I Suppose It's Urgent

The urgent care facility is three blocks from my residence, so naturally I decided to walk. Between the lack of sleep, random stabbing pains and nausea, boy howdy, was that a long walk. 

So I get to urgent care and begin checking in, only to be shunted aside by the guy behind me who's having heart palpitations. Fair play. If I was having heart palpitations I'd want to cut in line, too. But the nurses sweep him up, I get checked in, and a few minutes later a nurse comes out to take me back to an exam room. 

I have, of course, selected the optimum time to visit the urgent care center: shift change. Consequently, there are way more people in scrubs than fit in the hall, and patients, paperwork and samples are being passed from person to person as the changeover proceeds. It's actually pretty interesting to watch. But eventually a nurse (not the one who came and got me) gets me into an exam room and does all the usual medical intake stuff -- blood pressure, pulse, temperature, review of complaints, etc. -- and leaves me to wait for the provider. Time passes, and another nurse comes in to check on me and we run through the same procedures. More time passes and a third guy in enters and introduces himself. I promptly embarrass myself by saying, "Oh, you're my third nurse of the morning." He let's me know is not a nurse, but a physician's assistant. And we're off. 

So the PA starts poking and prodding and asking questions. Eventually he lays out some likely options: constipation*; appendicitis (except that usually comes out of nowhere): kidney stones; or, my favorite, "ischemic bowel" (which is apparently a frequent side effect of Type 1 diabetes). Ischemic bowel, the PA explains to me, is when a lack of blood flow to the colon causes portions of the colon to die. Charming. 

Unfortunately, it's going to take a CT scan to determine which of these, if any, it is. And so we wait for time on the scanner to open up. 


* Although I don't know it at the time, this will be the first indication that many (many, many) of my personal boundaries will be coming down as I go through this process. Maybe I've just been unlucky, but based on what I've seen so far it would seem few make it through gastrointestinal medicine with their dignity intact.