Agony! Misery! Woe!

This morning, during keynote, the AV crew and Theta planning team made history by hosting a live video chat with a woman in the Philippines, over the big screen in Anderson auditorium. I, however, was in the emergency room.

I woke up around 4:45am, in utterly agnoizing pain down my right side. One of my first thoughts, having woken up from an AV-related dream, that it felt like high-ring audio feedback in my body. Acute pain ("flank pain", they called it), with nauesa and cramp-like feelings and feverish.

A word about me and pain: I have an extremely high tolerance for pain. One fateful opening night I had my left thumb gashed open by a fan and my middle right fingernail split by an electric drill, kept working, and only told my teacher after the show (and only because I would be late for call the next day because I had to get a tetanus shot). I rarely voice pain, and if I can avoid bringing other people into it, I will.

This pain was so great and so unstoppable that twenty minutes later, my RA, Claire, was speeding me to the hospital, as I was contorting and wailing in the passenger's seat. By the time I arrived, my breath was going haywire and I was starting to lose feeling in my arms. Lovely.

It turns out that this morning I passed a kidney stone.

I hope none of you have ever had to go through this, and I hope none of you ever have to go through this. Appropriately, a couple weeks ago I ran sound for a lecture for Faith and Environment, where the speaker was talking about environmental problems that relate to health issues, and mentioned kidney stones. I recall him saying, "Gentlemen. You will never birth a child. Passing a kidney stone is the most pain you will ever be in." And I believe it. Until around 6:45, I writhed on the hospital bed moaning. And I do mean "writhed", until at one point, it eventually stopped. It was after that they gave me the pain meds. ::facepalm::

Blood tests, urine tests, and a CAT scan later, they confirmed that it was most likely my passing a kidney stone (didn't show up on the CAT scan because it'd passed, but apparently they get a lot of kidney stones in Western North Carolina?). The numbness in my limbs was from my strange breathing, which they worked to get me to normalize as soon as I got into the ER. (And immediately when they did, I thought, "DUH, Colleen. You knew that. Numbness of limbs is absolutely one of the signs of hypervenilation. Voice and Speech 101, really.")

I am now feeling a lot better, and am in remarkably high spirits. Of course, I don't see the point in wallowing. Resting, yes, but not wallowing. I like to think I'm a decent person to look after when I'm sick, because I don't lose my sense of humor. (Claire: "You've got a lot of blood there." Me: "I do. I try to keep it around, I think it's a good thing to have. Occasionally I'll take some out and give it to others, because they might be able to use it.") There's no point in making something that's already miserable worse. And I have to say, all the circumstances surrounding my first ever trip to the ER were beautifully lined up.

1. Claire. Mama Claire, the RA of Lookout, is such a sweet, caring person. Yes, it's her job to take me to the hospital if I wake up in agonizing pain in the middle of the night, but she would do it in a heartbeat if it wasn't her job. She was absolutely there for me, encouraging me, telling jokes, getting me to talk about other things to try to take my mind off of what was happening. (I ended up telling a lot of funny theatre school stories.) Claire also now has the eternal love of my mother. There's a funny thing about motherly love. If you act to help or protect or save a mother's child when they are far away, you immediately win the love of that mother. Forever. And whenever they think of you, they'll immediately remember that time you helped their child. I earned the love of two mothers when their children missed their Chinatown bus, so they were stranded in New York, and I got them to my dorm and figured out how to get them home and watched them get on the bus at Port Authority. My mother told me (when she found out that Claire and I were getting breakfast before heading back to Montreat), "Pay for Claire's meal, and I'll transfer money into your account to pay for it!" Yup. Eternal motherly love. Claire is also just such a trooper for sitting there as I twisted and groaned, unable to do anything to stop the pain. Also, after the pain had stopped and we waited for an unearthly amount of time for my test results, she had an uncomfortable chair while I had the bed and heated blanket. Love you Claire!

