New Year's Panic Attack

Well, my beautiful readers, there has been havoc in the life of Hattie. Christmas was wonderful, although I didn't get a Rottweiler puppy like I wanted. I blame all of you, but hey. Maybe you had a tight budget and couldn't afford a purebred male Rottweiler.

However. The Friday before New Year's Eve, I got horrifically sick. It started out simple - the night before I had lack of appetite, that afternoon I had to force myself to finish my lunch - but then degraded into me feeling like my stomach was getting mauled by evil little elves. As I had work that night, I forced down some peppermint flavoured Pepto Bismal knock-off. It didn't help. About thirty minutes before my shift, I called and let the manager know that I couldn't come in. He, Allen, sounded titchy about it, but I didn't really care because my stomach hurt.

Eventually I started vomiting. Yes, I know. Gross. You have no idea. It wasn't even the nice, gentle vomiting most people experience. It was the kind that has you flat on your stomach as you get rid of every single thing in your stomach, possibly including your stomach, until you nearly fall off the bed and things start coming out other orifices. Not. Fun. As I couldn't even keep down water and I felt like I was going to die of thirst, my mother decided to take me to the hospital at 11:00 at night.

There was literally no one else in the waiting room. Thus, it was only a matter of minutes before I was called back to a room and a nurse took my blood pressure and my temperature and all that. Incapable of my usual witty repartee, I merely sat and shivered and sucked on ice chips. Then the nurse gave me one of those ridiculous hospital gowns and said she'd come back with an IV.

Wrong thing to say. I haven't told y'all this (unless you know me, and then you know), but I have a severe phobia of needles. Only medical ones, though. I sew all the time. Anyway. It's haunted me all my life, making things very difficult for everyone involved. The last time I'd had an IV, I was seven and it took five people plus my mother to hold me down so that they could get it in.

So when the nurse left to go get her Cart of Doom and Evil, I began panicking. As in, hyperventilating, crying, and making rather pathetic whimpering noises. My mother forced me back into the bed (I had stood up in a misguided attempt to maybe run away) and did breathing exercises with me until I at least was getting oxygen. The second I heard the Cart of Doom and Evil wheeling in, though, everything started right back up again.

The nurse seemed very surprised when my mother explained what was going on. Apparently she wasn't used to adults acting this way. She asked if I didn't want the IV, because if I was adamant, then they wouldn't give it to me and my mother couldn't override because I'm nineteen. Despite the insane fear coursing through me (and trust me, unless you have a phobia or have been chased by a murderer, you have no idea what this feels like), I knew I needed it so I told them to go ahead. I also told them to get another nurse or orderly or something to hold down my arm because my reaction to needles is scream-cry-punch-maul.

Apparently I have "beautiful veins" which I already knew because I'm so damn pale you can see my veins going throughout my entire body. At least this means it only takes one try. If it took more than one, it wouldn't happen.

Anyway. We got the IV in, I went through two bags of saline and nausea medicine, and then I got to go home. I'm finally better, three days later, and my other managers at work say not to worry about my missed shifts because I DID call, and I DID end up in the emergency room so it's not like I could've been faking.

That was my New Year's. How was yours? Unless you got shot, probably better than mine.