Consolation prizes

 

waterwaterwaterwarter every day I'm hydrating

 

I've had a pretty rough few weeks. More specifically, a spectacularly awful week followed by a few weeks with patchy awfulness. I'm not sure if my medication isn't working anymore, or what's going on-and the only way to find out is to strap on a miner's helmet and travel deep into the recesses of my angry, angry colon. I thought I could get through 2015 without a colonoscopy, but the JOKE'S ON ME.

 

At the end of the awful week, I had a doctor's appointment, and my doctor wasn't impressed when I mentioned that I had broken my non-colonoscopy prep record for number of bowel movements in a day. That was not a good day, although I think I managed to watch at least 1/2 a season of OITNB in between bathroom sprints. During the appointment, I was crying nonstop, not in an emotional way, more as a weird side effect of being dehydrated. I don't know if this is a thing in general, but when I'm really dehydrated, my eyes kind of leak (ironic, no?). It must look really weird, to not having a crying face, or a crying voice, but just randomly crying eyes-I think my doctor was kind of wigged out. We talked about different treatment options, and at the end, I informed him that he needed to hydrate me. I believe my exact words were, "either you do it or I will find someone who will," which was kind of an empty threat because there aren't really neighborhood hydration pushers, although if there were I would totally hit that.

 

Maybe it was the calm, creepy crying, or just my general air of resignation, but he agreed. I totally got pity hydrated, and I will take that all day every day. That is one of the things I like about my doctor-I think he genuinely feels badly when things aren't going well for me. I also think he wanted to give me something, or do something, to make me feel better. Which it did.

 

You know what's fun? Trying to stick really small veins when a person's dehydrated. The office wasn't really set up for IVs, and so there was some general scrambling for an IV pole and supplies. The nurse who came in seemed vaguely concerned about the whole thing, which is never a good sign. She talked incessantly about the process of inserting an IV, and poured over my arms and hands looking for a good candidate: "don't mind me, I'm just going shopping!" Here's another fun fact: though I am in fact built like a cart horse, my veins are Shetland pony small.

 

Now here's where I get a little judgmental: as she was running her hands across own, I noticed she had a small tremor. I'm hard to stick in the best of circumstances, but I was tired, dehydrated, and praying the immodium would hold, and all I could think was fuckmefuckmefuckme. I showed her my one reliable vein, turned my head, and braced for the worst. She narrated the whole process, and I mean the whole process: "Ok, a little poke. I think I'm in, hold on, let me feel.....so far so good.....let me just check.....I'm going to push it in a little farther....wait.....I think I went through....yeah I can't get it in...." and on and on and on. When it was obvious that one didn't take, she went through the whole process again, looking over my arms (front and back), hands, elbows.....and then she tried again.

 

This one hurt worse than that last one-I've never had someone really shove a needle into a vein that forcefully (excuse me while I pass out even writing this). She kept up the narration this time, push, talk, push harder, until I finally told her, it's ok if you don't tell me what's going on! Which she ignored, and finally she gave up on that vein as well.

 

At this point, I was debating how badly I wanted the hydration. Like a lot of choices involved with this disease, it was a case of, do I want to feel crappy now, or feel crappy with additional crap in hopes that I might feel better in the future? Thankfully, the awesome PA had been observing this whole procedure and finally stepped in to bring in the ringer. Every medical facility has one-the chosen one, the vein whisperer. This PA wears funky glasses and calls everyone honey and sweetheart and gets away with it. She expertly managed the situation, calling in the ringer and gracefully excusing the current nurse without ruffling any feathers. The nurse seemed relieved to be let off the hook, and praised me for being a really excellent patient (by passively laying back and not moving? gold star!).

 

The ringer stepped in, and I could tell from the moment she stepped into the exam room that she was a bad ass. She was from another department, but you could tell she was used to this situation, even relished it. She had spiky silver hair and ice blue eyes, and moved with quiet confidence and grace. I told her that she was welcome to try any vein she wanted, but I wanted some lidocaine first-and that's when she pulled out two tiny syringes full of that shizz, with a gleam in her eye. I almost proposed to her on the spot. She selected a vein, and when I told her the previous nurse dismissed it as a poor candidate, she looked me straight in the eye and said, "well, she's not me" in a gravelly voice.

 

I'm not really attracted to the lady folk, and this could have been the dehydration talking, but I kind of wanted to make out with her a little at that point. Now, do you think she got it in? She fucking got it in, of course she did. It did take quite a while, as she went at a glacial pace, and apparently got blood all over the floor and my arm. But she left with a big smile on her face and put a big one on mine. Rowr.

 

When I get rehydrated, there's a point where I can feel everything unclenching, relaxing. My headache disappears, I feel calmer. Sometimes a girl just needs a little pity hydration to perk her up.

 

I'll have the colonoscopy next month, and I hope Gatorade and good old H2O can control everything until then, but if not-I know just who to call.