Yesterday I took a trip to the emergency room for what turned out (fortunately) to not be an emergency. Around 4 PM or so I started having abdominal pain- it felt like the burning sensation that you get when a muscle is overtaxed, but rather more intense. I figured it was gas, and did the 'grin and bear it' bit. Around 6 or so I decided to lie down in the hopes that it would let up. It did, by about 8:30... Almost completely. Then it started to hurt in the lower right quadrant of my abdomen- this time a sharper sensation, more like a strained or pulled muscle.

Notably, I've never had pains quite like this before, so I went online to look to see what matched the symptoms- as it turns out, the symptoms were near identical to appendicitis. I know there was a fair chance that it was nothing, just BAD gas or constipation, but appendicitis is a very stupid thing to take a chance on, as one of its 'complications' is death.

So, I called foeclan and asked if he could drive me to the ER. He could, and we headed to HCMC (Hennepin County Medical Center). I lucked out and was in an examination room in 15 minutes flat. I ended up beng examined, getting X-Ray'd and my first ultrasound (Congratulations! Your gallbladder will be a boy!).

It was determined to be a fairly foul case of constipation; notably the worst I've ever had. They basically told me to get more fiber in my diet and to drink this 10 ounce bottle of... Red stuff. It was okay until the aftertaste hit- Gods, THAT was bad. And if you burp it COMES BACK. O.o

Anyway, things came out alright in the end, pun intended, and I seem okay now. The only bad things are that ths stuff they gave me seems to have been bottled diarrhea, and I woke with a MASSIVE headache, which after ibuprofin, tea and food has passed.

I refuse to be either embarrassed or chagrined by any of this. If it HAD been appendicitis, it's extremely dangerous.

So how was your day? ;)