how to end up in hospitals, excessively.

I don't know how the fuck i'm doing it, guys. i do not know. but it gets me out of work.

15.5 months. two er visits, both leading to me being diagnosed after four hours of painful waiting, followed by being admitted and sleeping hooked up to machines.

so the first time, as you're all aware, was mono. this time, i decided to go a more obscure and challenging route, and cough myself to... well, not death. but a lot of pain.
so i'm coughing. coughing like i'm dying. coughing like i'm an asthmatic with his throat swelling shut, when suddenly, i'm an asthmatic with his throat swelling shut. so i figure "sure, it's a good start" call up my mom, and she gets scared, and says "i'm hauling your ass to the hospital, fuck bel-air" so i walked out to the road for a cab, and when it came near, the license plate didnt say fresh, there were no dice in the mirror, if anything, i could say it looked like my mom's car, and it was.
so i got to the er, they treated the asthma, and i said, "wait, my throat feels the same", well, ok, the doctor goes, "we'll give you some steroids" 40 mg of prednizone. doesnt do anything. wait 15 minutes, my chest starts hurting. nice, shooting pain, right up from the solar plexus, and that fucker HURT. ok, well, by this point, it's seven, and the doctor changes. so the next doctor listens, looks at my throat for an eighth of a second and goes "nah, you don't have any swelling or infection." maybe the steroids gave you heartburn. here, have some pepto. ok, whatever, i think i can tell the difference between heartburn and my breastbone being split open, but whatev's, you're the doctor.
doesnt do shit. surprise, surprise. so i take a nap. have a sweet ass dream about the girl i care about pulling a gun on her ex. of course, being the one who's thinking about being a cop, i end up with a gun pointed at her, when suddenly, she's crying, asking if i've ever gotten "fall sadness" (tl;dr, i'm a hopeless romantic who wants to be the one saving her)
suddenly, i wake up. disoriented. don't know where i am. and oh, yeah, if i breath in more than about a sixth of a breath, my ribs explode. needless to say, shit sucked.
"let's get you an x-ray" ...good idea. waiting for about ten minutes, then some guy sticks his head in "so, get your x ray yet?" ...why, yes! yes i did! i just pulled it out of my ASS!!
half hour later, some other guy takes me to get the xray, then i head back to the er room. and wait.

and wait.

"gee, good thing we got that xray, you have 'pneumo-thorax' means you have air in your chest."
"oh, uh, outside of your lungs."
...no shit? really? and here i thought i couldnt breath because there was air, ya know, in my lungs, where it belongs? so i'm in pain. so they hook me up to a heart monitor, oxygen, throw a needle in my arm, take some blood... and then, they give me...

Morphine. Glorious, glorious morphine. and despite my huge resistance to painkillers (when i've had to get stitches, i tend to end up with a double dose of painkiller because a normal dose just isnt enough. i gotta bang those seven gram rocks.) i feel... much less pain. like, i can breathe 3/4 breaths again. and i wait for another like, 2 hours then the clowns transfer me to vassar brothers.

ok, now shit gets real. get to vassar brothers, get a ct scan of my chest. this indian guy named tony, a physician's assistant, takes a look, comes to visit, says ok, this is what's going on. lays it all out, tells me what he saw, what's good, what's bad, what happens next, then says "i'm going to go call the surgeon, the doctor, we'll talk, and i'll be back." cool. so i watch McLintock on amc on the emergency room tv, half hour later, he's back. "ok, we're going to get you a barium swallow xray, then your going to be admitted, we'll observe you for 23 hours, and then you'll probably go home." sweet.

if you have a choice between a barium swallow xray, and eating shit, eat the shit, because you won't still have the shits 7 hours later. the taste is probably about equal. technically, i couldnt do the barium swallow, because if i had the leak in my esophagus we were looking for, the barium would make surgery rough. so i got the same technique with some other shit, which if my esophagus leaked would be fine, but if i accidentally gagged and breathed it, it'd fuck my lungs over in about 2 seconds.

protip: watching yourself drink a shit flavored milkshake is still cool when you can see it go down your throat into your stomach. it just tastes like... well, shit. watching your body on medical equipment is fun. i've watched my own heart, seen my liver and spleen, seen the bones of my ankles and feet, watched blood flow through my carotid, and now i've seen my ribcage and collarbones, while watching myself drink a shit milkshake.

after which, i got transferred to the cardiothoracic unit and ordered dinner. food, for the first time in 18 hours.

i ate, then got up and pissed out my rectum. they didnt tell me about how the shit milkshake came out. NOT. FUN. i'll spare you the greater details.

but since then, i've been chilling in the room, eating, drinking, enjoying free wifi, and thanking god i don't have to share my bathroom with anyone else. took a nap, dreamt about cards, cars and boats, woke up, gotten iv antibiotics, used one of the most entertaining pieces of asthma-treating equipment, and making some very fine women feel good (told the night nurse how to get rid of her hiccups.)

so, for your entertainment, i close with a copy of the note i wrote to my mother when i was first admitted to dutchess, when talking hurt like hell. it's only my part, i could hear fine.

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it's helping my lungs, but my throat isnt changing. give it more time?

in which case i wouldnt have been able to breathe before. we knew that.

keeping my jaw tight hurts after a while. not tight, clenched.

Nebulyzers make me feel like a dragon. XD

I can't inhale constantly, i have to exhale in between. duh.
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ok, that wasnt as funny as i remembered. but the monocle and pipe jokes, and dragon jokes made up for it. ahh, physical humor.

tl;dr: emergency rooms arent fun, being admitted is better. oh, and shit milkshakes.