Contributed by Nasa.

As some of you know, I recently had a spell in the Hospital.  It was the first time I, myself, was ever admitted to a Hospital.  I wanted to write about my experiences for two reasons: 1) Being 31, as I said it was my first time experiencing anything like that being a fairly healthy younger man.  But as I get into my 30's, you realize that things can go wrong and your not invisible.  I thought sharing that experience would really help people approaching 30, in their 30's, etc. that may be doing this for the first time too.  2) With all the debate over the health care system, I really got to see it at it's best and at it's worst and wanted to share some of the desperation in the Health Care System that we all currently pay into, whether we have insurance ourselves or not.

So here's where it started.  I work really late now.  I hate my current schedule at work.  I sit through my whole shift, but at a certain point I start getting the chills.  I'm freezing and weak.  At first I thought I was just tired, or actually cold, or a combination of both.  I head home after the shift, starting to realize I'm probably running a fever of some sort.  I get home finally and take my temperature to find out I'm over 100.  I go to sleep, have fucked up nightmares about work all night and wake up in cold sweats.  Ugh.

I call my boss the next day and call out.  I tell him, I probably have the Flu.  My wife, who is a Medical Assistant, tells me that this isn't exactly Flu season, so I might have the Swine Flu.  Whatever the case, I figure I'm good to fight this thing off on a few days rest.  I called out on a day that set me up for a 3 day weekend, so I'm thinking I'll be fine by the time I have to return.

Later that day, not to be disgusting, but the dyarhea starts.  It was straight water works all day.  Couldn't really keep anything down the right way.  I pulled my diet back to Saltines, Jello, Soup, Ginger Ale and the stuff you would typically eat when you were sick. 

At this point, I'd gotten sick late Tuesday, was sick all day Wed. and all day Thurs.  I go to bed Thursday night hoping to get better at some point.  I should say, that I NEVER get the Flu (no jinxies), I also fight off colds pretty well, and since I drink a lot of water and wash my hands all the time, I rarely get sick to begin with.  So I had a feeling of invincibility in some ways.

Things took a bad turn Thursday night.  I was trying to sleep, had a mixture of sweats followed by chills and was in and out the bathroom.  At a certain point I started to get nauseous, I was thinking, I haven't eaten anything in hours, how can this be?  I got up from bed and ended up passing out as soon as I sat back down.  Again, sorry to be graphic, but I woke myself up by some sort of "fleming" in my mouth.  Kind of a dry heave of sorts.  That's pretty gross.  So, my wife helps me back to bed, because I felt better after the whole thing went down. 

About an hour later, I feel the same feeling in the pit of my stomach.  This time, I'm smart enough to wake my wife up to help me.  I get up and pass out again.  This time my wife is holding me up to keep me from falling over.  Apparently, I was out of it for 40 seconds with my eyes open and all of that.  Pretty nuts.  I've never passed out before besides taking a hit to the head when I was a kid.  At this point we decide to head to the ER as fast as we can.

I can remember myself thinking literally "Wow, this Swine Flu shit is no joke".  I've never gotten a Flu Shot before, and am generally mistrustful of anyone getting them unless they are very old, very young or have some sort of chronic ailment that makes them more vulnerable.  I've always left it to each person though.  I don't want to be the guy that says "No, don't do that" and then that person gets mad fucked up or something.  But personally, I've never done it for myself.  Now, I'm heading to the ER re-thinking that whole stance.  But what was truly wrong with me?  What was waiting for me in the ER?

Check back for Part 2 for all that.  Thanks for reading along.