Collapsed on Saturday. Never happened in my whole life. Let the dogs out, felt funny, started sweating profusely, heart racing, I went down. I had the mind to go over the back of a couch to break the fall. My 18 year old son was there to help me.
The unpleasant part… I crapped myself. I tried to get to the toilet and passed out a second time. Eventually crawled there, explosive diarrhea, black as you like. Did that 2-3 times and crawled to the shower, cleaned up, and crashed on my bed. What I learned later is that it was blood, and I lost a lot of blood.
Did some work for 2-3 hours on Saturday thinking it was food poisoning or something. We tried a new Japanese restaurant the night before and I sort of assumed that must have been it. Mrs ROTW came home that evening and saw me, white as a ghost, and heard what happened, and said to me as lovingly as possible, you bleeping idiot. We are going to the ER right now.
Checked into the hospital and I had another turn, with involuntary diarrhea. They got the crash cart ready as my blood pressure plummeted to 60/40, and they inverted me, injected me with something and got me back in the room, so to speak.
I was admitted to the PCU, still don’t know what it stands for, but it is a step down from intensive care, with 24hr monitoring, hooked up to everything.
They did a CAT scan to see what was up and maybe locate internal bleeding but couldn’t find anything. I was stable, it had moved into Easter Sunday, and then it was a skeleton staff at the hospital. So I waited until Monday.
An endoscopy on Monday revealed a stomach ulcer as the source of the bleeding. I didn’t know I had an ulcer and had never felt any discomfort at all. They got the bleeding stopped and everything stabilized and I was sent home yesterday, Tuesday.
The bloodwork revealed a bacterial infection h.pylori as the source of causing an ulcer, as it attacks the stomach lining. Apparently it can be dormant for years. I started a heavy course of a couple of serious antibiotics as it is a bugger to get rid of.
The Doc just called to update me about everything, and then I scheduled a follow up endoscopy for June, so they can make sure the infection is cleared up and the ulcer has healed/doing well as anticipated.
Not quite the Easter break I was planning!
Anyway, back home, feeling weaker and need to build strength up again, but I’m fine. It came from nowhere, unexpectedly as these things tend to.
The experience has strengthened my resolve - not a u-turn but a reminder - to love my wife and family every day, to live a life of gratitude, and to make it count.
Let’s win that Premier League. It will be a great start to a new chapter.
