The Point

Arlo starts asking to go home immediately. “Umm?” he says.

“No, silly, we just got here,” I say. My sister was almost done with the shrimp tacos. I know Arlo won’t eat them, but she always has something in the fridge that he likes. “You want a hot dog?” I ask him.

“Umm,” he says.

“Not yet, buddy,” I say. “We’ll go home in a little bit.”

“Umm,” he says.

An hour later, the rest of us have eaten, but he hasn’t, and he starts to gag. I whisk him to the bathroom. Because of his Nissen, he can’t throw up, but what’s in must come out, so I pull down his pants and sit him on the potty. 

“You feel better?” I say, after he fills it up. 

“Yah,” he says with a giggle. 

“Good,” I say.

“Cake?” he says.

It’s hard to tell sometimes if he’s sick or if he’s just cleaning himself out after a bout of constipation. I don’t always know exactly how much Miralax he’s had; sometimes he pours his water in the dogs’ bowl. 

But he quits asking to go home and eats a piece of lemon cake. That night, he has a pretty gnarly diaper, but he’s in good spirits, so OK.

Approximately twenty-four hours after Arlo’s request to go umm, sharp pains shoot through my belly, short ones at first, growing into a meteor shower of pain in my midsection. I, alas, have no Nissen, and suffer the resulting indignity. The boys more or less put themselves to bed while I lie on the bathroom floor, telling myself aloud, “It’ll pass… It’ll be OK…”

The following morning, I’m not at 100%, but the pain is gone, and I’m even able to eat a little bit. I guess Arlo and I had the world’s shortest stomach virus.

That afternoon, I pull up in car line. Patrick walks over clutching his belly. “My stomach hurts,” he says. 

I remember barfing at least once a year growing up, but Patrick’s almost 9 and I can think of only two instances in his life, both many years ago. That’s why, despite Arlo’s and my woes, all of us are startled an hour later when Patrick projectile-vomits all over himself, me, the couch, the floor, and the bathroom. “It came out my nnnnooooose,” he wails.

But, again, once I Lysol-wipe all the surfaces and he showers, he is basically no worse for wear. I’ll keep him home the next day, of course, but I guess we’re all on the upswing. Thank god. Between the tree falling on my house during a storm a couple weeks prior, and a fucking German roach infestation in my kitchen–disgusting!–I’m feeling sorry for myself. I deserve a break, I pout.

Except an hour later, my nausea returns. I have very little in my stomach, so once that’s out, it’s water and bile. Then just bile. As each wave rips through me, I retch so hard I wonder if my eyes will rupture. The barfing ends at 1:30am, but I don’t sleep–every muscle in my body feels like a blue bruise. 

I had imagined watching movies and strolling around the block with the boys, but the next day, I am supine. When I simply must get up, I moan a little moan with every step. Patrick plays video games for ten hours. I don’t even know what Arlo does. Surely, tomorrow will be better.

At 4:00am, I write lesson plans and send them to my administration and text my sister and brother-in-law: Any way one of you can take the boys to school?

I spend another day unable to do anything but intermittently shuffle, moaning, from my bed to the bathroom, but by late afternoon, I’ve kept down eight crackers and two Tylenol, and I feel well enough to pick up the dudes. 

My vice principal texts to ask if I need a sub for the next day. “Nah,” I tell her.

At 3:00am, I awake with a shiver. I am freezing. The shivers come every five seconds. I turn on the shower as hot as I can, sit down in the stall, wrap my arms around my bent knees, and let the water pour over me. Eventually, I stand and reach for the corner with the shampoo–might as well wash my hair–but the shelf is not there. The wall extends into seeming infinity. For ten terrifying seconds, I’m in an Escher painting. Turns out, I’ve pivoted and am reaching for the wrong corner.

Arlo wanders into my room. “Ear off,” he says. Oh no. I think he’s asking me to turn the pain off in his ear. 

I text the VP: Gonna need a sub after all

I write more sub plans. By 6:00, I’m burning up. I find my cheap thermometer that reads normal as 97.4 and stick it against my temple… 102. Uh, does that mean I actually have a temperature of 103? I take two Tylenol.

