Is This Supposed To Happen?

Some of you knew, and most of you didn't, but over the last couple of weeks, I was dealing with a pretty intense abdominal pain.

I woke up one Saturday morning and I couldn't get out of the fetal position without pain. Not to go into detail, The pain felt like I need to go drop a deuce, but every time I went, nothing came out. That afternoon I headed to urgent care at my hospital (Kaiser).

The doctor who saw me, took X-rays of my mid section, and did blood and urine tests. All came tests came back normal, but the X-ray showed what she thought was a "blockage" in my colon. Although it didn't make sense (the blockage was on my right side, but the pain was on my left) she suggested it was constipation and that the colon was having spasms (thus the pain on the left). She recommended a laxative and sent me home with the instructions of, "If it doesn't get better in a three days, come back."

On Tuesday I wasn't any better, so I returned that afternoon to the urgent care clinic, this time to be seen by a different doctor (the one who saw me originally wasn't on call). The new doctor discounted the constipation theory, noting the pain was in a different place from the colon (below and to the left of my belly button), he wasn't sure what it was and suggested a few possibilities, one being diverticulitis and the other a hernia. He ordered a CT scan with contrast, and for me to have blood and urine tests again.

Long story short, the took blood and urine, and for the CT scan they gave me an IV to deliver the "contrast". All tests... Negative. CT scan was clean, I have blood and urine. The best the doctor could come up with was, "Possibly muscle strain, do you lift a lot of heavy objects?" Just one, my 20 lbs. son. He recommended I take it easy for a few days and see if the pain goes away.

By Thursday, the pain was gone. But this showed up:
Where the IV was and the blood sample taken, I bruised up like a banana. There was a little bruising after my first visit, the blood sample was taken from my left arm. But this much bruising... Is this supposed to happen?

Maybe I'm just a dainty flower and can't handle needles in the arms. Or maybe they did something wrong. Even today (Tuesday) the bruising is still there, not as bad as before, slowly going away.

But it has been fun to tell people who notice that I've taken up heroin to combat the pain, or that my wife beats me.

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