Nine very short months ago, I wrote a little blog post about my internal organs doing some remodeling out of jealousy that our home was being remodeled. What many of you don’t know, is that a week before that appendix rupture, I was in the same emergency room, with the same doctor and nurses, because a fire in my chest was burning out of control. I was given heartburn medicine and then sent on my way.

Fast forward to last week and the raging fire was burning out of control. I had to go to an emergency room because it was a holiday weekend and I had already been suffering since the middle of the night. It was dawn and I was unconvinced I was going to make it out of the weekend alive. It did not get better.

DocMan was an asshole. Now, I try to give the benefit of the doubt that he was a great doctor who was having a bad day, but I’m the kid of an ER Nurse, I know what’s going on. He had just come on shift, the ER was not crowded at all, and the trauma rooms were empty. Still, I was taken to the way back room where they put you when they think you’re not in real trouble. I tried to tell DocMan that I have a high pain tolerance and a respect for emergency rooms, but he wanted nothing to do with me.

So Hubster spent the next few hours watching me sit there with no fluids, a very small shot of pain meds that wore off with incredible speed, and numerous suffering sighs that conveyed my despair of impeding doom. After months of agonizing, multiple doctor and ER visits, and medicines that never worked, I was going to die in the back of an ER because some DocMan thought I was playing up the symptoms.

I’d like to officially announce to the world the FAT KID CREED. Nothing interferes with the fat kid eating schedule. Sleeping is the fat kid religion. Any activity that interferes with those goals must be halted immediately. So as you can see, spending hours in an ER while not being allowed to eat or sleep is not something I’m going to do unless it is absolutely necessary to continue breathing. But keep ignoring me, I bet my medical problem is only getting better while we do nothing.

After finally remembering I was in the back of the ER, DocMan decides to get me into imaging and I hit the x-ray room first. According to the radiologist, my gallbladder was looking a little large. Back to my back room I went where a nurse rushed in and apologized and then gave me another bit of morphine. Because obviously it has been hours and I’m sweating buckets again while fire burns me from the inside out. Sidenote, I never want to be a vampire…

DocMan decides it’s time to get serious and he sends me to get an ultrasound. I immediately knew something was wrong because the technician was taking a metric ass ton of photos and she refused to tell me how things looked. I was worried, but more than that I just wanted the fire to stop after nine months of searing my innards like a Labor Day picnic hot dog. Which I was missing out on since I was in the fucking hospital being ridiculous apparently! See Fat Kid Creed above.

DocMan comes back into the room and I can immediately tell by his changed demeanor that I’m about to hear an apology from a doctor. It comes in the form of a statement of fact that I had deducted months ago; I needed to have my gallbladder removed. I decided to mess with him a bit since I’d been suffering for hours and had no one else to torment. I used my “innocent face” to ask if I could schedule it for next week since it obviously wasn’t a big deal and I haven’t even been given an IV to push fluids or real medicine to help with the fire. That’s when I get the real apology face, it’s an emergency and I’m having surgery NOW and I don’t have the option of waiting. The gallbladder was huge, there was a complete blockage of the duct, and it was showing off an amazing infection to complete the trifecta of torture.

So I got to ride in my second ambulance in nine months- but this time I was lucid enough to remember the ride. I’m really beginning to like ambulances, everyone gets out of the way, people are waiting for you upon your arrival…this is how celebrities feel, isn’t it?! I asked the EMT for a codename and she and her partner gamely started calling me Bulldog.

I think there’s a small chance that I talk about Lola a lot.

P.S. My body is tired from all its remodeling. My liver is now organizing itself into a new shape because it wants to fill up the empty cavity that my torso is quickly becoming. My colon is definitely thinking of staging a coup and I fear the left kidney and/or pancreas are in its sights.

P.P.S. Will someone please bring me a hotdog now that I’ve missed all the holiday weekend festivities?!?!

P.P.P.S. I still haven’t had anyone throw in some liposuction while operating on me. Isn’t there some kind of frequent flyer card that I’ve filled up yet?! A rewards program perhaps, maybe even a BOGO offer that I can cash in?!

Check out my Facebook page @ShankYouVeryMuch 

I also tweet like a bird on Twitter @HeatherKeet

You can also find me on Instagram @shankyouheather 

Lola and I opened a store so we can hopefully cover the world in her Bulldog face, check it out at Shank You Very Much