Why does cold water feel so good after crying? UPDATE in OP

Seriously, you guys are so sweet!!! Thank you so much!!!

I'm sort of awake, so here's a semi-lucid update: The procedure went well, even though my ob/gyn tells me I have an oddly shaped uterus. ROFL! Leave it to me. I did not feel nauseated after I woke up, and I wasn't bleeding profusely, so I was released by 1:00 in the afternoon. I was in a lot of pain, hard to tell if it was cramping or *pain*, so they gave me a Percocet at the hospital and a prescription for Lorcet. I got a unit of blood while I was in there -- anemia, of course -- but they were very happy with my last EKG. So yay!

The rest of the day has been pretty bad in terms of pain and general weakness. I took a Lorcet as soon as the prescription was filled -- 2:30, because I live so far from Knoxville -- and my husband fixed me the worst cup of low-sodium chicken noodle soup I've ever had. I have had a lot of low-sodium soup this summer, and some of it is really good. This was just the *worst*. I was going to warn everyone, "Campbell's Low-Sodium Chicken Noodle Soup is an abomination; avoid at all costs," and then I was in the kitchen and read the label. My dear, sweet, good, worried husband added water to a can of "ready to serve" chicken noodle soup. 

Water did not improve the soup, I'm afraid.

I've drunk a lot of Diet 7-Up and crunched a lot of crushed ice.

My husband put "French Kiss" in the DVD player and I have set up residence on the couch. (I don't like sleeping in the bed when I feel this bad.) My dog actually cuddled up to me and kissed my face when I got home. Psychic dog! I love her so much. After "French Kiss," my fella put "The Hudsucker Proxy" in. He knows me so well! Dinner was better; Progresso low-sodium soup -- he already knows not to add water to Progresso. I was in really terrible pain after dinner and sort of crying, so I took two Lorcet after dinner. That knocked me on my ass just about immediately. Someone turned off Hudsucker and found "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines" on AMC. This is yet another of my favorite movies. (I cannot explain my taste in film. Clearly.) So I was in and out of lucidity for a couple of hours. I dreamed some weird things, like a very large leopard-dog at work that was staring at me.

And that is my day. I will keep y'all posted if anything else weird happens now, but I really hope it's all going to get a lot better. I thank all of you so much for the kind words, prayers, good wishes, and moral support. You're the best!!!

Oh, wait, one last thing, and I might start a separate thread for this: I sent Dear Husband and Good Son all over Knoxville in search of Taco Doritos. They've been to two Krogers (one regular, one giant), a Super Target, a Publix, and three different Food City grocery stores. Taco Doritos are not to be found in Knoxville or Lenoir City. Where is the magical place that has Taco Doritos? I feel a quest in my future...... a *noble* quest.....

ORIGINAL POST=------->

I've *almost* posted about this several times in the last several months, but just abandoned it because it's so long and so "oh, poor me." I'm just not sure how much of a pity party I want.

Anyway, I just cried really hard -- sobbing, hiccoughing, the whole nine yards -- and when I finally stopped, I went to the ladies' room and splashed cold water on my face. It felt fabulous. My mother always said to do it whenever I stopped crying, and dang, she was right.

Here's why I cried: The hospital billing department called to get me pre-registered for the endometrial ablation I'm getting tomorrow, and when he told me that I owed -- well, more than a thousand dollars, let's just put it that way -- I told him to call me back and hung up on him. I was already crying so hard, I could hardly speak.

I've had a lot of health things this year. Our insurance changed in January and my old doctor wasn't covered. So in April I went to a new practice and saw a physician's assistant who started a whole slew of tests. I started taking high blood pressure medication last year with the old doctor, and even though my BP didn't get much better, he didn't do anything about it.

The first thing that happened was that the overseeing physician for the new practice called me at home that night and asked me how I felt.

I was severely anemic. Like, frighteningly anemic. The new guy just wanted to know if I had gotten this way gradually or if I needed to go to the ER right then. He sent me to the hospital the next day for two units of blood. Everyone said, "Oh, you'll feel so much better now." I didn't, really.

The next thing that happened was that I failed a stress test. There were huge communication problems with that first cardiologist. I saw another one. He scheduled me for a heart cath in early May. I got myself two stents during that visit, stayed overnight at the hospital, went home the next day, started cardiac rehab a few weeks later. (I could make a whole post about how much I didn't like cardiac rehab. The place was full of homophobic, racist, sexist old white men. I heard more about nurses with big titties than I ever, ever, ever wanted to hear.)

For seven weeks I felt like a million bucks. I was walking 45 minutes to an hour every day, losing weight, feeling awesome. Then I had angina and scared the crud out of my husband. I called my cardiologist. He wasn't responsive. He actually took me off one of the BP meds that I had been on since April, even though I still had BP in the 148/88 range, because, he said, my ankles were swollen. I don't care about swollen ankles. 

I had several more bouts of angina and kept calling my cardiologist. I finally called my physician's assistant and tattled, and *she* got the cardiologist's assistant to schedule another stress test for the next week.

