Monday morning I emailed my doctor. Something was going on that worried me and I wanted to set up an appointment. Thing is, because I’m the stay at home parent child care is an issue and if there were tests to be done I wanted to make sure arrangements were made. I wasn’t prepared for the phone call that would come telling me to go to urgent care.
I protested, asking if I could simply come in the next day and have whatever tests done that were necessary. Did I need to not eat for a certain period of time? I was alright with that, I just wanted to be efficient about time. No, I needed to go to urgent care. I was sure it would be a waste of time, but Laura insisted I go, get seen, then take care of whatever needed to be done the next day. I relented. My friend Stephen drove me down and dropped me off at urgent care.
Time of admission: 6:02 P.M. – and I wouldn’t get home for another 41 hours.
What brought me to this point?
I emailed my doctor because I have been having stomach pains, but nothing debilitating. What bothered me was the black stool. This was Friday morning. My thought was to keep an eye on things. Then as the day progressed the head cold started to really kick in. Over the weekend I was light-headed, tired, stuffed up and generally felt like crap. I thought it was a heck of a cold, but Monday I still had the black stool and it was just something I was a little concerned about and thought I should get looked at before it became serious. I was not prepared for a call telling me it was serious enough to go to urgent care.
Of course there was waiting. Waiting in the waiting room to be triaged, waiting some more, then getting into the exam room and waiting some more. The nurse came, took my vitals and I waited some more.
The doctor finally came in to see me and I told my story once again. Friday morning I woke up with stomach pains and black stool. I wanted to keep an eye on it and if it got worse I would go see my doctor. Over the weekend I started to feel worse and attributed that to my cold. Monday morning I was having trouble walking the kids to school so I emailed my doctor.
Blood was drawn and a…. uh… there’s no delicate way to put it, but the doctor went in and got a different sample.
Turns out the black stool was the result of blood in my upper gastrointestinal tract. My lightheadedness and being tired was the result of a loss of blood. I had been bleeding for more than 3 days and didn’t realize it.
I was to be transferred to the hospital.
It took a while but I was given an ambulance ride to the hospital (my first) and admitted to the hospital at midnight.
At the hospital I was told my hematocrit (amount of red blood cells in my blood) was down to 19% where it should be in the upper 30s to 40s. The nurse was surprised I was as ambulatory as I was with such a low blood count. A couple of units of blood were ordered and I was given the opportunity to try and rest. Ha.
It took until late in the afternoon on Thursday to get the endoscopy going. Tuesday was a long day. Thankfully Laura came down and visited and helped to keep me company. There was lots of waiting and waiting. Hours before a doctor would arrive to discuss what was going on. Hours before the test, hours for the lab technitians to arrive and take more blood to test.
The long and short of it all is I have two small ulcers that were bleeding for a few days.
Even after two pints of blood my hematocrit was up to only 24%. A third pint was ordered which was administered Tuesday night. Wednesday morning my hematocrit level measured 30%, which is on the low end of normal, but not enough to keep me for another night.
There’s more to the story, like the couple that were in the bed next to me in the room on Tuesday night, or the long periods of waiting and the care of the nurses, or finally being able to eat solid food Wednesday morning after having nothing since Monday, but those are small things in comparison to the overall story. Had I stayed in the hospital another night I would have wanted the kids to come down and visit to see that I was going to be alright. There wasn’t much need to keep me, so ultimately I was discharged at 11 A.M. on Wednesday, went home and took a nap.
I have an appointment with my doctor for next week, following up with some lab results (an unpleasant sample that needed to be taken) get another blood test to see what my hematocrit level is and just check in. Essentially what I have is a small thing that I need to stay on top of so it doesn’t become a major thing.