Yeah, the week of Sept. 20 was a week. The longest and worst week I’ve had in a long time. Or as I told my psychiatrist yesterday and my therapist today, “It’s been a total shitshow.” And I rarely swear, so…yeah.

Here’s the thing. It starts great. Sept. 20 is the last day of my three-day trip with my longest running friends. We went to the It’s Iconic tour (En Vogue, the C of TLC [T-Boz had a sickle cell flare], and Salt-N-Pepa). Our annual trip was canceled, so that we were able to do this weekend together was a nice and unexpected surprise.

However, over the trip, my friend gets some bad/sad news about her dad’s health. At the end of the trip, my other friend gets some horrible news about something that happened in her neighborhood/community.

In a brilliant move, I actually take Sept. 21 off because I knew I was flying stand-by and wasn’t sure what time I would get in. What I would normally do is jump right back into life and then be all burnt out and annoyed by the end of the week. But no! For the first time in my life, I account for that and decide to take it easy. After all, as one of my colleagues likes to remind me, I have the leave.

So there I am lazing in bed (bed rotting, as the youth say) when my daughter knocks on my door and very kindly asks me to take her to urgent care. She has a stabbing pain in her side. So! Off to urgent care we go. Spend some time there, found out it’s a muscle spasm, leave with a prescription and head back home.

On Sept. 22, I go to work, excited to see my students who I hadn’t seen the Thursday before because I was out of town. We have a lovely first half of class. Then, right before the break, I feel my hernia flare up.

Now, it is important to know that two weeks prior to this, I had a hernia flare that hurt badly enough that I had to cancel my 4 p.m. Wednesday class. My daughter wanted me to go to the emergency room, and I told her I would if doing the yoga routine I know gives me relief and taking ibuprofen didn’t work. I took the ibuprofen, did the yoga, and felt fine so did not go to the ER.

Now, on Sept. 22, I’m at work so can’t do yoga. I also (for the first time in forever) don’t pack my ibuprofen in my bag. I don’t want to cancel class because (a) I missed Thursday while traveling and (b) I had to cancel class the Tuesday before because I couldn’t walk after being a seat filler at the Emmys (a different post for a different time, perhaps). But the pain isn’t getting better, so I go next door to the Pride Center to ask if anyone there has ibuprofen. Thankfully, one of the Center’s employees does. She even gives me a bottle of water and lets me sit for a minute. She asks me if I want a ride to my car, and I say, “No, I’m going to give the ibuprofen time to work.”

I go back to class. After about ten minutes, the ibuprofen is not working. In fact, the pain now radiates around my stomach and up my back. So in the span of maybe thirty minutes, I go from a 0 to a 6 on the pain scale.

I talk to the nurse who tells me I need to go to the ER immediately. I ask if I can go to urgent care, and she says, “No. They won’t have the equipment to run the necessary tests.”

I go back inside, tell my students class is canceled because I need to go to the ER. A couple try to ask me about their assignments, and I’m like, “Whatever, we’ll talk about it next time.” I call the office, tell them I have to go to the ER. They will put a sign on my door for my next class. Great.

I go back to the Pride Center, say, “Yes, I would like that ride to my car please.” The Center employee has one of the student workers carry my bags as we go downstairs to to the golf cart.

My daughter takes a class on campus, so I call her. Her phone goes to voicemail. I consider calling her back to override the Do Not Disturb, decide not to because when I call her and she’s home playing video games, it doesn’t work, so I’m like, “Okay, she’ll check her phone at break and see my text telling her I’m going to the ER.”

I get to my car, drive to the ER. I call my mom, tell her what’s going on. I am still in pain. I pull up to the ER and have to valet my car. (I mean I literally have to because I can barely walk at this point. So now I’m officially at an 8 on the pain scale.) The valet takes forever to come to my door. I get out, take baby steps to the security stand. Go through security, knock all the baskets over. The guards say, “We got it, don’t worry.” And I think, I know because I’m not stopping or bending over to pick anything up.

Go to the front desk, check in. Try to sit down; that hurts. My friend calls me. I explain what’s happening. Get triaged. Triage person asks me to describe my pain level. I say ten but then correct it to a nine because it’s bad but not “I’m dying” bad. Go to sit back down, still hurts. Get taken back after about five or so minutes. Have to do a urinalysis. Spill pee on my underwear. Want to weep because now I’m going to smell like pee while I’m waiting in the ER. Go to sit down. My friend calls again. I tell her I cannot talk to her because I can barely breathe and also the nurse is here. It’s not the nurse but the intake person in charge of making sure I sign paperwork, etc. I am in so much pain that I sign without reading. I have been to the doctor, urgent care, and ER enough to know what it all says anyway, I reason. Also, I don’t care what I sign as long as I get help. She takes my card to run it. I try to sit down. It hurts too bad. I stand up, put my knee on the chair, and lean my forehead against the wall.

