Saturday May 8th 2010....
I had just sat in the bathroom for another 20 minutes. It was the 12th time that day. How was there anything left in me? I hadn't eaten anything solid in almost a week. I was down 16 pounds from two weeks prior. I made my way the ten feet to my bed and collapsed in a heap beside my bed. I only had the sense of mind to grab my yellow plastic garbage bucket so I didn't vomit on the floor. It didn't matter anyway. Nothing had been coming out for two days.
When I could reopen my eyes I made my way to the stairs where I immediately had to sit down to avoid the spinning precipice that is the 14 steps to the floor below. I have no idea how long I sat there. I slowly inched my way down the stairs toddler style on my bottom with my head on my knees. As I reached the bottom my mother looked startled.
"You scared me. I didn't hear you coming down. Did you go down on your bum?" She asked as I made my way, now daring to walk to my chair.
I blacked out.
The next thing I knew my mom was shaking me but I was soon out again.
"What's her name?" Said a strange voice.
"Kylee." Said my mother.
"Hi Kylee." Said the strange voice again. "Kylee. I'm just going to attach some stickers to your chest and your legs. OK?" The voice pulled me up out of the fetal position while another set of hands attached the electrodes.
I have no idea what happened next as I was being walked(more like being carried) out my front door and down the concrete steps to a stretcher. I remember the air being cold but they wrapped me in blankets. They put me backwards in the ambulance. Could you be a little gentler people? I thought. The paramedic asked me if I needed a puke bag. I was very white and shaking. My heart rate was also through the roof. She informed me that it was right there if I needed it. I was asleep but awake. It's the strangest feeling.
I wondered if this was dying. I knew I wasn't dying, the sirens weren't on. I do vaguely remember seeing the trees pass quite quickly out of the back window. Faster than they do at 50 kms. per hour anyway.
We arrived and they took me into the ER. My mom followed 5 minutes later. She had to drop my little sister off at my grandparents house which was en route.
The nurse took my temperature, symptoms, all that jazz and I was in a bed within minutes. Maybe I was closer to my maker than I thought? Maybe not. On subsequent ER trips I have learned that if your heart rate is over that of a three hundred pound man eating a plate of french fries after pouring an entire shaker of salt of them, they rush you to the front of the line.
As it turns out I also had a slight fever. So I had to take three Tylenol. This was a feat. It took me an hour but I didn't throw any of them back up. And that's not easy when you're 3/4 of the way to dead. As it turns out will power trumps the grim reaper every time.
They took blood, stool and basically any other bodily fluids they could get me to excrete(which is harder than you think after being dehydrated for so long). And I had to keep drinking water and Pedialyte freezies(ick). I believe it was one cup of water and one or two freezies every 30 minutes or in the IV would go. You have to remember that this was pre-IV days and will power can trump needle wielding nurses as well.
Every test came back negative and they decided it had come down to a case of mildly severe dehydration from diarrhea. But what had caused the diarrhea in the first place they could not say. There was no infection or other obvious source of my symptoms. And so I was discharged as one of those unsolved but resolved cases.
Until August. That was a whole other ball game....
