Thank you.

And now, on with the show...

...

...

...I did warn you...

...

...

...ok. On your head be it.

I had been talking with Rhett, it was after Scott had gone home, leaving behind his (Scott's) bag of old horror flicks, some of 'em on my list, some not, but old horror flicks all the same. I was feeling pretty bad and told Rhett I was going to go lie down for a while.

I did... and by the time Caleb got back from running Scott home, I was in a hell of a lot of pain, enough that it was scaring me. So without even touching the computer, we hopped into the van and took off - I apologise, those of you who ended up seeing me on ICQ and wondering where the hell I really was. OK, so that was only Nre, Rhett, and Arrasto, but hey, I can apologise if I want to. :-P

Anyway... hospital. CROWDED. Late night, but the ER is full to overflowing. We had to wait long enough to get in that I was starting to actually get really hungry... I sent Caleb off to find some raisinets (take note, these ARE my favorite el-cheapo candy). He wandered off as a good Caleb should, I love the boy, and before he could get back I was spirited off into the ER, locked away in a room with a toilet within spitting distance of the bed. This was a perfectly normal, large, ugly institution-type toilet, put in right beside the f'ing bed... which wasn't even a bed, it was closer to a dentist's chair except without armrests. Creepy thing.

But I was hurting, so I just laid there. I was gonna be fine. Doctors make things feel better, right? *snicker* Little did I know...

The first thing they subjected me to was a catheter. Do you know what this is, kiddies? Yep, a huge plasic tube that they shove up that REALLY tender, REALLY small hole that ya piss out of. It hurt like hell, enough to leave me in tears. And to add to that, I've found out something. See, my fear of needles isn't so much needles themselves, it's the invasiveness of it, the rape of my body in a way that I can't even PRETEND is fun. Catheters are that times 100. So I was lying there, I'd finally gotten Caleb to come in, and he was holding my hand while I bawled my eyes out, trying hard to hold still and not run out down the hall with a damned tube dangling between my legs.

This was when they told me that they wanted to do an IV, squirt dye into me, and shoot me up with x-rays.

I was NOT happy about this.

So there I am, naked except for a torn hospital gown that covers about as much as most modern bathing suits, if most modern bathing suits covered one breast and most of your stomach but nowhere else, a tube stuck into me, blood getting everywhere (one of the joys of an abortion - instand period!), and my face all blotchy because I'm scared out of my mind and having a panic attack. Not good. The doctor and the nurse, a very nice, very cute, actually helpful and kind nurse, finished with the catheter and pulled it out. Need I say OUCH? Thought not.

Just so you know, I did ask if I could take a regular urine specimine. The nurse said sure, if I could get one that was a clean catch, no blood from my period involved. Guess what? SIX of those stupid wipes, and I was still bright red, getting blood droplets into the catch cup before I could even get what they wanted in there. *shudders, stomach churning* It was not fun. It was, in fact, nearly enough to give me the dry heaves.

Next, a pelvic exam. This was comparatively fun... after all, it was the closest I've gotten to sex in DAYS, and I doubt the doctor was expecting arousal as a reaction. *wry grin* He was cute too, though... and that sweet nurse was holding my hand and petting it, and bending over in that tight, low-cut little shirt... *shiverpurr* ...yeah. Didn't mind THAT part at all. They could have done that a few more times.

Unfortunately, they finished, put away the fun toys, and headed out to find the tools of impalement. Another hour while I waited... during which the urine test results came back.

No bladder infection - good.

I'm pregnant - WHAT THE FUCK?

See, let me explain a bit about a woman's body here. ONE womb. ONE fertilized egg at a time. That's how it works. And they had just finished raking out every damn bit of fertilization in there on Thursday... so this was a bit confusing. I asked the nurse, who was the one who told me about these rather disturbing results, if maybe it was just hormones left over from the previous pregnancy, giving a false reading... I explained that I HADN'T EVEN HAD SEX SINCE BEFORE THE ABORTION and therefor could NOT be pregnant unless it was through osmosis. She went to check with one of the women, someone who supposedly knew Gyn stuff... and the answer?

Nope. I am pregnant. According to the woman, there shouldn't be enough hormone left to kick the test that strongly, not after these many days.

Osmosis is alive and well! The conversation between Caleb and I really went downhill - our current speculation is that if I get my ovaries REMOVED, I'll get some sort of bizarre form of cancer where my body grows all those extra cells... and somehow, they manage to duplicate my ovaries.

Tap-dancing ovaries were involved in this as well, but we won't go there, ok? We had a hard enough time finding the tap shoes the first time around.

The nurse brought in her huge box-o-needles at about this point, and as a delaying tactic, I asked her to check with the doctor himself, get a second opinion - after all, if I was pregnant, they couldn't use the x-ray machine, or so they had been telling me the other times.

Slight side-rant here... for a very long time I have been bitching about ultrasound, having to go through it, the nasty ultrasound wand poked up inside me, the bigger ultrasound thingie pressed down painfully into my sides and stomach. I have been complaining, saying I wanted nice, simple x-rays. I now know different... to get an x-ray image, they have to PUT A NEEDLE INTO YOU! They can keep their x-rays, I want the ultrasound back now...

...anyway. Where was I? Oh yes, the doctor. He told her that it was possible that either there was still tissue of some sort left over inside - disembodied baby a la mode, oh joy - or maybe it was just leftover hormones.

