Still Weirdly Afflicted

Thursday my mother talked me out of going to the hospital. Apparently my father, who is a doctor, thought it was absurd to need to go to the ER for fluids since I wasn't really dying and my mom had gone through much worse diarrhea and dehydration when she had cancer and they never sent her to the hospital. I was exhausted and feeling like crap and had finally come to accept dragging my ass in to the ER, so the conversation with my mother left me in tears. I decided I'd call my migraine doctor, make sure what I was experiencing couldn't be explained away as a weird-ass migraine manifestation, and get her second opinion on whether or not I needed hospitalization since she actually knew me and knew my full medical history and medication regimen, unlike my fucking father and, admittedly, unlike the doctor who I saw who told me to go to the ER in the first place. Of course I had to leave a message for my migraine doctor, and so I waited.

She didn't get back to me until Friday afternoon, and even then it was one of her nurses. The nurse said, "go to the hospital." So I repacked my bag and, the Friday before Labor Day Weekend, in crazy amounts of traffic, Aural Girl drove me to the ER.

Aural Girl stayed with me the entire time. They ran all kinds of tests on me including an EKG that made me feel like a turkey being prepped for cooking, exposed and prodded. They took my blood pressure and pulse a number of times in a number of ways because I came in with both disconcertingly low. They took lots of blood and gave me two bags of fluid through an IV that went slowly until a nurse finally told me I had to keep my arm straight (I did not know!). The whole thing took about four to five hours and in the end they let me go even though the doctors still didn't know what was wrong with me, but because my blood pressure went up to my normally low but not dangerously low level. They said I should feel better by Sunday.

Sunday I felt a tiny bit better. I went to Polish Fest, which was an experience unto itself. I'm only supposed to eat bland, easy-to-digest foods until further notice, so I had pirogi and a potato pancake and a few bites of a blintz. I heard Dziwka's favorite band, a Polish alternative-rock group, play to a diversely Polish crowd. I was glad I went but I could see sparkles most of the time and worried a bit every time we'd walk quickly through crowds for long periods of time.

A tiny bit better is all I ever felt. I still get woozy after stairs and when I take out the dog and some every time I sit up or stand and a bit all the time. I'm drinking Gatorade like a marathon runner and peeing constantly as a result.

I went to the doctor again yesterday but this time it was my doctor. My blood pressure was very low again. She ordered a million more tests and took more blood. I have to go back to the hospital for the tests. Boo. She still doesn't know what's wrong with me but suggested, among other things, that it might be a weird manifestation of a migraine.