This is part of the series, Misleading Gallbladder Diagnosis Leads To Better Diabetes Management

July 8, 2004, was all about hitting bottom.  I could sink no lower.  After returning home on Wednesday, July 7th, with the recommendation to see a GI doctor, I rested quietly, moved slowly and never left the house.  I went to bed, still not feeling great.  At 5 AM, I woke up running to the bathroom. When I finally sat up, I said, "We need a different hospital!"  What I was vomiting was deep green and bloody.  I was starting to have chest pain and my back was in spasm; it was difficult for me to even stand up!  I felt as though my body was seizing up.

Through a friend, we were able to get the head of endocrinology at Washington Hospital Center to meet me at 6:30 AM. But within only a few miles from our house, I started having serious heaves.  It was hard for me to catch my breath.  At the same time, the chest pain was increasing and I was trying to press my hands into the muscles to ease the pain.  My husband drove with his hand on my back to help the pain I was having near my kidneys.

My husband finally pulled the car over and we realized I needed a hospital closer than 9 miles away.  He pulled into a fire station and asked for help getting an ambulance. A few minutes later, the ambulance arrived and I asked where they were taking me.  I was desperate not to end up in the system that had gotten me here!  I asked, pleaded and begged to have them take me to Washington Hospital Center, but it was outside their jurisdiction. I was too sick, too weak and feeling lost to fight.  I got in the ambulance and headed for a different INOVA hospital.

When I arrived at Alexandria Hospital, the ER doctor came in and asked, "What's happening?" I was wreathing with chest pain and had given her a sample of stomach stuff.  She said, "This is complicated, but I want to give you some Benedryl and Tylenol."  Within a few minutes the chest pain started to subside.  She told me the chest pain was due to an allergic reaction to the phenergan, a medication used for nausea.  Due to the fact this hospital was connected with the last, the ER doctor already looked at the scans from the day before and she asked if anyone had spoken to me about the condition of my gallbladder.  I said no.  She simply said she needed to get a surgeon for an opinion and she left.

My husband's eyes spoke volumes, and I asked him to make some calls.  I closed my eyes and tried to rest hearing the conversation of the ER doctor organizing the nursing staff in the hallway, "Priority #1 is room 3, does everyone understand this?  Repeat it back to me."   Priority #1, room 3 ,was me. 

In the fogginess of medication, fatigue and fear I slept with my ears on alert.  I could hear everyone; the women next door to me calling for help, the doctor trying to track down the surgeon and ordering another scan for me.  I just surrendered; it was beyond me to work out this problem. All of us have a breaking point and this was mine.