Last year, around Thanksgiving, I fell suddenly ill. I had a pain in my left side under my ribs. I was exhausted. I was convinced it was my spleen. I actually didn't know anything about spleens, only that they could become enlarged, and that Peter Forsberg ruptured his one time during a hockey game.

I didn't have any insurance, so I went to a clinic. The people at the clinic told me to go straight to the ER. So I went. $4000 worth of medical charges later, they told me that they thought I had pleurisy (inflammation of the lung). I bartered it down to $700.

They told me to take an Advil.
It was an expensive Advil.

I joked around with the lady who was taking my financial information. We had a pretty good rapport until she started making fun of me for having a hard time concentrating and I burst into tears.

A couple of days in bed and I was back to 100%. I went home.

A couple of months ago, the pain in my left side came back. It's been there ever since. Not really painful so much as annoying. Not debilitating so much as discouraging. I feel like there is a big, swollen balloon in my side. It prevents me from bending. If I sit for long periods of time it gets worse. If I walk or run around it feels better. Sometimes I forget about it for large portions of a day. One time it started making noise. A little, periodic rumbling that turned on every few minutes like an automatic furnace. I googled it. Pages and pages of people with the same malady, none of them with an answer. Occasionally someone with an answer who was clearly suffering from something else.

I told my friend about it. You've always got to have at least one friend like that, one friend who says, "Go to the doctor for God's sake-- here is the number."

A friend who emails you later to make sure you've done it.

The doctor felt my stomach and found something very painful. I was always too chicken to investigate too deeply. She ordered a blood test and an ultrasound. I had to call three places to make an ultrasound appointment, but I didn't want to disappoint my friend. I couldn't find any appointments before July 3rd. That's not soon enough.

Right now, at this moment, it is particularly bad. Not bad-- just more irritating than normal. Just annoying. Just-- I have a lot of work I'm suppose to do and when my spleen is acting up it just makes me want to lie around until it goes away. Some weekend days I lie around all day.

But I have a lot of work I'm supposed to do. It's all due on Friday but I want to go see Superman on Thursday. I'm leaving for a church retreat on Friday, too, and I'll be gone all weekend. I want to know what's wrong with my spleen before I leave.

Apparently the word "splenetic" means bad-tempered or spiteful. I like it better in French, "splénétique", which means "melancholy". I think I have melancholy radiating from my spleen.

$700 is an impressive discounted rate. You must have very good bartering skills.

I hope there's nothing very seriously wrong with your spleen.
» randomjunk on 2013-06-18 07:54:41

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