On a scale of one to ten? ELEVEN!!!

Pain.  Oh my Gawd - pain.

I've been through some painful episodes in my life. I suffered from migraines as a child. Those hurt. More recently I dislocated my finger. That hurt. When I was a child I smashed the tip of another finger off. That hurt too. In college I fell and broke my back. That really hurt. A nickel-sized wedge of pumpkin was lodged under my big toenail during a Halloween party (yeah, you read that right). That was some intense hurt. Four years ago I started suffering from burning abdominal pains. Those episodes were serious hurt. For serious.

I woke up with burning, gnawing pain. I took some medicine and went about my day. Jooj and I ran some errands, went to lunch, and come home to clean up the house. The pain returned. I took more medicine. This time, however, the pain did not cease. In fact, instead of subsiding it was increasing.

We struggled with the decision of what to do next. Ultimately, Jooj called our doctor and he asked us to go to the ER. Hells bells! Seriously? Shit, man. Isn't this weekend messed up enough already?

By the time I was being checked in at the ER my pain had surpassed a threshold of sustained discomfort that would have broken lesser men.  On a scale of 1 to 10, the nurse looked at my body and my grimace and answered for me.  Ten.  I was writhing in pain for literally hours. Morphine did nothing. Please someone do something! On a scale of 1 to 10 I now had reached 11.

Some other injection put me in a place that insulated me from the pain. Hours went by. I slipped in and out of consciousness. Drank some contrast. Drank some Sprite. CT Scan. Another injection. Bliss.

"I have an answer," the nurse/doctor said as she walked in (I don't really know who was who). "You have gallbladder disease. You are filled with stones."

Seriously? SERIOUSLY?!?! SRSLY???? For serious??? Seriously serious?!!1!?!!1??!!?one?!??!

I'm typing that and I still can't believe it.

So I've been admitted. It's 2am and time for another injection of bliss. I need to find out what this stuff is and become a closet junkie. Muwahahahaha!

(I'm just joking, Mr. DEA... call off the dogs)

92.1% | 174.53 lbs. (171.2 lbs.) | 16% (8 of 50) | 75.07% (274 of 365) | 102/55 lbs.