The Worst Pain of My Life

I’m having a hard time processing how much pain I was actually in. 

It was a Friday night. We had family over to celebrate my birthday. I was playing hide and seek with my niece and nephew. I was running on an afternoon coffee and wanted to burn it off as quickly as possible so I could have a good night’s sleep. 

After everyone left, we decided to head to a long-awaited games night with our friends. An hour into playing is when the pain started.

I had felt this before. It was familiar to me. I’d describe it like a tiny minion is in the most inward parts of my pelvic area with a knife, digging around in every direction, just for fun. Maybe multiple knives is a better explanation. 

Sharp pains all over. No matter how I sat up, I felt the pain. I thought I just needed to poop, but even passing gas or peeing was excruciating. 

Excruciating. That’s a word I never thought I’d have to use to describe my own pain. But it’s the most accurate, I think. 

An hour passed and my usual remedies didn’t help: hot water, Tylenol, positions that relax the pelvic floor… all while my husband and friends had a blast playing Codenames and Machi Koro lol. 

These are just pre-period cramps, I thought to myself. I felt this pain over the last 2 months and after not hearing anything from my doctor, there probably isn’t much to worry about... right?

But as the hours went on, the pain persisted. At the time, I would have called it a 9 out of 10 on the pain scale, but it was definitely more. 

I wasn’t allowing myself to register just how painful it was. 

We got into our cars and I felt every road bump on the way home. I decided to go to bed with a hot water bottle on my stomach and prayed it would go away. I didn’t want to “clog up” the ER with pain I could manage from home. 

My husband told me to wake him up if we needed to go. We managed to get some sleep but not for long. 

A couple of hours into the night, I woke up and learned that the pain had only gotten worse. I shuffled to the bathroom without turning the lights on, trying not to step on my dog. I could barely see or walk upright. 

My ears were ringing. I couldn’t really hear out of my left ear. Weird, I thought. Am I feeling light-headed? Maybe I'm just too tired and need my body to wake up. 

I managed to sit on the toilet to pee but the ringing in my ears only got worse. I was in so much pain. I felt my whole body fighting, shaking. 

I think I managed to wipe myself and get up off the toilet. I can’t really remember. The last thing I remembered was lying on the floor in front of our bedroom door. 

Had I fallen asleep? Did I faint? What just happened? 

That’s when I knew - it doesn’t matter anymore how much more pain you think you can endure, Dorothy. Your body can’t handle this and you need to go to the hospital now. 

I barely managed to get myself up off the ground. It felt like I was floating. I turned on the bedroom light and grabbed on to the door frame to keep myself from falling over. 

I managed to launch half my body over the bed with my feet still on the floor. The bright light startled my husband. 

He found me half lying on the bed. He thought I was playing around. I could only whisper a couple of words at a time. I couldn’t get myself to string full sentences together in a way that was audible for anyone to hear but myself. 

What? What did you say? I can't hear you. They kept asking me. 

Am I not speaking loud enough? How is it that I’m trying so hard to talk clearly and no one understands what I’m saying?!

He saw me and picked me up. When he saw my face, that’s when he realized something was really wrong. I had my arms wrapped around his shoulders trying to hold myself up. 

I need to go…. To the ER…. I passed out….. I’m going to pass out again… I feel it….

And that, my friends, is when I shat myself unconscious. 

I like saying that because it sounds really funny. 

But also, pain that makes you crap yourself uncontrollably? Wow. That’s how bad it was. 

He let me down slowly to the ground. Somehow, sitting in my own poopy pants was enough to wake me up. 

There is no way I am going to the ER with crap in my pants, I told myself.

I don’t know how but I managed to get myself up to the bathroom. It must have been adrenaline or something. I was in survival mode. 

I sat on the toilet to see if there was anything left and then I saw my underwear. 

"Umm… can one of you get a mask and help me clean my underwear?"

My husband and cousin laugh at this part because when they heard me say this, they gave each other the same disgusted look: Absolutely not. 

My husband hands me a plastic bag through the small crack of the door. 

"Here. We’ll just throw it out. It’s white anyway."

I managed to get in the shower and use a tabo to wash myself clean. 

I didn’t realize how much my mini shower took out of me. I was able to walk back to the bedroom and put on underwear, but nothing more.

I need….. pants…. I’m going to pass out…. Again… please help….

My cousin brought me a pair of sweat pants. My husband put wool socks on my feet. Together they helped dress me as I lay on the bed, practically lifeless, gradually regaining consciousness. 

The night before, I prepared my bag for the ER just in case we’d need to go in the middle of the night. Yay me. 

They helped me walk down the stairs. Our dog started barking. She knew something was wrong. It was weird for her to see all three of us slowly walking down one step at a time. 

I made it to the car and my husband drove us to the hospital. 

"I’m sorry," I said. 

"Shut up" was his response. 

It makes me laugh because what kind of person who just shat herself due to excruciating pain apologizes for the inconvenience she’s caused? Me, that’s who lol. 

When we got to the hospital my husband parked and grabbed a wheel chair for me. I got my phone out of my bag. 

