Emergency - quick, get this girl some Aspirin!

In my college career, I had three trips to the emergency room.

The first trip to the ER (I'll spare you the gross details) was on account of my gynecologist in my young adult life. He could not even fathom the fact that I, Beverley, would have sex before marriage. Not to mention the fact that I had a guy gynecologist! I had been seeing him for over 3 years, and on my last visit, he learned about the atrocious activities I had partook in.---so not the reason I was there, could we please focus dr! We spent the rest of the visit in awkward and uncomfortable silence, and the antibiotics that he subscribed killed the WRONG bacteria causing me to land in the ER. Not a pleasant experience.

The second trip was right after a New Year. The Christmas before I decided to put a second pierced hole in my ear. Totally normal right? I mean.. I pierced my ear for goodness sake.... Anyway, by January my left ear had gotten so infected and swollen, it decided to eat my earing. My ear actually absorbed the top of my earing, leaving a red and crusty top for me to see. I couldn't get the earing out, but the massive amount of pain surging through my body said, "GET THIS THING OUT." Thus, another trip to the ER. When I got there, she looked at my ear and tried to pull the earing out through the BACK. OMG! That hurt so bad! Screaming for my life, she decided to put me on laughing gas, and my friend had to sho the children that were gathering at the door. Nevertheless, the earing finally came out, and I now have a pretty little bump scar always to remind me of this experience.

The third and most eventful trip happened right after I dropped myself and hit my head on the pavement. Ok, no, but I landed in the ER on account of my own stupidity. I was in full swing rehearsals for The Fantasticks, and in one of the songs, I got picked up and thrown over the shoulder. On the night we rehearsed that scene, my back started to hurt. The next morning, and for a week after, my back was in pain. Anyway, one Saturday, it hurt sososoos bad I asked my boyfriend at the time to purchase some pain medication for me. He brought back BAYER. This specific pain medication I had never seen before, and instead of reading the contents, I treated it like Ibuprofen. So, I got the bottle. I popped four of those little suckers into my mouth, and proceeded to do so...every four hours. So, around I don't know, dinner time.. I started getting this excruciating ringing in my ears. So, I popped two Excedrin. Well, Bayer is Aspirin. One Pill is 500ml of Aspirin. Excedrin is also Aspirin. So, by dinner time I started to feel the repercussion of overdosing. Yet, I didn't know it.

My oh-so-not-wonderful boyfriend planned a very romantic evening including dinner at our favorite Chinese restaurant, and then watching movies and cuddling on the couch. All great ideas except 1) he didn't have a car, so, I had to do all the driving around, and 2) I was starting to feel worse and worse. On the way to the restaurant, I said to him, "Hey, I don't think we should go out tonight, I am starting to really not feel well." He got mad, and started accusing me of trying to ruin the wonderful night he planned, and damnit I am obviously trying to sabotage this relationship, and this MUST be a result of the time seven months ago when I....alright, alright...shut it. I rallied, and went to the damn restaurant.

While eating, the ringing got louder, I started seeing black spots and I began to feel less control over my muscles. In no condition to drive, I turned to him and said please drive I can't. The whole way home I heard mouthfuls of how terrible I make everything, but I was fighting for consciousness. We parked and I said, "Take me to the hospital." Sure, I could have said, "Please, would you mind using my car to take me to the hospital?" I'm lucky I got any words out at all! He said something to the effect of -oh no, you don't need to go to the hospital. you are just being dramatic, you are fine, and I bet your back doesn't even hurt, why don't you just go inside and rest a little bit. you'll feel better in the morning, but I can't believe we didn't go and get the movie! I am just going to go and pick something out. Fine.

I got into the house and laid down, and it just was downhill from there. My heart raced at an abnormal speed, the ringing made me deaf and I could barely move my muscles. It was official. I was on crack. Freaked out, I called friends that lived over 45 min away, and begged them to come and take me to the hospital. My begging came in fits of hysterical screams because I was crying, and I couldn't hear cause of the ringing. (This was due to the caffeine apparently. I've been nervous to drink too much coffee ever since.) Anyway, my friends called my boyfriend, and basically told him to stop being such a baby - and get back to get me to the hospital. He did with a bruised ego that got taken out on me, but at this point, I was cracked out. So, trying to talk to me rationally did not work, and infuriated him. When we got to the hospital, My heart rate was 190. They made me drink charcoal to cause me to puke. However, I had digested the Aspirin, so, it was already in my blood stream. Then I had to stay there for a while to make sure that I did not have to go to toxic control center to get my stomach pumped. I didn't have to, but man that charcoal was DISGUSTING. The doctor made the mistake of saying to us that I had digested most of the Aspirin, and I have puked out any of the remaining undigested poison, so, all I can do now is go home and sleep it off. I had a painful sleep, and I woke up the next morning with the worst hangover ever. Then a day filled with you're so terrible, and you didn't even have to go to the hospital, but I was nice enough to drive you, and I can't believe you're not kissing the ground I walk on.

Never a dull moment in the ER, but one of these times happened on April 10th. I move out of my dorm in May, lived with my honorary family for the summer and then to a new dorm in August. In addition to all my moving around, my parents moved at least 4 times too. So, does it shock you that I did not receive my bill? Does it also shock you that I was a naive 18-21 year old little girl who did not think that there were bills floating around not taken care of? (If so, please re-read the Aspirin trip to the ER.) OH! Is it also shocking that after the first facilities collection notice came two years later, that I didn't think oh, perhaps there is a DOCTORS bill floating around?

That's right, I didn't. So yesterday, when I got my collections notice for an outstanding doctor's bill from the same event that I got my LAST collection from came as bit of a shock. Especially since, I have been living on my own now for quite some time, and I am much wiser now. Now, I have to go through a million hoops to get my credit taken care of because now I have TWO collection dings caused by ONE visit to the doctor, and I had NO IDEA that I had any outstanding bills.

I'm mildly irritated.