was about to leave for UP last thursday morning when i felt a stabbing pain deep down in my upper abdomen, somewhere under the ribcage. i thought it was just gas or something but the pain deepened up to the point it radiated all over my body that left me almost immobilized.

i crumpled to the floor. i could hardly breathe because of the extreme pain. i called up Other Half. i thought my appendix has exploded or something worse.

i almost crawled to the front door and told our housekeeper to hail a taxi to take me to the hospital. my vision ocassionally blacked out due to extreme pain. the taxi driver was beside himself with worry (fear? panic?) and was already shouting at my housekeeper to hurry up and she should get inside the cab pronto.

problem is we both don’t know where the nearest hospital is since i am a new resident in the area and the taxi driver was a stranger in our subdivision. i told him to ask the traffic officer at the intersection where the hospital is. when i heard the policeman/traffic officer said pasig general hospital was to the right, Other Half told me on my cellphone to go to Medical City instead.

damn. one of the most expensive hospitals around. what the hell, i was in extreme pain.

then visions of the east avenue medical center emergency dept flashed before my eyes and i remembered suddenly that my aunt spent hours there before any physician could attend to her — and she was a hit-and-run victim, mind you.

ok, then medical city it is.

the doctors and nurses attended to me right away. asked so many questions while i was writhing in pain. then somebody stuck something painful into my blood vessel. then injected a number of meds.

got bored inside the observation room, i took a photo using my cellphone

but i can tolerate that kind of pain as long as the searing pain inside of me subsides. it took an hour or more before i could rate the pain 5/10.

i went through some standard tests: urinalysis, blood tests and some (i think) unnecessary visit to the ob-gyne and surgery. they were even thinking of doing some x-rays on me and ultra-sound but abandoned the idea. i don’t know why but good thing they did. just thinking about the hospital bill made me want to walk out and declare myself healed.

they found i had UTI but that was an isolated case and did not explain the original pain. they could not diagnose what was wrong with me. in the end one doctor said i probably had too much acids inside my stomach. my pancreas was normal and my appendix is located on the other side of my belly and not where the pain was concentrated.

probably.

i stayed there for almost the whole day (got in the morning, walked out late afternoon) and i just probably had extreme hyperacidity due to stress as one doctor suggested?! why couldn’t do a test on that, i mean about the stomach acids? i need Gregory House, now!

my bill was not as expensive as i feared it would be but that amount is already equal to what i would be spending for my carpal tunnel syndrome operation i would probably have next month. ouch it hurts a lot. i wanted to be sick again. my sister’s boss was sent to the emergency of that hospital and for 3 hours the boss was billed at least P15,000. he/she requested to be transferred elsewhere for treatment.

anyway, i called my mother while Other Half drove us home. she said my carpal tunnel meds may have triggered the acids. then i remembered my ortho telling me that i would probably have gastro problems if i don’t take care in taking the meds. i don’t know if i’m or my mother’s right but probably these were the culprit.

what i don’t get is… i volunteered those info about the meds to the attending doctors and told them that probably one of those could have undone me. one of them said those meds didn’t matter at all.

or my mom and ortho could be wrong.

next time, sa elbi na lang ako magpapagamot. shet.