My Record is Broken - Emergency Room Visit

So I ended up at emergency at the hospital yesterday. While I have been to a hospital for tests before, it is the first time I've been to an emergency room since grade 6 at the age of 12 when I broke my arm.

The vertigo/dizziness I went to the walk-in for last week turned into a nasty stomach bug of some kind.

After 7 days of not being able to eat and enduring fairly severe abdominal pain, nausea, as well as diarrhoea (sorry for the graphicness), I decided to go back to a walk-in. After waiting a long time at the walk-in, the Dr. saw me for under a minute before he told me he really couldn't do anything for me and that I should go to emergency for some tests and IV fluids which would "perk me right up".

At emergency I had to wait maybe 15min for the triage nurse (more sitting up) so I guess my heart rate was quite elevated (due to the POTS I think). After less than 10 more minutes I was called in, given a bed in a curtained off area to boot despite the fact that the hallway was packed full of people in beds. (The nurse told me later that the private area was due to my past history of c. difficile infection which they don't like in hospitals).

I was given an IV - the Dr. thought I was quite dehydrated and was worried about my heart rate - and they ran some blood tests (all normal). The Dr. concluded that it is probably a whopper of a virus. He sent me home with a bunch of kits to check for various infections (including c. difficile). I should know within the next couple days.

My gut is still in rough shape today, but I feel as if the infection is easing up a bit (hopefully).

Despite my phobia of both medical professionals and hospitals, I had an really good experience. The nurse was very nice as was the Dr.

I avoided sharing my diagnosis of M.E. - I didn't have the energy to risk the the skeptisicm if by chance the Dr. or nurses were not 'believers'. I also figured it wouldn't help them figure out the gut problems anyway.

Still, I felt so weird saying "no" when they asked about other medical conditions. I did share that I had OI partly hoping it would allow me to lay down as I'd been sitting way too long.

I'm hoping they find that this is a treatable infection so I can get something to help me kick it.

The Dr. said I could go another week without eating if I thought I was keeping down some fluids. If I had worsening pain or spiked a fever that I should come back. If I'm still not eating in a week, I might also need to return.

Quite a day. I'm not super crashed from it yet, but still, I don't plan on doing much this weekend. I've only been out of the house three times in the last two weeks and two of those were for medical reasons. Crossing my figures I recover soon.