Go straight to the ER

Thursday, April 17. Started like any normal day, felt like the belly was growing quite a bit and I was beginning to show more. I remember placing my hand under my belly a couple times that morning as I was getting ready for work feeling like the added support of just my hand felt good.

Went to work with a slight tummy ache and attributed it to the homemade fettuccine alfredo sauce that I made the night before per Adam's request for his birthday. Think heavy cream and butter, and lots of it. This tummy ache began to progress around 10 am and I kept applying pressure to my left lower tummy for comfort. It seemed that walking around made it worse, so I sat down and pulled up next to my patient to chat. This particular patient had experienced several miscarriages and was very open in talking to me about her difficulties and my pregnancy in general; she knew how far along I was and I felt comfortable talking to her about the pain I was experiencing. She encouraged me right away to call my doctor just to be safe. I thought, nah I think I just have to take a poo poo which I quickly did and to my surprise I felt worse afterwards. Not normal.

Suddenly it clicked that this pain felt a lot like my earlier 'cyst' pain that I had experienced but worse. I had not only one patient working with me at the time, but another on diathermy machine and another had just been transported down to start with soon. I started to worry about how to deal with all three while feeling crummy, and the whole time the earlier patient just kept saying "Call your doctor. Just do it."

11 am: Called my doctor's office and spoke to the nurse, describing my pain and concern about it being similar to the earlier cyst. She quickly spoke to my doctor on call and replied, "Go straight to the ER. Blood supply could be cut off from your ovary, they can scan you there and will know what to do."

Excuse me? The blood drained from my face. I stood up and didn't know what to do. Our transporter walked by and I quickly told him he needs to just take my patients back upstairs with no explanation why. I grabbed my purse- should I take my jacket? What's the temperature out? Should I bring my lunch with me? Where's my boss? Who do I tell I'm leaving? Oh my god. The ER. What?

A fellow therapist saw me as I was walking out and one look at my face he knew something was wrong. "I have to go to the hospital," as I fought back tears. "I'm OK I think but I have to go, will you tell Marek? (my boss)." He said of course, just go and then offered a ride. No, I could drive. Made it to the hospital in tears and basically shaking just out of fear.