I’ve spent the last few months trying to figure out why – about monthly – I wake up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat, confused, dizzy and with extreme abdominal pain.  Every time, I go to the bathroom, try to take a crap and end up puking multiple times, stumbling back to my bed and sleeping it off.

My friends had convinced me that since it had been happening since I lived at my old house – can’t pinpoint when it started – but somewhere between 2011 and 2017.  So far the gastroenterology has had me take stool samples, which came out good.  Two weeks ago, I had an upper endoscopy where they reconfirmed I have acid re flux and gastritis.  I really wasn’t prepared for how expensive this addressing my puking issue could be.

This morning, I woke up and took some Mucinex Fast-Max cold, flu & sore throat before I went to work.  I took it right as I was walking out the door and as I was driving down Bishop St to work, I started sweating, had chills, started to get disoriented and extremely nauseous.    Since I take my job quite seriously, I continued on to work and had no plan of letting this top me.

I got to my computer, logged in.  Told my boss that I was not feeling well at all, told Kelli, me peer what had happened and just then I had to run off to the bathroom.  At this point, I was only throwing up mucus but I knew that it wasn’t over.  I noticed that I was extremely pale when I rode up the elevator, which says a little about how crappy I was feeling.  I went back to my boss and told him that I had to leave.  I called someone to pick me up within 19 minutes of my shift.

When I got home, I went straight to bed.  Sleep seems to be the only thing that gets me through.  Around 1 PM I woke up again, the cycle restarted and I was in the bathroom puking again but this time there was blood in it.  Every doctor always asked me if there is blood when I throw up and the answer is always no, but this was a first.  It continued for the rest of the day every few hours.

At some point during this, I realized that I should probably contact my GI to see if I should do anything specific.  Eventually I woke up to see the answer that I expected but dreaded it, I needed to go to the ER.  Now this was probably the second time that I had ever taken myself to the ER (well someone drove me every time), but as an adult, it’s just not something that I have had to do.  Actually, I don’t think I ever went to the ER as a child either.

The part where it takes forever when I am already feeling awful is the worst part.  Anticipating the bill before I had ever even been seen was the second hardest part,  While I was there, they started with a flu test.  No flu.  They gave me an IV and eventually I was given Dilaudid, which I have never had but at least I could go back to sleep while I waited. They ran labs on my blood and took a urine sample, did a sonogram and I had my first CT scan – which made me vomit again, multiple times.  Up until that point, I had not puked at the hospital yet.

Today, was also the first day that I was honest about my smoking habits.  I usually just say no or I have tried it before.  I never specify that I “tried it” 2 hours ago and every day prior for the last 15+ years… So tonight when the nursing staff asked about my recreational drug use, I said I smoked marijuana.  They asked when I smoked last and I said “Today, trying to feel better but it didn’t help.”  Then they asked how often I smoke, I said “Daily.”  I suppose the truth as to how much I smoke is – quite a lot.

The ER nurse told me that there was something called cannabis induced vomiting.  When I looked it up because I was like – THIS is exactly why I don’t mention this shit, I knew they would say I needed to stop smoking.. but once I looked it up, it looks like the technical name is cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome.  I am glad that they did not find anything seriously wrong with me, but this seems a little serious if it is really whats going on.

The more that I read about it, the more it sounded like what was going on.  Even on the Wikipedia page, it has the caption to the photo as “People with cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome often find some relief with hot showers” and that is exactly what I do.  I really don’t know why but it is the only thing that seems to provide any relief besides sleep.

Out if all my tests, the only thing that came back abnormal was my white blood count is high.  Yesterday, I took a half of a day off of work to watch my nephew.  He got to my house at 5 AM and we ended up sleeping until about noon when my sister came to get him.  Today, I slept nearly the entire day and now I am wide awake at 2 AM but feel like crap.  I am sitting here staring at this loaded bowl and I am afraid to smoke it.