I didn't make it to the second stress test because the next day, I felt horrible. Not really angina. Not really like pain. Nothing like what a classic heart attack looks like, but horrible, horrible. I went to the ER and my BP was 213/108. They admitted me* and called the heart attack team, who were very excited. They became very un-excited over the next three hours. They would give me nitro and my BP would go down, and then it would go back up. After a while, checking my troponin levels and EKG, they said I wasn't having a heart attack. Then they released me. We drove up the road for fifteen minutes and my husband asked me where I wanted to stop, thinking I must want dinner by then, and I said, "Stop at the drug store so I can take my blood pressure."

My blood pressure was 209/104. We went back to the ER. One of the nurses saw me, rolled his eyes and said, "You just bought yourself an admittance, that's all."

So I got myself a new cardiologist and was admitted around 3:00 in the morning. At the 7:00 a.m. blood test, my troponin levels were elevated and my EKG was trash, so the new cardiologist took me straight back to the cath lab. Head of the line! I was first! New guy said if my stents were blocked up after only seven weeks and at my age (48 years old), I would need bypass surgery. But when they got in there, the stents were fine. Stayed in the hospital for another day. You know you belong in the hospital when they bring you hospital scrambled egg-substitute with the sodium-free herb flavor packet, and you think, "Wow, this is delicious, I'm so happy, can I have some more eggs?" And then you can't finish the first serving of those eggs. Egg-substitutes. Whatever.

That was July 10-12. So much fun. I got a bunch more drugs prescribed. Went back to walking in the mornings. Worked back up to 40 minutes of walking every day.

Then my fabulous physician's assistant said, "OK, now let's see about that uterus." My periods were so awful and I was so anemic in April, they figured I had fibroids or something. I had a pelvic ultrasound, and surprise, surprise: Nothing. My uterus is the most boringly normal-looking uterus ever. So an insurance-covered hysterectomy was out of the question.

I was referred to a new ob/gyn. She was wonderful. She said I could get an IUD or an ablation, and I did some research. Oh, I got my period the same day I saw her, September 8.

24 days later, I still had my period, and it was just awful. I called the physician's assistant; I called the ob/gyn. Even though the IUD would be 100% covered by my insurance and it would only cost the normal $25 co-pay to get it installed, the ablation would be more permanent. I called my insurance to see how much that was going to cost. They told me since I had met my deductible (and how!), the hospital would be 100% covered and the only part I would have to pay would be 20% of my ob/gyn's fee. A little more research, and yep, that's $271. We can do that. I can handle that. Don't have to pay it all at once, after all. After everything else that's happened this year, and all these medical bills, we can do $271.

I made arrangements. Got all my questions answered. (If I can't eat or drink after midnight, how am I supposed to take my four BP meds at 6:30 that morning?) (Oh, yeah, one small sip of water. Crossing my fingers on that one. Two of these pills are big.) Tomorrow's the big day. 

Then the hospital called and told me that the insurance does not cover it 100%, not at all, nope, really not at all, and I was bawling so hard, I felt like I was 15 and just got dumped by my first boyfriend again. (That jerk. That idiot. That nimrod. My life was ruined! Oh, yeah, not really. But it felt like that at the time.)

I cried for a few minutes -- thank goodness the attorneys are all out of the office this afternoon. Thank goodness the computer technicians who are supposed to be upgrading the phone system had to postpone the work because of I-really-don't-know-what-technical-glitch happened. Thank goodness I am all by myself here, bawling my eyes out like a toddler who dropped her ice cream cone and very darned nearly wailing in the process. 

I called my husband and choked out, "Have to cancel the ablation," and started bawling again. That poor man has been married to me for 28 years, so it's not like he hasn't noticed how terrible my periods are. I have pretty much scared the crud out of him all year long. If it isn't my heart, it's my hemoglobin. If it isn't my uterus, it's my blood pressure. There are a couple of doctors out there who keep asking me how my kidneys are functioning. (Srsly?! Why?! How are YOURS, dagnabbit?) So he asked me what was up, and I told him how much the hospital says this is going to cost, and we can't afford this, and he started emphatically telling me, oh, hell, yes, we will, and they will take $100 at a time, and we'll just pay it $100 per month until it's all paid off, and we are NOT going to cancel the ablation, and that's just all there is to it.

He's a keeper. 

I bawled a little more just because I was so into it by then. I've been crying pretty much every day for a while now, anyway. I think I might be clinically depressed, but I keep forgetting to ask my physician's assistant about it because, gosh, everything else is just so much more dramatic.

Then I stopped crying, went to the ladies' room, and splashed my face. And I felt better for a while. I hope the hospital guy calls back, because I didn't get his name or number while I was crying at him. I'm almost sure we're not finished with that registration stuff.

... OK, I started this note around 1:30, and it's now 3:00, and I'm thinking about not posting it again. Don't want to seem too needy and ... all ... oooo, poor me, poor me. I'll be fine. I just think cold water after crying is awesome, and
my husband is awesome, and I am going to eat tiramisu tonight for dinner. Just in case. That's all right, isn't it?

*Edited to correct the first part of the ER visit on July 10. The ER didn't admit me during the first three-hour part of the whole thing. They put me in a little room in the ER. When I went back the second time, I was in another room in the ER until 3:00 in the morning, at which time I was finally admitted to a bed in the cardiac wing. Hope that's a little clearer.