A few days ago I wrote that I'm "going dark." The lights are back on. Except when I was born and the night before my daugher was born, I never spent a night in a hospital. Until Monday. Sharp abdominal pains that started the day prior that only got worse compelled me to call my insurer's nurse health line. They directed to an outpatient clinic. The nurse who examined me didn't like what she saw.
No, she hadn't read any of my blog posts.
By this time I couldn't button my jeans--calm down I had my shirttail out and I was wearing a coat--and she told me to drive to Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge and report to the Emergency Room.
After a long unbuttoned six mile drive in a raging snowstorm I parked in the ER lot, walked in, declined a wheelchair--after all I am the Marathon Pundit--and after much probing and poking, including a swab up my nose to test for COVID-19, and finally a CT scan it was discovered that I had diverticulitis.
Three days of no food, no drinking fluids, antibiotics and painkillers followed. My condition improved dramatically yesterday and now I am home. With no surgery.
I have no idea where this came from and yes, I had two prior colonoscopies. I eat right, I work out, I don't smoke, and I'm not heavy.
If this can happen to me it can happen to you.
Let's go back to the day before I was admitted. That Sunday I wrote a long blog post, drove to Englewood on Chicago's South Side to take photographs, returned to Morton Grove, and then ran five miles in the bitter cold. In other words a normal day for me--despite the pain.
After all I am the Marathon Pundit.
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