My brother-in-law ferries Patrick to school, and at 8:00, I give myself a rapid COVID test (negative) and start calling doctor’s offices. I secure an 11:30 appointment for Arlo, but my provider doesn’t return my message. Perhaps I shouldn’t be driving… The Tylenol have kicked in, so I do. The doc looks in Arlo’s ears and pronounces them “fine.” Yay! Maybe “ear off” meant he couldn’t hear? But then why do they suddenly look fine? Whatever. I’ll take the win.

The urgent care in the next town over has the shortest wait times, so we drive over there. The nurse gives me another COVID test (negative) and asks if I can give her a urine sample. 

“Of course,” I say, but in the bathroom, only a trickle comes out. And it’s the color of sweet tea. Um. 

The doctor looks at my lab results and pronounces me dehydrated. He listens to my various organ noises with his stethoscope and then palpates my abdomen. “How does this feel?” he says, tapping on my side. 

“Not great,” I say. Other side? Also not great.

He taps right about on my c-section scar, and I nearly bend in half. 

“You need to go directly to the Emergency Department for imaging,” he says. “That should not be happening.” When pressed about possibilities, he offers a litany of -itises. I’m not fond of the sound of any of them.

The ED is relatively quiet, save the poor woman retching violently into a bag and moaning, clearly suffering from whatever I had a few days prior. Within half an hour, I’m taken back to triage.The nurse leaves for 15 minutes in the middle of my check-in for an “unresponsive in the car, possible overdose” call, then tells me it should “only” be a couple hours before I’m seen. There are real emergencies, and then there’s whatever I’ve got. Back in the waiting room, I do notice a startling number of people who look like they’re not currently overdosing, but they’ve probably had a snootful of Narcan at some point, and I send up a little “thanks” to the universe. Considering my family history and mental illness, my lack of drug addiction is attributable only to dumb luck.

My brother-in-law picks up Patrick from school, and my sister swings by to grab Arlo. The nurse was right–about two hours after triage, I’m taken back to a curtained bed in an over-air-conditioned ward. The doc comes across as eminently knowledgeable and personable. We chat. She’ll order two liters of fluids and a CT scan, but she guesses my gut is just “repopulating” after the virus, and that’s what’s causing my abdominal pain. 

The IV cranks fluids into my veins. Even after two bags, I still barely pee at all. I guess I was dehydrated. Several boring hours later, I’m wheeled into an even-more-freezing room for my CT. Like other scans I’ve had–MRI, sonogram–the CT machine seems like something out of Star Trek. How does it know things?! Before they wheel me back to my spot, the nurse covers me in a warm blanket, and I want to kiss her and do her laundry and buy her a spa day.

With the passing hours, I become more bored but more reassured. If there was something startling on the CT, they’d surely have whisked me into surgery by now. …Right?

The doc finally swings back by. “I’m sending you home,” she says. Yahoooooooooo! “But–”

Uh-oh. 

“–there were some incidental findings that you’ll need to get checked out later.” I have a lesion on my liver (MRI) and a big cyst on my right ovary (ultrasound). They’re probably nothing, but I’ll need to keep tabs on them.Great, another thing for my to-do list! Whatever. I walk out of the ED $1,049 poorer than I was at noon and take deep breaths of the cool night air.

At home, the boys jump out of their bunks when they hear me come in the door. Patrick inquires sweetly how I’m feeling, and Arlo points out my “bandaid” (the gauze and bandage from my IV). My sister heads home. The three of us fall into bed. 

It’ll take awhile for my pee to turn yellow, and for two more days, the idea of eating is unappealing, then I’m back to craving Nutty Buddies like usual. 

Whenever I write something like this, I want that to be it. Do I have to have a Point? The Point is that this happened to me. The Point is it sucked. But the rules of literature say I should learn something from it. I should change or develop in some way. I should evolve or devolve as a person. I should deliver to you, the reader, some universal truth or lesson that you can connect with or apply to your own life.

I don’t know. Be thankful for your health? Drink water? Things can always get worse, until they get better? The American healthcare system will eventually bankrupt us all? 

How about you say. What’s the point? Tell me. But do drink water.

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