The Entire Mexican Experience: Part Three

Ladies and Gentlemen, the ending of a trilogy is near! Prepare yourselves for the dramatic conclusion to the story of the parasitic invasion inside Britt’s body!!!

[EDIT: As it, uhhhh, turns out there will be a fourth installment to this tale. After writing about my hospital stay I realized this was already approaching TL;DR status, so ignore that dramatic stuff about this being the “end of a trilogy”, let alone a “dramatic conclusion” ;D]

After being injected with magical juice that turned out to be some sort of painkiller I was feeling buttloads better. Also, I probably should refrain from using the word “buttloads” due to its relativity to this entire situation. Bahahaha. Ahem. Keep it classy, Brombacher.

Anyway, all I could do while being wheeled to my hospital room was fret that a zombie apocalypse would occur during this most inconvenient time:

A) Everyone knows zombie apocalypses always occur while the “hero” is in laid up in a hospital bed. Also, I may or may not be alluding to the fact that I will be the hero of the zombie apocalypse.

B) I wouldn’t know how to find my way out of this hospital with all of the twists and turns required to make it to my room. Seriously, I felt like they were hauling me through the Lost Woods.

C) I didn’t know the location of a nearby Costco, and anyone who knows me knows Costco is my go-to place for the apocalypse.

An hour or so later one of the assistant doctors came in to check on me. Earlier this doctor had seen my Twilight Princess wallet, recognized it and had made a comment or two. Unfortunately at that time I was in too much pain to show any appreciation for this international nerdery, but now that I was hopped up on pain medicine I was more than willing to engage. I kid you not; we talked about everything from romancing characters in Mass Effect to the gameplay in Halo and the art of Skyward Sword. His English was slightly broken, but we made it work and had an awesome conversation about everything and anything gaming related. Despite my current situation, it was definitely one of the highlights of my trip.

But after falling asleep I woke up around 3 am in excruciating pain. As it turns out, the pain medicine was not the true meaning behind me feeling better, and I was SEVERELY disappointed by this–I had honestly thought the antibiotics and fluids were pwn’ing the parasite squiggling around inside me. I know, it sounds like a “Duh, Captain Obvious!” moment, but since I had never been given pain medicine like that before I didn’t realize the effects could be so AWESOME, but also so short-lived.

But back to the part about me being in excruciating pain—so, for about two hours I’d wake up every 15-20 minutes, grab my IV walker and shuffle my way to the bathroom. (I faintly recall making old people noises for good measure.) I’d then shuffle back to my bed, fall asleep for 15-20 minutes, wake up in pain, shuffle to the bathroom, etc. Eventually my blonde-self realized I could hail the nurse and ask for another round of pain medicine. So, I pressed my call button.

Ten minutes passed. Nothing.

I pressed it again. Still nothing.

Oh, of course my call button would be broken. Of course. So NOW I could either stagger out of my room in hopes of finding someone to help (not to mention give the hospital staff a free peep show in my barely-there hospital gown) or I could wake up the person staying with me and ask them to press another call button mounted on the wall.

I felt like a jerk, but I had to wake the poor soul up, and within thirty seconds a male nurse scrambled in—just like a Moogle does when you use the Moogle Flute in Final Fantasy IX.

Me: Hi, my stomach is really hurtin—

Nurse: ::shakes head frantically:: No hablo Ingles. ((I don’t speak English)).

Now, this is the amazing part about taking four years of a language in high school—you never really forget it. Whenever I’m super tired (or drunk!) the Spanish I learned more than six years ago floods my brain. I even surprised myself when I blurted the following:

Me: Tengo un dolor del estomago y no puedo dormir. Tengo que ir al bano cada quince a vente minutos entonces….

Nurse: Ooooh! ::nods and walks out::

While I don’t remember how to properly punctuate the language, I remember how to speak it baby! I mean, I might not have been 100% grammatically correct but within five minutes I was receiving a nice dosage of magic juice. And I slept better that night than I had in a week!

The next morning I woke up around 9, and since my flight back to Seattle happened to be leaving around 4pm the doctor said I would be discharged around 11. I was a little worried because while I woke up feeling better, my symptoms were still roid raging more than ever. But as the doctor handed me seven or eight boxes of pills to take he didn’t seem too concerned (although they had woken me up a few hours earlier to draw more blood). He quickly went over all of the medications (again, in broken English) gave me a shot of pain medicine, told me to follow up with my doctor back in the states and peaced out.  I was finally discharged and taxied back to the resort where I began packing my things in preparation for the flight later that day.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to insert the cliffhanger: ::clears throat::

Little did I know that within mere hours I would be enduring the absolute worst and most painful experience my life.

How’s that? ;D