Just being sick sucks.

Here’s the thing. I have an ulcerated stomach and small intestine. Not a lot in the intestine, and they are located close to the pyloric sphincter, which makes it pretty easy to treat, or so the surgeon says. My symptoms were burning before I ate, after I ate, and during eating. So, I go to the doctor. I have always had stomach problems. So, they order tests, and I’m thinking it’s something little, like a need to change medications. My theory on how my stomach got into such a mess, antibiotics. I have been on them non stop for about two years, the reason for the need for antibiotics, pneumonia.

So the doctor, who by the way is the one who removed Mr. Zelda’s appendix a few years back, shows me the x-ray reports, ct scans, and all of that and even draws me a picture. Okay, I’m getting all of this information. He then says, let’s do a sleep apnea test. I say why, and he says sometimes oxygen deprivation during sleep causes ulcers, I say, I don’t have sleep apnea, he says, let’s see. Then he says he wants to scope me, which I have been scoped and while going down the top isn’t as bad as going up the rear, it’s still not pleasant, other than the valium.

His recommendation at this point, or what he feels needs to be done, is make sure there is no cancer, make sure that sleep deprivation isn’t a cause, and to cut the ulcers out. OUCH! I asked him was there not another way, and he says, not at this point. He says that I’m oozing a little blood. Okay, last year, about this same time, I was preparing for a total abdominal hysterectomy, and now in this. Okay, I can do this, I know I can, it’s all a matter of planning. If I can get the doctor to wait until spring break, I can go in on a Thursday before spring break, have surgery, get out over the weekend, and spend all of spring break getting back on my feet. Sounds like a plan, but if one of those ulcers should begin to bleed, well then it would require immediate attention and that ruins my plan.

My point of this revelation is that for a long time, I have had the burning, a little pain, but nothing so severe that I was incapacitated. But last night, Mr. Zelda and I went to a little Italian place and I ordered grilled salmon, hold the pepper, and fried potatoes, hold the spices. I should have not had the salmon, it had a face at one time and I’m so trying to avoid eating face foods, but then potatoes have eyes, oh, stop it, okay. Anyway, we get home and I feel like I have eaten twenty hundred thousand pounds of food. My belly begins to hurt, I feel like I’m going to hurl, I can’t get comfortable, the pain is killing me. I finally do, hurl that is, and thankfully there is no blood. I am hot and cold at the same time and feeling dizzy and so I almost crawl to bed and Mr. Zelda pats me with a cold cloth. I tell him I’m sorry, he says why and I say for being so sick and he says that’s not my fault and I say I know but you deserve a healthy wife, and he says don’t be silly and he covers me up and turns the fan on and I remember the cold cream and he brings it to me and helps me put it on my face. Then he turns the light off and I fall to sleep. This morning, I’m weak but not sick; I think that I will refrain from eating today. I don’t want to be sick.