I made my first trip to the emergency room Tuesday morning.

I woke up with cramps, and it was probably less than an hour since my period had come, which I was expecting and wasn't too worried. I took a couple of ibuprofen and went down to breakfast. Halfway through my bowl of Kix, though, they started getting a lot worse, and I started feeling really sick. So I went up to my hallway and straight into the bathroom without even going back to my room. Then they became EXCRUCIATINGLY painful, and I lay on the bathroom floor for half an hour, wretching and shaking and sweating, while girls stood outside the door of my stall doing their makeup and not seeming to notice that I was DYING. Finally, I just opened the door and asked the nearest girl to get me some water and analgesics. She did, but when she got back I was feeling like I was going to pass out, so I told her to get the RA. Anne came and asked me what I wanted to do. I didn't know. I felt ridiculous even talking to her about it. They're cramps. What more can you do about them? She asked me if I wanted her to walk me over to McKinley. I couldn't walk that far. She said we had to do something. "Do you want me to call an ambulance?"

"Yeah, I guess so."

And so she called the ambulance. And the paramedics came and ambulanced me right over to Carle. And I got my own little bed in the emergency room. For cramps.

In my defense, it could have been something more. Starved Artist has cramps like that, and she has ovarian cysts. What if I had ovarian cysts? I couldn't take the chance.

But of course, they were just cramps. They came when my cramps usually come, and they felt like cramps usually feel, just ten times more intense. It was something like I imagine childbirth must feel like. I even found myself involuntarily doing that heavy breathing lamas thing they have women do for natural childbirth, to flood their brains with oxygen and make them too high to be bothered by the pain. That's probably what made me feel like I was going to pass out. I was kind of hyperventilating, and my whole body (with the exception of my uterus, unfortunatly) felt numb. And it was really scary.

So I had my RA call an ambulance.

I missed all my classes that day, and now I have to find an alternative time to take my musicology midterm.

But better safe than sorry, I say. Because I'd hate to think that I was just being a crazy hypochondriac.

posted at 4:39 PM by Alison

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