Then, I start crying.

The couple next to me drops their voices because they are now talking about me and how I’m crying instead of their trip to South America and his possible goiter (I’m guessing–the tech asked him questions about his neck when they gave me the pee cup).

I cry so hard that my nose runs, so I go around the corner and ask for tissue. A nurse or medical assistant hands me a box of tissue. I take it. Go back to my seat, blow my nose. Cry some more. Blow my nose some more.

The nurse comes, asks me if I’m standing because that’s the only way to ease the pain. I say yes. He asks what level it is. I say it is a nine, then say, no, it’s a ten because everything hurts and I’m dying.

He asks me if I took anything for the pain. I tell him about the ibuprofen. He says the doctor wants me to take Tylenol. I scoff/laugh because if ibuprofen didn’t work, I don’t know what he thinks the Tylenol will do. He says he’s going to talk to the doctor to escalate my case.

The phlebotomist comes. That means I have to sit to get my blood drawn. I sit. The nurse comes back, says the doctor will be moving me to a bed, so the blood draw can wait. The doctor comes, feels the hernia, says, “Yeah, that thing needs a bed,” leaves. I lean against the wall some more. The nurse comes back, takes me to a room, says they want to give me morphine.

I put on the gown. He says I don’t have to take my pants off. I ask if I can anyway. He says yes, of course if I want to. Of course I want to. I DO NOT WANT ANYTHING TOUCHING MY STOMACH. OR WAIST. OR BACK. I am easily at an 11 now.

I take off my pants, have a flashback to my dad in the hospital when he got diagnosed with cancer and he didn’t care that he didn’t have pants on when he got up to use the bathroom. I do not care who sees my underwear and do not care that I don’t have pants on AT ALL. The good news is that I do not smell like pee. Or if I do, I can’t smell it.

I get in the bed. The phlebotomist comes, draws my blood. The doctor comes, examines the hernia again, lays the bed flat, says I have to stay like that so the hernia can try to go back in. He puts ice packs on my stomach, says he will be back. Tells me bending my knees might make it more comfortable. I ask for a pillow to put under my knees. He says yes, of course.

The nurse explains that they have to wait for the lab results to come back before they can give me morphine. He tells me why but I can’t remember now. He talks to me a bit. I ask him for a pillow. He says of course.

Somewhere in there my daughter calls me. Yells a bit. Tells me she’s on her way. Arrives. Yells a little bit more.

Nurse gives me morphine, finally. I ask him for a pillow. He says of course.

Doctor comes in. Presses on my stomach. Hernia is going down, he says. This is good. But I still need to get a CT scan. I ask him for a pillow. He says yes. Leaves, finds two blankets, tells me pillows are at a premium, so I can use those instead. FINALLY I HAVE SUPPORT UNDER MY KNEES. Also, the morphine is working.

(A friend asked me if it was worse than childbirth, and the answer is yes. I think at most I got to a 7 when I was in labor. I escalated to silently crying before I got the epidural.)

CT scan transport comes, says it’s pretty chilly in the waiting area for the scan, asks if I would like another blanket. I do. He wheels me to imaging. I close my eyes because looking at the ceiling makes me dizzy. I don’t have to wait. He wheels me right in. They do the 1-2-3 heave and transport me from the bed to the machine. I am officially in a hospital TV show.

Before they give me the dye for the contrast image, they warn me that it may feel warm. Nurse said same thing about morphine, but I felt nothing then. However, I do feel the dye moving through my system and it is, indeed, warm. Scan is done. My IV is leaking. It’s the water from the flush, but I need to tell the nurse so he can fix it. They heave me back onto the bed.

Go back to the room. Daughter went to get food and is back. Nurse hooks me back up to morphine. I cannot eat yet. It’s fine, I don’t want to. But just like the ghosts in Ghosts, when my daughter lets me smell her food, it does actually work to make me feel better somehow.

Call my mom. Update her. My daughter switches to FaceTime. My mom is annoyed: “Why do you need to see me?” I explain it’s more so that she can see me. This lessens her annoyance. I tell her everything that happened with my daughter interrupting to add her own commentary.

Doctor comes. Hernia is going down. This is good.

We figure out how we’re going to get my car back from the hospital.

The surgeons come to my room.

I should point out here that my friends (who have all gone to Dr. Google Medical School in the past few hours) have already told me this. My mom joked that the consults were in.

Anyway, the surgeons come to my room. Press on my stomach. Say they don’t feel much of anything. I say that I feel something because now my back hurts again.

They leave. Doctor comes back. Explains that I will need surgery and he has put in a referral for me to see a surgeon. Tells me to take it easy the next couple of days and that I can go back to work after Thursday. Nurse comes back, tells me to make sure I call. I tell him I will. He gives my daughter A Look and says it again. I tell him he doesn’t have to worry, that I don’t play around with follow up visits. My daughter wonders what he’s seen because “That was a man looking back into the past.”

