When reading this, try to remember it's ALL true!
This absolutely ridiculous tale, all begins, with an ingrown hair. One teeny tiny ingrown hair on my who who. It had been there for a few days, but just didn't seem to be healing. I didn't really think anything of it, because it's winter, and sometimes shit like that happens. So I kept putting alcohol and polysporin on it, but nothing. Nada. Bugger all. Then it kinda turned into a pimple looking thing, so I popped it. It kept coming back, so I kept popping it. On Sunday night I was in bed reading, when I got up to pee, I felt this sort of stiffness in my groin, but I just thought maybe I was laying funny. I woke up on Monday morning sick as hell! I felt like I had the worst flu I've ever had. I had a doctors appointment later that day, so I called in sick, and went back to bed. By this time the whole right side of my groin had started to swell and get really hot and red and angry looking. By the time it was time to go to the dr, I couldn't even sit. I had a temp of 103, and the redness and swelling had started to go down my leg, and up over my hip. I had to get my friend to drive me to the doctor (and thank goodness she did too, I was a bit of a mess), where he gave me an "examination", a wildly incorrect diagnosis, a prescription to treat what wasn't wrong with me, and 60 Percocet (which, I'll fully admit came in unbelievably handy after). On the way home I called my mom. To say I was hysterical would be a gross understatement. Anyway, we went to the pharmacy, got my drugs, and put me to bed. Mom came out and kidnapped me on Tuesday morning (an act which very literally saved my life), and set me up on her couch. In the evening (I was very honestly getting worse every minute) we called the nurses hotline, I didn't know if I should go to the hospital, or just wait...maybe it was just a really weird flu? Then I called my doctor, who chuckled and told me to stay home, and that I was fine. I was pretty sure I wasn't fine, but I figured he's the doctor, so he would know. Now bear in mind at this point, I can't sit, I'm taking 2 Percocet every 4 hours, I'm in excruciating pain, I can't eat, I can't get up without help, I haven't eaten anything since Sunday, and every time I did get up, the floor decided to wobble. 3am comes around and I can't get up, so I end up barfing all over moms living room (good thing I'd only had water for 2 days...). It was at this moment that I decided that I wanted to go to the hospital. Mom and I decided we'd go in the morning. Surrey hospital had just had that big flood, and RCH was beyond packed. So in the morning, moms got a massive migraine, and couldn't stop barfing (perfect timing). I had to pee, so I rolled off the couch onto the floor, and tried to crawl to the bathroom. Didn't work. I got stuck halfway there. I couldn't move. I've never actually not been able to move before. Worst feeling ever!!! We decided barfing or no barfing, it was time to go. Mom grabbed a couple barf bags, loaded me into the car (which took about 20 min), and off to the hospital we went. We had planned on going to Langley, but mom needed gas, and I honestly had never felt this awful in my life, so we said screw it, and stayed in new west. I walked into emerge, started balling my face off, looked at the lady behind the glass, and said "I need help. " She gave me a wrist band, took my pulse, and told me I'd be called in a minute. I hadent even managed to attempt to sit down, before I was called. This lady took my pulse and my blood pressure, called for a wheelchair, and straight into trauma bed 2 I went. So now I'm worried. The ER waiting room is packed, but I went straight in. I didn't go into emergency, but into trauma. There are people everywhere! Taking off my clothes, poking me with needles, asking me questions I couldn't answer, hooking me up to machines...it was beyond terrifying. My mom wasn't allowed in, there was an overdose in the bed to my left, and a stabbing in the bed to my right. I had absolutely no idea what was going on, and I had never been that scared before. Ever. Turns out I had a pulse rate of 165, my kidneys were shutting down, my body had gone into septic shock, and for all intents and purposes, I didn't have blood pressure. They stuck a tube in my neck that went straight to my heart, held it in place with 2 stitches (also in my neck), stuck in a catheter, and poked me with some of the biggest needles I've ever seen (and this coming from someone, who at some point or other, has had most of her body pierced). Now all this, combined with being absolutely terrified would be enough, but just to make it a little more fun, all of the above procedures were done without a drop of freezing! Not. A. Drop. Cause everything didn't hurt enough, right? Anyway, I saw about 5 doctors, had 2 CT scans, more people than I ever dreamed possible took a look at my who who, and by 5 I was in surgery. Before they put me out, they did some other incredibly painful things, such as stick a needle into the artery in my wrist (I still have bruises from where he was trying to keep my arm still). The actual surgery itself took less than an hour, which was really good, because (and of course I didn't know this at the time) the more time it took, the more damage the strep had done. After recovery, they took me up to ICU, where they stuck a tube down my throat and hooked me up to a respirator, then tied my arms down so I couldn't pull it out. Thursday they took me off the respirator and put me on the bipap machine, which forces air into your lungs through a mask strapped very tightly to your face and head. Friday they moved me to HAU (high acuity unit). Which is basically the same thing as ICU, except you can't be on a respirator. Turns out my ingrown hair had somehow (I blame the tiny people at the preschool I was doing my practicum at, lol) become infected with strep A (yes folks, that is the flesh eating strain!). I only remember little snippets before Saturday (and even that's fuzzy), and by that time, I had developed pneumonia. When I was in the trauma unit, they I.V.ed in about 7 liters of fluid to try to flush the infection from my tissues, so I was really, really, swollen. So swollen in fact, that the skin on my hands and feet started (and is still) peeling off because it got stretched out so much. All in all I was in the hospital for about 2 weeks, acquired an incision that's about 7" long, 1" deep, and 1" wide (that they couldn't sew up, because if there's any lingering infection it would be trapped), had to learn how to breathe again, and will be a resident of my mothers couch for at least another 2 weeks. My kidneys recovered really well, which is wonderful! No dialysis for me!! There is a fair amount of pain involved, some rather serious drugs, but I'm alive!! Which is very literally amazing, it could have gone either way. They also informed me that if I hadent of come in right when I did, it would have been game over. So yay!!! I'm alive!!! And have decided to go amazon, because if you think a razor is even coming close to my who who ever again, your crazy!!
