MussoLOLen is Always Right! |

The last time I saw the insides of an emergency room was when I limped into Medical City wearing my tae kwon do uniform four years ago. Since I still had my yellow belt tied around my waist, the doctors assumed that my sprained right ankle was the unfortunate result of a sparring match gone wrong. I decided not to mention that I didn’t even make it to my tae kwon do class because my foot landed the wrong way while I was walking to the martial arts room.

Four years later I found myself inside the same emergency room, but for a far less pathetic reason than my inability to cross the street without injuring myself.

It began as sharp, searing back pains thirty minutes before my last class ended. Thinking that it was just my scoliosis acting up, I made nothing out of it, but the pain intensified and spread to my ribcage and stomach fifteen minutes later. I managed to hold out until class ended – heaven forbid anyone should see me in pain or in distress – and collapsed on a bench outside the building. Everything hurt, and every little movement made it worse. Staying still didn’t help. I was shivering and sweating and crying all at once. With the last of my strength, I fumbled for my phone and called my dad to please pick me up, called Ale to say that I’d be home late because I might potentially end up in the hospital tonight, and called my mom to let her know what was going on.

An hour later there I was in the emergency room, trying to think beyond the pain so I could spell my unwieldy middle name. The nurse, for some reason, felt that it was important for her to make sure that Lardizabal was spelled with a Z and not an S. Then I was made to lie on a hospital bed, poked and prodded by fingertips and needles to identify where the pain was coming from, to rule out swollen pancreas, and to get a shot of whatever for the pain. “What happens if I have swollen pancreas?” I asked. I’m not even entirely sure what pancreas are. “You’ll have to be admitted to the hospital,” the doctor said.

As I laid still in my hospital bed, waiting for the painkillers to kick in, I was struck by a Profound Insight. You know, those corny, post-near death experience, moral-lesson-of-the-story epiphanies that make you swear that everything is going to change and you are going to become A Better Person after all this has passed. What I realized was this: our actions are never innocent. A seemingly harmless habit, such as starting your day with a cup of coffee, has far-reaching consequences that you won’t see coming until it makes you collapse when you least expect it. It seems like it’s okay to do whatever you want to yourself because it won’t affect other people – but it does, if there are people who care about you.

My parents are definitely be at the top of the People Who Give a Crap About Me list, and they’d take the hardest hit if anything happened to me. I have no idea what it’s like for a parent to worry about their kid, but I can imagine that it’s definitely no picnic. I’m the sickliest kid among my siblings, and when my childhood asthma finally gave way to acne during my teenage years I bet my parents were happy about never having to worry about medication and hospital bills. I’m pretty sure they didn’t expect their grown, 22-year old daughter to randomly wind up in the emergency room last night. Children are such a pain in the ass.

Girlfriends are a pain in the ass too. Especially when they get all sick in a hospital emergency room some seven time zones away. After I had given Ale an update on my medical condition, he told me that he found a 17-hour flight to the Philippines and that he was ready to fly out that evening if I have to stay in the hospital. I interrupted him and said that I’m fine, you’re fucking crazy for wanting to spend three thousand Euros on a plane ticket to here, and wouldn’t it better if you save your money and fly to the Philippines under better circumstances because really, where’s the fun in seeing me when I’m stuck to a bunch of tubes? Secretly, however, I was kind of hoping that my pancreas or some other major organ were indeed swollen. Especially when he started explaining that he didn’t want me to feel alone and abandoned and how he wanted to be there with me even if I’m sick and not much fun.

I couldn’t decide if I should feel relieved or disappointed when the doctor came out with the results and said that I could go home. I was already looking forward to spooning with him on a narrow hospital bed every night until I got better. :( I have to admit, I’m still half-wishing I did end up with swollen pancreas.

As for what went wrong with me, it turns out that I may or may not have an ulcer. I need to see a gastroenterologist to find out for sure but for now, the doctor forbade me from drinking coffee, softdrinks, and eating spicy food for the next two weeks. Spicy food and Coke I can stay away from, but coffee? You might as well ask me to stop drinking water! I’m horribly cranky without my morning cup of coffee and god, I don’t even want to think about how I’ll be able to do academic things without my caffeine kick. I forgot to ask the doctor if beer is among the Stuff Lauren Can’t Drink Anymore but since beer is carbonated and all, it probably is. Shit.

I could go ahead and ignore the doctor’s warnings, but I can’t ignore the fact that there are people who care about my health even if I don’t. When it was all over, Ale told me that he was so distressed about my being in the hospital that he ended up painting his skateboard black just to get his mind off things. That made me feel sad, somehow. People I care about shouldn’t have to paint their skateboards black so they don’t go insane from worrying about me. *sigh* I don’t want to think about how I’m going to go through life without coffee or beer just yet, but I think the least anyone can do for the people they love is to make them not worry. So I’m going to grit my teeth and try to handle the caffeine withdrawals as best as I can until I find out what’s wrong with me for sure.