on while wearing fleece coat even tho it was 70F, arrived almost 30 minutes late, worked for an hour, drove home (so that's 2.5 hours of driving for 1 hour of productivity), messaged the gastroenterologist nurse practitioner, messaged bestie who is supposed to visit soon, slept, and ate approximately 25 corn flakes over 5 hours.

But I haven't vomited in 27 hours. So I guess I'm getting over whatever this was.

I guess the really interesting point was what made me late. Traffic totally stopped then inched inched inched for about 1.5 miles (or 20 minutes). I finally reached a sheriff's vehicle with lights on blocking the left lane (I was in the right). A tow truck with a partially loaded utility van was in front of the sheriff's car.

No sheriff, no tow truck driver, no van driver. Just the vehicles. It was like they were in the middle of clearing an accident when they were raptured up.

That was odd even for I64.