That night, we all went to dinner at one of Delaware’s most popular seafood restaurants. Instead of eating more seafood than I should, the way I usually do, I stood before the raw bar gazing at the oysters and watching the lemon slices blur against the leaf lettuce. Back at the table, I picked over the food as if it were rancid. It was only the memory of the taste of crab cakes and lobster tails that encouraged me to attempt to eat. I simply had no appetite. I nibbled on small pieces of lettuce, pushed cubes of tomato and carrot strips from one place to another on my plate, and finally waved for the waitress to come and take it away.
Watching the rest of the family enjoy their food, I decided to try some pasta salad, since I thought pasta might be easier on the stomach. Shortly after the first bite, I felt a small pocket of immovable gas in the right side of my stomach. Without drawing attention to myself, I massaged my stomach and wondered if this were the beginning of one of those two to three day bouts with gas that had so often sent me to the emergency room. For the remainder of the time we spent at the restaurant, the gas didn’t dissipate; it just knotted in my side, moved to my upper intestines, and finally took on the feel of a big jagged-edged rock.
When we reached home, I gulped two Rolaids and lay on the bed. The two white pasty pills had no effect on the gas; in fact, what was gas had now become an annoying stomachache, characterized by both bloating and pain. As the night progressed, I thrashed about with stomach cramps that became almost unbearable. I tried to find a comfortable position from which I could rest and eventually fall asleep, but both rest and sleep eluded me. The only way I could bear the pain was to lie on the area of my body between my left side and my stomach, a position that had my face practically buried in the mattress.
By morning, I was not only suffering from the gas pains that exploded throughout my stomach and back during the night, I was sore from my rib cage to my lower stomach from wrestling with the gas. There was no way I would be able to go down stairs, and therefore, with the exception of trips to the bathroom, I spent the entire day in bed.
My aunts came to my sick bed bringing toast, tea and prayers. I took a few sips of tea, and since I knew they would not leave me alone until I ate the toast, I forced down a couple of bites. Knowing we were supposed to fly back to Cincinnati Monday morning, I tried to sit up long enough to prove I could make the trip. Both my husband and my mother-in-law insisted they take me to the emergency room, but I pleaded with them to hold off because I knew it would be an insurance nightmare.
By the middle of Sunday afternoon, I was praying that Monday morning would find me able to get on a plane and fly back to Cincinnati. I was as ill as I could ever remember, and I knew if I looked as badly as I felt; the airline personnel would never let me board the plane.
On Monday morning, I went to God, this time asking for the strength to get on the plane and stay alert at least until I could get home. Conscious that any slight movement would send me into a frenzy of pain, I dragged myself slowly out of bed for the first time since Saturday, got dressed and prepared for the car ride to the Philadelphia airport. By now the agony had become its own person.
By the time we arrived in Cincinnati, everything between my rib cage and my pelvic area knotted, and gas bubbles stomped from my stomach to my back. Unlike before, when the nurses and physicians checked to make sure I wasn’t having a heart attack, I decided to avoid a trip to the hospital and take another wait-and-see night. I really didn’t have the energy for the ride, the hospital wait, nor the physician’s probing.
On Monday, after suffering all night and despite my daughter’s insistence that I call my internist, I phoned the gastroenterologist, since this was clearly a digestive problem. The gastroenterologist had become one of a group of physicians recommended by my internist over the years. As my regular gastroenterologist was unavailable, (as to be expected given the way things were going), I was assigned to an assistant, a good enough physician, I suppose, but one I had never seen before. After taking my pulse and blood pressure, the doctor pressed on my stomach a couple of times, and prescribed some antacids, which I took Monday night, Tuesday, and Wednesday.
The pills only eased the gas pains. I was still sick with no appetite and now, absolutely no energy. By late afternoon on Wednesday, I had become nauseated and couldn’t even keep down water. Ordinarily, I could get rid of the gas pains in a day or a day and a night, but this time they had already lasted five days. It was time to call the internist. The nausea was a new and more frightening symptom of something I didn’t understand.
“How long have you been nauseated?” She asked after we talked about the gas pains.
“It started today, shortly after noon.”
“Well,” she said. “Let’s get you to the emergency room and rule out kidney failure.”
