i played in the BUDA summer league tournament this weekend. not only was the weekend really nice and warm (like highs in the 90s), on sunday, it was also super humid. i thought i kept pretty hydrated this weekend -- i drank lots of water/gatorade, stood under my gigantic highrock umbrella, and applied sunscreen liberally (i guess that last part had nothing to do with hydration, but it's good for preventing premature wrinkles and melanoma!)
then, on monday morning, i woke up at 5:30am with a horrible headache along the left side of my head. i recognized that i might be dehydrated, so i went to the kitchen, poured myself a glass of water, and drank some. 10 minutes later, i was in the bathroom, throwing up the water i just drank. a cycle of lying down on the futon in the living room, drinking some water, throwing up in the bathroom, lying on my bed, drinking some water, and then throwing up began for the next hour. around 6:30 cindy woke up and came out of her room. at this point, i was lying on my bed, and i could only manage a weak "cindy, i think i'm really dehydrated and my head really hurts and i keep throwing up water" to which she replied, "um, do you want me to look something up online?" she finds out that i should try to drink gatorade to replace the electrolytes that i've probably lost, and that maybe i should consider going to the E.R. i went into the kitchen to make some gatorade, thought about going to the E.R., dismissed the thought (because i believed i could tough it out) and then about a minute later, decided that i should probably go to the E.R. (because really, i'm a wimp). luckily, wallis's last day of work was last friday, so wallis drove me to the cambridge hospital (probably not the start of her week of freedom like she imagined!) i think wallis was already really nervous from having to drive in boston, and it probably didn't help that i was puking gatorade into a pot next to her during the drive.
luckily, the cambridge hospital didn't have many people in the emergency room, so i was seen pretty quickly. as i was lying on the table in one of the room, i swear, 10 different people and names were told to me, and i could not tell you who a single person was. needles were poked into me, stickers were stuck on me, i was told to change into a hospital gown, and thankfully, wallis got me 3 blankets from the nurses station because it was freezing in the E.R. we arrived at the hospital at 7:30 am and 5.5 hours later, with 3L of saline, 2 doses of zofran (antinausea meds), 3 different types of pain killers of increasing strength pumped into my body, as well as an EKG and a CT scan of my head, and i was good to go! my headache finally broke, and even though i wasn't keeping any food down, i wasn't too worried about it. (figured it would happen soon).
and that was pretty much my ordeal in the E.R. i originally thought that i got really dehydrated from not drinking gatorade on sunday and just water, but wallis pointed out tonight that i had drunk an extraordinary amount of caffeine on friday when i drove to and from vermont which might have affected my body's ability to retain fluids. i think her conclusion makes a lot of sense. so here are my lessons learned from this trip to the E.R.:
1. drink lots of water/gatorade!
2. don't drink caffeine. caffeine is evil!
3. drink lots of water/gatorade!
4. yay for nurses who are good phlebotomists. i have no bruising on either arm! :)
1 comment:
yay for no bruising!
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