Wow there are two books in here! And my hot water bottle is full. My cousin and my husband made sure I was taken care of. 

I opened the note where I was documenting the pain I was feeling since the night before. 

Very little energy to speak, shortness of breath. 

Pain since 10:30pm, pain scale at a 9. 

And more details. 

I was next in line while my husband went to park the car. I saw the reflection of a security guard in the plexiglass push my wheelchair up to the counter. 

"Thank you," I said. Whether or not anyone else but me heard them, I’ll never know. But I was very grateful. I felt helpless and I was worried I would pass out again. I didn't want my husband to find me like that.

I took my health card out of my wallet and slid my phone on the counter for the triage nurse to read. I could barely get a word out. Thankfully, my husband came back in right on time. He filled in as many blanks as he could. 

We didn’t wait long to be called over and be given my plastic hospital bracelet lol (my friend’s husband works for the company that supplies those wristband printers! Isn't that cool?) 

When we finally got to our own room at HAIZ, I laid in the bed and slowly regained energy. I’m surprised at how easily I was able to carry a conversation with the nurse. My husband was surprised, too. 

At that point I told the nurse my pain was only at a 7. But I really think I was trying to self-soothe and keep my composure so my husband wouldn’t have to see me suffer so much. My pain was definitely still a 10. 

It hurt to breathe deeply. I was worried it was a heart issue. Sharp pains in my whole chest, abdomen, and all over my pelvis with each deep breath. 

Okay, fine. Shallow breaths it is. Not the greatest for remaining calm but I don’t have much of a choice. 

I knew it was a lot worse than I was allowing myself to believe when I finally got called for an ultrasound. 

I had to empty my bladder 3 times because they insisted I needed to fill my bladder. The problem was I was very ready and they weren’t. It hurt to have a full bladder and it hurt to empty my bladder, too. It all just hurt. 

But as every ER patient knows very well, nothing is ever right away. And because I know so many nurses personally, it was really easy for me to have compassion on them during my visit. 

I watched a shift changeover. I learned the nurses’ names. I memorized whose patients were whose. I even helped them out when they were looking for each other or wondered whose urine sample was sitting on the table for the last half hour. 

Anyway back to the ultrasound. Never have I ever had an ultrasound as painful as this. They did external pelvic and transvaginal scans but those were not the worst parts.

 

Lying on my back, I felt SO much pain in my upper body and down the sides of my torso. 

Excruciating (there’s that word again). 

What happened? How did I fall? Why does it hurt so much?

No one saw me fall this morning but my theory is that I tried to use my arms in a “push up” position to avoid getting hurt. My whole family heard a big thud when I passed out. So even though I didn’t have any painful impact points anywhere else on my body, my arms clearly worked hard to make sure I could have a soft landing. 

I whined and cried as the ultrasound tech did her job. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to lay down. I tried to relax my muscles but it only made the pain worse. I felt tears welling up in my eyes and I hugged myself with both arms, praying.

The Lord is my Shepherd, I have everything I need… 

His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us out of his own glory and goodness…

I recited scripture to myself. 

It’s not a magical healing incantation, but it was one way God gave me to take my mind off the pain. Thankfully, it helped. I thanked the ultrasound tech for her patience then a porter wheeled me back to HAIZ.

I was spent. I didn’t realize my body was in so much pain. My mind had been telling myself this whole time that the pain would subside on its own, that I didn’t need medication. 

I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I knew I just needed to wait.

The doctor never ordered me any pain meds. But thankfully after I asked the nurse a couple of times, she got me a few Tylenols. They didn’t do much, but a few hours later, a nurse I went to high school with shot some Toradol through my IV. That was heaven-sent.

So what was the cause of all this pain? A cyst on my left ovary had burst. It was about 3.2 cm wide. The pain around my upper abdomen was likely because some of the blood spread where it didn’t need to be. At least, that's what the doctor said.

What caused this, you might ask? No clue. There isn’t any guarantee this won’t happen again. I actually had a couple of ovarian cysts burst about 4 years ago too. But not to this extent of pain.

It’s now been a few days since I was in the ER. I can now say that it was the most pain I would ever be willing to endure again without taking medication stronger than Tylenol. 

I am still recovering from the pain. I can’t walk for very long or very fast. I can’t move as easily as I normally can. 

Sitting upright is more comfortable than lying on my back. It hurts to laugh, cough, and burp. It still hurts to pee. And I get easily tired from being on my computer for extended periods of time.

So I’ve been on my bed the last couple of hours writing this post on my phone. I can manage to get some work done on here, like reply to emails and stuff.

I’m trying to reinforce the connection between my mind and body. Sometimes I don’t realize I’m taking such shallow breaths, but when I breathe deep my shoulders remind me that they’re still sore.

Everything still hurts. I want to do things but I’m accepting that I can’t and that’s okay.

I’m grateful to be home. It was really scary to go through all that pain, to realize I was unconscious for some time and didn’t really know how it all happened. I now know I should go to the ER a lot sooner than I think I should. I will pay better attention to my body's cues.

I have the greatest husband, amazing friends and a faithful God.

And that is the story of the worst pain of my life.