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from Duck Summer
That night, we all went to dinner at one of Delaware’s most popular seafood restaurants. Instead of eating more seafood than I should, the way I usually do, I stood before the raw bar gazing at the oysters and watching the lemon slices blur against the leaf lettuce. Back at the table, I picked over the food as if it were rancid. It was only the memory of the taste of crab cakes and lobster tails that encouraged me to attempt to eat. I simply had no appetite. I nibbled on small pieces of lettuce, pushed cubes of tomato and carrot strips from one place to another on my plate, and finally waved for the waitress to come and take it away.
Watching the rest of the family enjoy their food, I decided to try some pasta salad, since I thought pasta might be easier on the stomach. Shortly after the first bite, I felt a small pocket of immovable gas in the right side of my stomach. Without drawing attention to myself, I massaged my stomach and wondered if this were the beginning of one of those two to three day bouts with gas that had so often sent me to the emergency room. For the remainder of the time we spent at the restaurant, the gas didn’t dissipate; it just knotted in my side, moved to my upper intestines, and finally took on the feel of a big jagged-edged rock.
When we reached home, I gulped two Rolaids and lay on the bed. The two white pasty pills had no effect on the gas; in fact, what was gas had now become an annoying stomachache, characterized by both bloating and pain. As the night progressed, I thrashed about with stomach cramps that became almost unbearable. I tried to find a comfortable position from which I could rest and eventually fall asleep, but both rest and sleep eluded me. The only way I could bear the pain was to lie on the area of my body between my left side and my stomach, a position that had my face practically buried in the mattress.
By morning, I was not only suffering from the gas pains that exploded throughout my stomach and back during the night, I was sore from my rib cage to my lower stomach from wrestling with the gas. There was no way I would be able to go down stairs, and therefore, with the exception of trips to the bathroom, I spent the entire day in bed.
My aunts came to my sick bed bringing toast, tea and prayers. I took a few sips of tea, and since I knew they would not leave me alone until I ate the toast, I forced down a couple of bites. Knowing we were supposed to fly back to Cincinnati Monday morning, I tried to sit up long enough to prove I could make the trip. Both my husband and my mother-in-law insisted they take me to the emergency room, but I pleaded with them to hold off because I knew it would be an insurance nightmare.
By the middle of Sunday afternoon, I was praying that Monday morning would find me able to get on a plane and fly back to Cincinnati. I was as ill as I could ever remember, and I knew if I looked as badly as I felt; the airline personnel would never let me board the plane.
On Monday morning, I went to God, this time asking for the strength to get on the plane and stay alert at least until I could get home. Conscious that any slight movement would send me into a frenzy of pain, I dragged myself slowly out of bed for the first time since Saturday, got dressed and prepared for the car ride to the Philadelphia airport. By now the agony had become its own person.
By the time we arrived in Cincinnati, everything between my rib cage and my pelvic area knotted, and gas bubbles stomped from my stomach to my back. Unlike before, when the nurses and physicians checked to make sure I wasn’t having a heart attack, I decided to avoid a trip to the hospital and take another wait-and-see night. I really didn’t have the energy for the ride, the hospital wait, nor the physician’s probing.
On Monday, after suffering all night and despite my daughter’s insistence that I call my internist, I phoned the gastroenterologist, since this was clearly a digestive problem. The gastroenterologist had become one of a group of physicians recommended by my internist over the years. As my regular gastroenterologist was unavailable, (as to be expected given the way things were going), I was assigned to an assistant, a good enough physician, I suppose, but one I had never seen before. After taking my pulse and blood pressure, the doctor pressed on my stomach a couple of times, and prescribed some antacids, which I took Monday night, Tuesday, and Wednesday.
The pills only eased the gas pains. I was still sick with no appetite and now, absolutely no energy. By late afternoon on Wednesday, I had become nauseated and couldn’t even keep down water. Ordinarily, I could get rid of the gas pains in a day or a day and a night, but this time they had already lasted five days. It was time to call the internist. The nausea was a new and more frightening symptom of something I didn’t understand.
“How long have you been nauseated?” She asked after we talked about the gas pains.
“It started today, shortly after noon.”
“Well,” she said. “Let’s get you to the emergency room and rule out kidney failure.”