A Trip to Hospital

SaturdaySunday, 10th October 2004
In the wee hours or Sunday morning I woke up with the worst headache I’ve had since they begun. I found it so strange, becuase when I saw the doctor on Friday afternoon, he asked me if my headaches were waking me up at night, and I said no, I was sleeping right through the night still. But after that I started waking up in the middle of the night when the pain killers started to wear off. But this time it was really really bad. at 12:50am I took 2 panadene fortes and tried to go back to sleep, but I couldn’t. I just lay there holding my head, turning from side to side, trying to find a position that hurt less. There wasn’t. An hour later the pain still didn’t get any better, so I thought screw this… I went and woke mum and dad up. I didn’t know what else to do. This pain had gone on way too long for my liking and nothing was making it go away. The pain killers that were making it better a day before weren’t doing squat tonight.

We sat there for a while wondering what to do. I was just crying… which was probably making my head feel much worse, but I couldn’t help it. All my strength and bravery was well used up. In my head I was just telling myself, ‘take me to the hospital’. Mum and dad rang the emergency help line for some advice and I spoke to the woman on the other end of the phone. She advised me to go to the hospital because there wasn’t anything else she could really tell me to do.

So there it was 2am in the morning and we were off to Joondalup Emergency Department. After trying to talk to the triage nurse through a glass window and then told to wait for god knows how long it was, I was finally called. After examiniation they decided to put me on a drip of fluid and pain killers. I was there for so long. I was tired. I was upset. The anti nausea stuff they gave me made me throw up. The bed was hard and so narrow, I could barely move to make myself somewhat comfortable. There was a guy in the next cubicle who obviously had some sort of mental illness and hearing the conversation he was having witht the nurse made me uneasy. It felt like I was hooked up to this drip for hours… and I still had my headache.

The doctor asked me so many questions, but couldn’t deduce anything. He asked me if my doctor had arranged for any CT Scans, and I said yes, mum was going to take me for them tomorrow. So he perscribed me some of the pain killers that they were giving me through the drip. Told me that they were stronger than panadene forte, and then sent me home.

It was about 5:30 or something by that point. The sun was coming up. I got home and promptly threw up again. I went to sleep again and slept for a few hours to mid morning. But I still had my headache.

I hardly ate anything on Sunday. I just couldn’t. The thought, the smell, the feel of food in my mouth was unbearable. I can’t remember if Russ came over on sunday again or not. But I remember laying with my head in mums laps with a cold face washer over my forehead and eyes listening to the Australian Idol Beatles show. I might have managed to eat some jelly or something… I don’t know. But I went to bed with more pain killers. I was going to have the CT scan tomorrow. Secretly hoping that it would give me some answers to what was wrong with me.