Out of Hospital and an Explanation (Patreon)

This is a long true story because I have a compulsive need to be understood and typing things down helps me process better than the spoken word.

CW: Talks of medical procedures, but nothing too graphic or gross.  

I got out of the hospital yesterday.

I'm okay, at the moment, and will be trying to get back on the writing horse.  If my meds and caffine work I'll have 2 chapters of Unfair by Sunday, but nothing is certain yet.

I'm sorry about this.  I'm glad my Mommy told y'all and thank you so much for the outpouring of support in the comments on that one.

To tell you what's going on so that you have a clearer idea: Here's what's happening in my real life right now.

So for those of you keeping score at home. About 10 years ago this December, I was in a life threatening car crash.  That car crash resulted in 2 broken legs, and lots of internal bleeding that necessitated a colostomy, a partial colectomy, and then later a reversal of said colostomy.  

Darkest six months of my life, easy.  Remember that traumatic chapter of Unfair where Clark gets shoved into a tube and then bug zapped?  Emotionally speaking, I was channeling the feeling of waking up in a hospital connected up to so many machines and tubes and having my body altered and missing my wedding ring (I got it back eventually).

Fun fact: I now have a drastic surgical and medical phobia.  The best way to get me out of little space is to want to play doctor, sexy nurse costume or not. (This also might explain why Athena is easily one of my darkest stories to date)

A long term side effect of these life saving operations is that I now have an abdominal hernia and a massive scar running from just below my nipples down to my belly button. (If we ever meet in person, you will not see the scar as I never take my shirt off anymore, even while swimming, but you may notice the hernia. It looks like a lump slightly above my belly button and to the left.)

For those of you who don't know, a hernia happens when the barriers between your insides and outsides, like...the muscles and what not (being extremely laymen here) become thin or weak enough that a kind of pocket develops that the fat and organs can fall into.  If you've ever seen a scene on TV with a physical or are AMAB, the old "Turn your head and cough" is a standard practice way to check to see if you have a hernia down there between your legs.  The reason why hernias are so often checked for is because if a person's guts fall into that pocket that's developed, well...it's like bending a hose that ain't supposed to be bent.  

Gotta fix those up right away.

The hernia on my abdomen was considered "extremely low risk" because unlike other hernias, I didn't have gravity working against me, and because I live in America, getting it repaired would cost me.  The only major reason I might want to get it fixed (a process that involves cutting me open AGAIN and putting in a type of mesh over the pocket) was cosmetic according to most doctors I'd visited.

So problem solved that isn't really a problem. Ta-da.  Until last week.

Now like always (I'm a master of slow burn, after all) I told you that story so I could tell you this one.

Last week, while on vacation, I started feeling mildly uncomfortable in a physical sense.  A mild bloated feeling. Some possible constipation, despite producing stool, nothing more.

I felt bad about announcing the vacation (as I had intended up until the point of laying down in bed that first night for it to be a working vacation) but I decided with the advice of another friend that it was the best decision for me and mine.  

Also, I was going to see someone I consider "found family", and was with my wife and kid- so three of my favorite people in the world bar none- and wanted to give them the time and energy they deserved because of how important they all are to me.  

"Sorry honey, I know this is the first vacation we've had in years, but I got deadlines" and "We gotta cut this visit short, I need to post an update" was a bad feeling.  Also, I was experimenting with marijuana in a state where it was legal, and that might have also been affecting my body in certain ways...so I might have written off  or not noticed various minor discomforts.  Ate like a hog too, so of course there was going to be gastrointestinal discomfort.

But as usual, I'm getting off point.

On Monday before the plane ride back all the way until we got home, I was in hell.  Imagine MASSIVE diarrhea level cramps combined with constipation refusal to eject anything and move it up all through the abdomen for close to 12 hours...possibly longer.  

Got home.  Things work themselves out and the pain goes away. (Play Home Bowl from Family Guy) Then it starts all over again on Tuesday and I go to the ER.

Doctors and scans et. al.  say they think it's either 1) my guts got into my hernia a little bit (remember bending the hose)  2) My guts snagged on the scar tissue (and so stretched or compacted where they wouldn't normally).  

Either way, I have/had a "partial obstruction".  No, I'm not sure what that means, only that the pain went away after I was cut off foods, and after close to 48 hours of observation, I was able to eat without it coming back too badly.  So like...something got snagged.

So it's not AN EMERGENCY, but it sounds increasingly like I'm going to NEED to get some kind of corrective surgery in the relatively near future, but I don't know what that's gonna look like.  

Doctors and nurses in a hospital are really bad at slowly explaining things because they always have 30 other patients in the back of their mind who are waiting for them to stop talking to you.

Right now I'm in that phase where I'm resting at home and trying to schedule doctors appointments with doctors I've never met and work my way through appointments and paperwork to deduce what the best option for me is to prevent this from happening again, (if there is any way to prevent it from happening again...)

Thank you all for your support (in more ways than one) and your patience.  

This wasn't supposed to happen.

-Personalias