Now let me make something VERY clear here. I joke about this, I joke about it a LOT, but this was and still is a not-nice thing. I don't like abortions in general, and I hate having them. When there is a baby in me, it's a baby. I start holding my tummy protectively, I start looking around when any baby cries, making sure it's not mine, and I feel... well, I feel like Mommy. The idea that not only did they rip out my child, but they didn't even do it right, that maybe it had suffered, that it was still there... daya. This is not something I can cope with. Because of the medications I've been on... well, first off, antibiotics fuck with birth control. Vicodin, though... that fucks with a fetus. Badly. Even if I'd completely 100% wanted to and been ABLE to keep the baby, I couldn't have given birth to it. It was NOT healthy. It might not have even been exactly human at that point.

But... well, it was mine.

It was a part of me, and a part of Caleb.

This matters to me, even if I joke about it... perhaps particularly if I joke about it. I have to do something to keep my sanity. Joking helps, a lot of the time. If I can find something amusing to say, some quip or jest or even just a good line, I can hide behind it. *shrug*

So there. You saw behind the mask for a moment. Don't expect it to happen again.

Anyway, the doctor ruled that the needle Must Go In, and in it went. Well, not the first time. The first time she discovered what so many other phlebotimists have, the fact that even my BODY protests needles. My vein hid when she went for it. *wry grin* It ducked, dodged, and generally got the hell out of her way... and she ended up having to pull the needle out and try again in another spot. *shudder* This was not my idea of happy times, folks. Just so you know.

Here I am, one hole in my wrist already, my cunt aching from a combination of arousal and the fact that somebody just jabbed a hollow stick up my urethra, my pelvic area filled with cramps and this horrible knifelike pain... and she wants to stick a needle in me again. What do I do? What any good Jax would do - I have a second panic attack and hyperventilate until I'm seeing spots. Cheerfully half-breaking Caleb's hand, I tell her to go ahead. She pulls out one of the butterfly needles, the ones that are so fine that it takes twice as long to put in the medicine, let alone the needle itself... but it does, eventually, go in. Taped down, the IV drip attached, not too bad... at least, not too bad until they put the painkiller in that they've been bribing me with.

Here's where the horrorshow really starts.

First there's this little tingle in my hand.

Then my hand gets warm... and my arm starts getting sore, as if I'd been lifting weights.

Now my cramps have kicked in, rather suddenly... and my whole arm is getting warm, and the ache is turning to a sharper, more violent pain.

After a half-hour, my entire arm from the shoulder down was a ball of hot, horrible knifelike pain, my cramps had turned into something so bad I couldn't even move, and every muscle in my body was locked. I was crying almost non-stop, coughing, barely able to breathe from the pain. It took almost ANOTHER half hour before they got something new in there to stop the pain that their painkiller caused.

Anyone for a nice glass of irony?

So the narcotic kicked in. I'm floating... at this point I've sent Caleb out, I did that before they even brought in the useful stuff, I know he hates seeing me in misery when he can't help and I know that the way I cry would get on anyone's nerves. So he's elsewhere but I am now elsewhere too, floating on a cloud... I don't even entirely realize it when he finally returns, even though I've been asking for him for I don't know HOW long.

Then they come to take me away...

I end up in the x-ray lab, after having to wait for a bloody long time for an x-ray tech that my nice beautiful wonderful nurse describes as 'a bitch'. She was right. This lady is CREEPY and not at all nice, but at least she put a pillow under my knees. Then she shot me up with dye. They say it's inert, that you don't feel it. BULLSHIT. If you have a kidney stone and a sore bladder, you feel that stuff, it burns and leaves you with your stomach tied in knots. It's got an aftertaste like glue, ick! She took pictures... and when I started actually making NOISE, she came over and asked me if I hurt. I said yes. She said 'try to keep quiet, I'll see if you can have something for the pain.' I didn't bother keeping quiet, since she'd made it clear that the ONLY reason she was bothering was because the noise annoyed her, and if she could gag me she'd have done that instead.

A new nurse came down... how many of you have seen Cleo, the psychic? She's on tv a lot, all over the place... this new nurse looked like Cleo and had the attitude of... gah. My mother, maybe. She was downright rude, surly, unpleasant... she slammed into the bed, slammed the needle into the tube, forced the medication in so fast it burnt going in, and this was the NICE medication, too.

It worked, though... enough for me to get through the x-rays, that took a full hour, btw. Then back out to the ER, this time with word that yes, it's a stone, and a nastily-located one at that. *sigh* At least it's small...

One more dose of painmed, and I find out that not only am I STUCK with this new nurse-from-hell, but that my doctor has changed too, now he's a SHE, and not a very polite she. Apparently this is the Shift of the Grouchy People. Now, the previous doctor had talked with me about vicodin vs. percoset, and I explained that vicodin is easier on my poor tummy. He said ok... and had intended to give me vicodin.

I get my perscription from New Bitch... dum dum DUM! Percoset. And not bloody much of it. I, cute pitiful tired sick but still-brave-under-trial Jax, talk to the pharmacist and make 'em call up the doctor and have her change it.

They do... eventually, over NINE hours after arrival, we head home.

End of story.

I hurt now... I'm on vicodin and STILL hurt. I'm drugged, tired, sore, stiff, aching, nausiated... but at least I'm home.

It's REALLY good to be home.