Oh, the pain!

It's been a rough week.

Thanksgiving morning began with me waking up to a stomachache that lasted all day. It felt exactly like a gallbladder attack (pain under my ribs radiating to my back) except I no longer have a gallbladder. I couldn't eat anything I had prepared for our holiday meal--which this year was a big crockpot full of homemade chili, and two pies. I drank water and ginger ale all day and had a can of chicken noodle soup for supper, but I was still in a lot of pain.

The next afternoon (Black Friday) I had to go to work at 2:30pm. I was still hurting, and when it got so bad that I was crying a little bit, I asked to take a long lunch break and go get checked out at Urgent Care. The doctor there was very nice. She checked me out thoroughly (even doing bloodwork to check for elevated white blood cell counts) and couldn't find any reason for the pain. She gave me some minty, awful tasting liquid to drink which numbed my stomach lining and made it feel better temporarily, and a prescription for a stomach acid reducer. I went back to work after that and toughed out the rest of my shift.

Yesterday was the same. I haven't been able to sleep at night and so I've been tired on top of the constant, dull ache in my upper abdomen. Last night at work I started getting a sharp pain in my left side whenever I breathe in deep. It got so bad I had to leave early. I slept on a heating pad to try to soothe my belly but it didn't help (nothing has helped).

This morning I called out of work and went back to a different Urgent Care center. Once again, they couldn't find anything wrong. Since I'd already had a CBC on Friday night, they didn't draw any blood (thank God...my veins are a nurse's worst nightmare and I always end up getting stuck a bunch of times) but they did do a urinalysis to make sure I didn't have blood in my urine, which would indicate a kidney stone. The urinalysis was all clear. No blood, no signs of infection, etc. The doctor felt around where my abdomen is tender and asked me a bunch of questions, and ended up without any clear answer for why I'm hurting like this. How frustrating! His only advice was to relax, rest, drink lots of clear liquids and eat only bland foods, to take Motrin if the pain is too bad, and if it doesn't resolve on its own in a couple of days to go to the ER and let them do some scans. I hope it doesn't come to that! Both the doctors who have examined me this weekend think everything is okay. I hope they're right.

It wasn't a very good Thanksgiving, that's for sure! I never tasted a single bite of the food I had cooked. The day after Thanksgiving my coworkers all brought dishes for a potluck lunch, and some of the food looked so good....and I didn't get any of that, either. It just doesn't seem fair!! Haha. But all joking aside, I'll just be grateful if my stomach will just stop hurting soon. It's funny how a few days of constant pain can shrink the whole world down to the small space the body inhabits.