"Gas Bubbles, Bad Decisions and the House of Horror: Part 1"

Around midnight after attending a graduation party earlier the same day in which I had consumed one of my cousin's awesome hamburgers, I began feeling this strange cramping in my abdomen.

It felt like a gas bubble; Although not unbearable, I was uncomfortable and could not get to sleep.

At around 12:30am I decided to start walking around my living room and dining room to see if I could get the gas bubble to pass. I walked around the house and made multiple visits to the restroom until 5:30am.

No luck, gas bubble still winning and cramping getting worse! This may have been an obvious sign for anyone else, walking for 5 hours straight in the middle of the night with things getting worse, however, being an engineer, I hadn't yet fully committed to all of the solutions for relieving the gas bubble!

I thought to myself, if I make a few speed walking hot laps to the mailbox and back; our mailbox was approximately 1/4 mile away, the fresh air and some speed walking surely will help get this gas bubble to pass.

It works for my dog - he always goes #2 on the walk to the mailbox! At about 8:00am I stopped the Mailbox 500 sans my dog Max's K-9 solution.

As the morning progressed, the cramping became even worse and the only relief I could get was by squatting next to the sofa with my belly and torso on the cushion - somewhat like a monkey doing unatural things to a football; just glad there were no witnesses.

By this time, I was starting to get concerned. My family was still fast asleep, as it was the weekend, and I did not want to disturb my wife's slumber for a silly gas bubble.

If you knew the ridicule I typically face over my inability to function in our house when I have a common cold, you would understand why I did not want to trouble my wife with a simple gas bubble. She is a home health physical therapist used to working with 80+ year old women who are basically numb to pain!

I decided to call urgent care to see what time they opened and described my situation. They said they would be happy to see me, but, should it be something other than a gas bubble, they really would not be able to do much.

At 8:30am with my family still sleeping, I jumped into our Subaru and headed to town. Forgot to mention we live in the country about 12 miles out of town.

At the time I did not realize just how bad of a decision this was? Very Bad!

Approximately 8 minutes into the drive and halfway to town, while driving a touch over the speed limit at about 65 mph, the cramping was so bad that I became light headed, started getting brain fog and thought I might pass out!

To top it off there was a downed tree close to town and I had to wait in a stopped line for around 10 minutes. I am having a health issue, it is early Sunday morning in a one horse town with two horses and I am stuck in traffic. Not a good day to buy a power-ball ticket!

I decided to skip urgent care and instead drove directly to the emergency room parking lot. It took 10 minutes for me to essentially crawl from my car to the ER front desk.

I had to do this weird duck walk squatting thing and was writhing in pain and panting as they took my information.

Within minutes I was in an ER room. At the time I recall feeling a sense of relief as I was surrounded by equipment, hospital staff and having confidence that if this was more than just a gas bubble I was in the right place.

I could not have been more wrong! My pain level went to about 24 on the 1-10 scale and the true horror of ER care (=0), my situation and my new surroundings became an macabre intro to a horror story the master Stephen King himself could not create.

Suffice to say, it was not a gas bubble and two hours later, when someone could finally get off thier a$$ to ask me why I was doing my best impression of a Roomba in that room they concluded I was having a full on gallbladder attack!

( I still was not convinced!)

To be continued...........Paul