2. Montreat. Claire, as we rushed to the hospital, called her boss, Adam, as she's supposed to do in this kind of situation. Adam then called my boss, Heather, to tell her I would not be at work this morning. Standard. Adam then called Bob, who is higher up in Montreat and is apparently supposed to know if anyone has to be hospitalized, and he called the Ministry Team. The Ministry Team are two students from Union Presbyterian Seminary (well, that's what they're changing its name to) in Richmond, VA (oh hey!), and their job is to minister to the summer staff. Both Adam and Christina (Christina being of the Ministry Team) called Claire while we were in the hospital to check up on me, and insisted that she call them when we were on our way back. Shortly after we got back, Christina dropped by to see how I was, talk about what happened, and went down to get me some Gatorade. She insisted, "Get rest, and call us if you need anything at all." She also said, "And now you can be all hardcore and like, 'I passed a kidney stone this morning. What.'"

I went to check-in with the keynote people this afternoon. Heather, Eric, Will, and the Theta planning team. Walking into Anderson, the Aud crew folk at the desk were all like, "Colleen! How are you?!" because Adam had called the co-director of Aud Crew when he didn't immediately reach Heather.

Heather apparently came in this morning, and couldn't remember off the top of her head who was working keynote besides Will and Eric. (Because whoever it was was quite late.) She checked the schedule and saw that it was me and thought, "Colleen? Colleen's never late!" Then the Aud crew co-director found her and told her what was going on.

While in the hospital, after my pain had mostly subsided and after the CAT scan, I texted my parents (who got an agonized call from me while we were on our way to the hospital) to let them know what I knew thus far. I also sent texts to Twitter, knowing that Heather would immediately get them. She did, and she would update everyone on headset about my condition. (The internet is ABSURD. I love it.) When I stopped by this afternoon to say, "Hey, guys, I'm alive!" everyone was delighted to see me and there was a lot of laughter. (Matthew asked me if it was a boy or a girl. I'm pretty sure it was a boy. I shared that while I was contorting on the hospital bed, I once exclaimed, "I AM NEVER HAVING A BABY.")

3. Job. I missed keynote this morning, plain and simple, couldn't be avoided, but I was sure they could handle it without me. I was scheduled to work the concert this evening... however, Jim and I switched yesterday because of a rehearsal he had, so I ended up covering his shift yesterday and he took the concert today. If this switch had not happened, they would have needed to find another person to cover my evening shift last minute, since I was the only person assigned (as opposed to the three assigned for keynote), and I'm not allowed to work for the rest of the day, doctor's orders. That's a little miraculous situation none of us could have realized.

4. Other people. Besides my parents and Twitter, I texted my friends Emily and Gillian. (Because even though Emily once called me out of the blue saying, "Guess what! I've just gotten out of the hospital and am hopped up on vicodin!" I knew both of them would rather know immediately than after the fact.) Gillian, who is one of those beautiful theatre artists in Nebraska this summer, probably woke up half of the house all of them are living in. Emily, who's visiting friends, freaked out and sent me a text including the words, "how are you? stupid question, I know". I know lovely people who care a lot.

Also, I'm enormously impressed with hospital personel. They use very specific language when talking to patients and it works. I had to sign several "consent to treat" forms, and as the woman explained them, she would say things like, "This one means we can have our best doctors to examine you," etc., etc. The "best" modifier was not needed, but it was comforting. Also, the explaination of what exactly was going through my IV was very thorough but easy-to-follow. It was just quite impressed with how they do what they do, to work with people who are probably not in their right minds because of the pain. (Which also makes me ponder more deeply the revival of Sweeney Todd and my final design project from first year.) I did get a note of deep pity from a nurse who was passing by. I must have looked at horrible as I felt to get a look of that much pity from an emergency room nurse.

Crazy morning, all-in-all. I'd prefer to never have to do that again. But I can't deny that the circumstances surrounding it were blessed. God, I'm SUCH an optimist. I'm pointing out the good parts of going to the hospital and passing a kidney stone. But the fact is, after the pain, what remains is the love.

And before we left the hospital parking lot, we got to watch a helicopter take off! Yay!