This week has had drama. It all started out nicely—another Fulbrighter farewell last Friday night (Szia Robyn!) with a little whisky, a little chatting with friends. Some hours clocked at Baked and Wired. A dinner out. A little bit of time cleaning my room. Weekend stuff.

Then I woke up on Monday morning.

So, I didn’t feel right when I woke up—perhaps like there was a little cramp or something. Still, I was determined to stick to routine, and went and got my coffee, did some reading (finished Philip Roth’s The Dying Animal over a bagel) and then went back to the apartment, planning to get some more reading done, followed by some writing. But my stomach felt worse. So, I lay down with a heatpack on my stomach and fell asleep for awhile, woke up, and found it was worse again. I wasn’t exactly sure what I should do, and thought for a moment maybe it was something appendix related (I almost don’t believe in appendicitis—isn’t that like those phone numbers starting with “555”: invented for television?) and found that the appendix is on the other side of the body from where I was feeling pain. Still, it got worse. It was after 5, and so the student health clinic was closed. My friend Lisa suggested the ER. My reaction was—What if it’s nothing? Even with insurance, isn’t an ER in the US expensive? (This reminds me of the time I fainted off my bicycle on a major road during peak hour—when I came to someone was phoning an ambulance. Groggy as I was, I was still able to say “Don’t! I don’t have ambulance cover!” Oh dear.) So I rang my mother in Australia (as with the best mothers, she is all-knowing) and she thought that since it had been getting worse over 6 hours or so I should go see someone.

Fastforward to: a trip to the ER. I’d been lying still for quite a while, and apparently my body didn’t like walking anymore. I got out of the building, and then started throwing up outside. Nice. Lisa brought the car round. No more nausea. Phew.

Took me a few minutes to even find the ER—the Georgetown Hospital isn’t terribly well-signed. They should do something about that. Did the triage thing a few times, with waiting in between. On the scale of one to ten I initially estimated the pain at 7. Within an hour I would have been screaming ten. I was fine and then suddenly it was all just unbearable. High drama!

So the doctors thought that, yes, it might be appendicitis. Especially when I started pain-induced nausea as it got worse. Apparently the pain can manifest itself more on the left even though the appendix is on the right. So, first an IV, and anti-nausea medication, plus morphine. Morphine? Yes. It told you there was high-drama.

I had to drink about a litre of this slightly fizzy stuff as I awaited a CT scan—apparently you have to have it an hour before the scan. Some other lovely injections when I got to the CT scan room—and, to make the experience extra special, more vomiting. The results? I do not have appendicitis. Sigh of relief, right? Except, why do I still hurt?

New theory: let’s send her for an ultrasound. (No, this story doesn’t end with it turning out I’m pregnant with alien children.) But some more morphine first, as I was starting to get all feverish and crazy. Ultrasound finds an 11cm ruptured cyst. I realise, my dear readers, that some of you might not want to read about this. But apparently its one of the things a body can do to itself—most women have “functional” cysts at some point, but mine clearly wasn’t functioning very well, what with the pain and the vomiting and the rupture. On the bright side, I did get to see ultrasound images of my insides. Oh, and the attached picture is not of my insides. My cyst is bigger than this one.

The result? After 6 or so hours in the ER I was released with a few pieces of paper, prescriptions for painkillers (including Vicoden… but I’m managing on the industrial strength Ibuprofen) and the instruction to see a doctor within three days for further tests.

So, at the moment I have a lot of Ibuprofen in my system, and am due at the doctor’s office tomorrow. Most likely? Blood tests, more ultrasound, and at some point an opinion as to whether I’ll need a surgery or not. Surgery? Well, I’m okay with that—thank god I have health insurance—but if it’s required it involves entry via the stomach, and I’m really not okay with that. (I expect most of you know how much I hate to have my belly button touched. The idea of a caesarian makes me want to faint—hell, seeing a navel piercing makes me want to faint.) Anyway, from what I've read I don't think the surgery should be needed, and I think they wait a while to see if goes away on its own anyway.

It’s all a bit of a “hold on tight” thing. I was all upset, and now I’m just kind of puzzled. It all seems so strange. And how did I get the timing? Just after I finished teaching, a few weeks before my own classes start. I even have my parents coming in next week. What a whirl.

At least last night I ate icecream by the canal. That was nice.