Humor Will Get You Through Anything

Warning: this post may be a little too gross for you to read while eating, so don't read it while eating.

Any of you remember reading my comment in my 6/27 post about an unexpected something popping up and I would mention something about it later? Well, this is later.

My sense of humor never ceases to amaze me.

I'll let you in on a little secret: Over the years, my sense of humor, as warped as it is, has sometimes popped up in the most peculiar situations. Usually, but not always, it pops up after a particularly intense or difficult event involving myself or my family, friends and co-workers.

This past Friday, it reared its ugly head. About 6a, while I was going through my morning routine of eating breakfast and checking out all things computer related, I had an incredibly sharp pain rip across my lower back and take my breath away.

Naturally, I stopped what I was doing and made an attempt to take care of it by tripping upstairs to use the facilities. About five minutes later, it went away without any further problem and no action on my part, so I went back downstairs to continue with my morning routine. A couple of minutes later, same thing, this time more intense.

Back upstairs I went. This time though, I wound up saluting the porcelain gods. Within the span of ten minutes, I was on the couch writhing in pain and having the wife call 911. Off to the hospital I went, still writing in pain and saluting the porcelain gods, not to mention blowing an IV line (#1).

After a relatively pleasant trip through the city, I arrived at the hospital, still writhing in pain and saluting the porcelain gods. After spending about ten minutes or going through triage and slowly losing what lucidity I had for the morning (no drugs yet), I was brought over to a room, politely shifted over to a bed and waited for the nurse to come in and do her thang.

A little while later the nurse came in and set about getting me hooked up with an IV. After telling her that she might have a problem in finding a usable vein, she said that wouldn't be a problem (#2). Guess what boys and girls, it was a problem. Right after the latest attack of pain doubled me over in the bed and caused reverse digestion, I blew out the line in nothing flat, soaking the bed with all kinds of nifty meds.

Making light of the situation (and me apologizing for blowing the line), she went about trying to find a usable vein in the other arm (#3). This time she succeeded in getting me hooked up. After using about a mile of tape to keep it in, I wound up going through a battery of tests to determine what was wrong with me.

After a couple of hours, during which we had a few more episodes of tripling over in pain (was given a liquid dose of morphine to kill the pain) and turning my stomach inside out, it was finally determined that I was suffering through a kidney stone attack. Finally, the pain did subside enough (not because of the morphine, a good pain killer but it left me incredibly restless and semi-wasted for the rest of the day) to the point where I could be discharged and go home.

Throughout it all, even though I was in enough pain that I should of been dropping F bombs on ever single person within earshot, I managed to maintain my sense of humor. Even when a strange lady came walking into my room carrying her IV bag and used the bathroom, I still maintained my sense of humor. In that instance, I simply raised my eyebrow and looked at my wife. I was even able to make a crack about Dunkin' Donuts coffee while I was riding on the elevator to have CAT scan done.

If you have any sense of humor, chances are it will rear its ugly head when you least expect it, but in the end, it will always be appreciated. Especially if you spend 3 1/2 hours in the emergency room, and especially if you were forced to watch very bad morning talk shows while spending those 3 1/2 hours in the emergency room (can someone explain to me why morning talk shows are still wallowing in the trailer park trash fifteen years after trailer park trash was so not with it?).