Steve has been chastising me for my lack of posting activity. I defended myself by asking when exactly he thought I would have been able to carve out time for that in the last four days. He just shook his head, looked at my visitor stats and told me I better get on the ball. Fine then. I'm back on the ball and I'm going to write about him. Nanny nanny boo boo.
Last night, my beloved complained about a pain in his stomach-and not his usual gas pain. I reached over and asked where it hurt and put my hand on his lower belly-he winced and said it was really tender right there. I told him it was very likely appendicitis and we should probably go to the emergency room in case it ruptured. He deferred and said he'd make an appointment for the next morning. Typical.
He was still hinting at the pain this morning, but it seemed to have abated somewhat. However, this afternoon, he called to tell me he had been to the doctor and they also felt there was a strong possibility of his appendix being the culprit. I reminded him that "I told you so." He wanted no part of that, and reported that he was on his way to the emergency room where they would start with a CT scan. I was on my lunch hour, so I switched gears and rushed up to the ER. I arrived just before was taken to radiology, and patted his arm sympathetically while he told me about the violations of his orifices he'd just endured. He then expressed concern about the cause of his symptoms. Someone had even mentioned the word "tumor."
The technician came to take him away, and I went looking for a vending machine since it was now 4 pm and I hadn't eaten anything since breakfast and was beginning to tremble, though that could have been nerves after hearing the word "tumor". I grabbed a Coke and a bag of chips, savoring the Coke since I've almost eliminated pop from my diet in the last six months, indulging only on rare occasions.
Steve returned a few minutes later, we chatted and waited for the radiologist to give us the results. The doctor returned with the verdict, no surgery would be needed, Steve had a case of epiploic appendagitis. I know, I never heard of it before this either. Truthfully, I still don't fully understand it and there's no Wikipedia entry to explain it in layman's terms. The wonderful news-he doesn't need surgery or any other invasive procedure, only some Advil to ease the pain.
False Alarm #2
In December 2005, Steve stepped out of the shower and as he combed his hair in the mirror, he asked me if I thought his skin looked blue-never a good sign. I looked, and indeed, his skin was blue from his armpits down to his waist. I gasped, and announced we would need to get to the ER immediately, blue skin was nothing to play around with. He maintained that he felt just fine, so I called my mom-an RN who can be counted on for hysteria-and she insisted we see a doctor.
Fortunately, it was still early in the day, so we went to the Steve's regular clinic. We arrived just before closing, and the receptionist advised us we wouldn't be able to see a doctor. I pleaded for her to at least find a nurse practitioner to take a look. She hesitated, but called to the back and a nurse came out front and ushered us to an exam room. I rattled off what Steve's condition was, and she had him remove his shirt-a lovely corduroy, Blackwatch plaid frock sent by my aforementioned hysterical mother. He carefully folded the shirt and told me it was the nicest one he'd ever owned and that even though he'd worn it the day before, he wore it again because it was so warm and good looking. As soon as his top was off, I recoiled. The areas on his sides were a deeper blue. The nurse said she'd never seen anything like it. "You've never seen poor circulation before?" I asked incredulously?
"Well, not on the sides of a torso, I haven't." She took his vitals, everything was normal. "In spite of your normal BP and pulse, I am going to insist that you go to the ER immediately, " she ordered sternly.
Steve protested some more, my heart raced, and we went back to the car. We decided to go to the hospital nearest our home, even though we were closer to the hospital in the more affluent zip code. I consider that to be a better medical center for the same reason I consider Nordstrom's to be a better store than Target. Nonetheless, we arrived in Burnsville and I breathlessly explained to the desk staff what the problem was. Steve looked outwardly healthy, and didn't appear to be suffering the ill effects of his obvious deterioration.
A nurse rushed over after hearing my concerns, and forced him into a chair and began to check his vitals. Again, normal. She took his temperature-nothing wrong there-and put an oxygen monitor on his finger. Yep, that was fine, too. She announced that if he was having a cardiac event, something would have triggered an alarm by now. I stared at her dumbfounded and lifted up his shirt-"Do you see this? His skin is BLUE. That is BAD."
She was stumped. They slapped a plastic bracelet on his wrist and we were sent to an examination room. Steve took off his shirt, remarked again how much he liked it and how nice my mom was for sending it to him. He replaced it with a paper hospital gown. Another nurse came by and took a look. "Hmmm, I've never seen anything like that before." My jaw dropped at the obvious stupidity. A doctor came over, but announced he wasn't "our" doctor, he had just heard about Steve's condition and simply had to take a look. I got a little louder, "What kind of place is this? You people don't know what blue skin means?"
Ohmigod, I thought, I knew we should have stayed in the upperclass suburb. How did these morons ever make it past high school anatomy? Was Steve going to pay for their incompetence with his life?
The most recent nurse returned. At this point it really should have occurred to me that Steve had been upright all day, and if in fact, blood was pooling and causing the skin discoloration, it would have been in his lower extremities. I've read enough of the Kay Scarpetta series to know that much. She checked his stats AGAIN, they were still normal, and she remarked, "It's almost like ink, or a dye." She shut the curtain, and left. I looked at Steve, then walked over to the paper towel holder and removed one. I licked it. I rubbed the saliva dampened towel on his skin. I turned it over to reveal my fingertip, and it was-you guessed it-blue. It was blue from the goddamn corduroy shirt that he couldn't stop gushing about. He turned red, hissed loudly, "I'm getting the fuck out of here NOW. Do you know how embarrassing this is?"
He began ripping off all the wires attached to him. The nurse came running in to find out what was wrong and I showed her the offending evidence. She laughed and wouldn't let him leave until he signed a medical release statement that documented his refusal of treatment.
PS-I love you, Stevers! I love everything about you, including your tender round belly and your cerulean skin. I'm overjoyed that there's nothing seriously wrong with you and that you'll be around to nag me about my blog for the next fifty years. You are my inkblot, and the love of my life-I am so grateful for our incredible family every single day.
