Well, now I know why I posted early yesterday.

Richard made dinner last night and as I sat down to it, I apologized in advance that I probably wasn’t going to eat a lot; for some reason my belly had started aching.

Within an hour it had spread and gone wild. I kept marveling inwardly that I’d gone through months of this at a time. Months, when the kids were little and the lupus new, the chostocondritis, the pleuritis, the pericarditis, the peritonitis, all of it autoimmune. It was like this, sometimes better and sometimes worse but never entirely going away day after day after month after month while I had to get kids to and from school and going in the morning and Richard to work and back (~two miles) because we only had the one car. How on earth did I do it?!

I thought, well if I could get through it then I can get through it now. (Never mind the older body with colorectomy effects.)

I managed to feel enough better after a couple of hours to get up and go type my doctor a note.

That was maybe a little too much effort. I started barfing nonstop.

I told Richard, give me a few minutes–but then if I don’t manage to keep fluids down we need to go to the ER. Knowing full well that he needed his sleep just as much as I did and it was after ten and he’d be up all night with nowhere to lie down and then he’d have a heart attack and I couldn’t do that to him if I didn’t have to.

Michelle got me a bottle of sports-something water. We poured about a half cup…and it stayed down. Yay. Breathe. I didn’t dare try for more.

First thing I did this morning was to type the doctor a follow-up note with newer details. Only I had eaten those leftovers at lunch. Only I had gotten sick. Also this painfully distended belly thing, but it was all pretty much gone now.

The nurse typed back a list of times when I absolutely should stop trying to manage it myself and get myself to the ER.

Of the five, I’d had two.

Oh.

That will surprise no doctor who knows me well. I try to comply, I really do.

And when they ask why didn’t you go in I will point to this post.