I go home. Explain to my friend who helped my daughter get my car what happened. Get in the shower so I officially do not smell like pee. Go to bed.

Sept. 23 – sleep almost all day

Sept. 24 – sleep most of the day, go pick up my new phone.

Sept. 25 – get a text from my mom telling me to call her as soon as I see the text. I call. She says she has bad news. I say I know because that’s the only time she sends me that text. She tells me some truly horrific family news. I am completely in shock.

The good news is that my friend and I already have plans to go to Pink’s and to see The Odyssey in 70mm IMAX. The hot dog is delicious, and the company is even better. I have no new insights about The Odyssey except that Odysseus is the whitest white man that ever whited.

When the movie’s over, I check my phone, see several missed calls and texts from my daughter. It turns out she was rear-ended, and her car may or may not be totaled. The trunk is completely smashed in, she’s understandably upset and shaken, and then I tell her she needs to go to urgent care to get checked out.

So BACK to urgent care we go. (That’s three visits in one week to the ER/urgent care, if you’re keeping score.) Thankfully, she’s not injured, but, like I said, shaken up and has to take the weekend off from work to rest up.

My daughter asks, “Are we cursed? Did we do something to someone? Because what is going on?”

Sept. 27 – go to a vision board party. Feel better.

Sept. 28 – go to work. Decide to take my roller bag so I don’t accidentally hoist my backpack wrong and agitate the hernia again. Realize once I get outside that I still need to be able to get the roller bag into and out of the car.

Go to class. Projector doesn’t work. (Oh God, the projector saga is a post all on its own, let me tell you.) I go to the office to get markers since I have to write on the dry erase board and none of the markers in the room or my bag work. The secretary and clerk greet me. Then, the secretary says, “Akilah, I looked and you have enough leave to take off the rest of the semester.” I agree that I may have to look into it because I know I have to see the surgeon, and I’m not sure when the surgery will be, etc. Secretary adds, “It seems like you’re having a really rough semester.”

Here’s where I should point out that I have not–with the exception of the first week of school–gone a full week without calling out/needing a sub. I get that feeling in the pit of my stomach when you know what someone says is true.

She suggests I contact HR to find out what my options are, says the Dean is in if I want to talk about a long-term sub. Go to the Dean’s office. Tell the Dean I may need to take leave. Dean says, “Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.”

My skin condition(s) flares up. I am an itchy mess. Also, I sleep terribly.

Sept. 29 – Wake up exhausted. Get into a dumb fight with my daughter (half her fault). Drive to doctor’s office in a stupor because I am so sleepy.

Meet with the surgeon. Schedule the surgery for Nov. 5. Surgeon tells me I cannot lift anything over ten pounds, and I can’t do anything that would pull on my front abdominals. I can do oblique work in Pilates, but that’s about it. (Yoga and water aerobics are fine.) I ask if I need to take leave. She asks what I do and when I tell her, she says, “Yeah, you really need to take care of yourself. Send the paperwork to my office.” Recovery from surgery will be six weeks. So…yeah, that takes me to the end of the semester.

She tells me it’s good that it’s a scheduled surgery and not emergency surgery. Because emergency surgery would mean strangulation of the hernia which would cause small intestine death and other horrors I want no part of.

I give my notice that I’ll be on medical leave effective the next day.

Tell my two classes that meet that day I am leaving. Second class is very sweet. One student tells me she’s sad because my class is her favorite.

Find out more information about the horrible family news. It is still horrible, but not horrible in the worst possible way even though it is still the worst possible way.

Sept. 30 (today!) – Go to work to drop off stuff for the sub. Come home. Take all my classes off my calendar. Go into Canvas. Take all of my face-to-face classes off of my Canvas homepage. Close out all of the assignments. Get hit by a wave of sadness, fall into a funk. Start grading my online classes assignments. Cannot believe that GRADING is making me FEEL BETTER. Truly, I am in the upside down.

I talk to my mom about it, and she tells me that she understands because when she went out on disability at her job, she was devastated. It’s not even that I’ll miss work (even though I will–truly, I love my job and am always excited by my students’ final projects and the things I discover through them) but that the choice has been made for me. Oh, and also, that means I really am…not well.

Talk to a friend for a while. That helps. Talk to my mom. She tells me that her best friend’s family just got some horrible family news–among other not good things that have happened. Her best friend says, “This has been the worst week. Why has this been the worst week?”

WHY INDEED.

I will say that I am extremely grateful that I’m able to take the medical leave without a reduction in pay. I am also extremely grateful that I am not incapacitated and can do basically everything I usually do. Also, once again, the long winter break I always complain about is coming in clutch because that gives me extra time for healing/taking it easy before I return to work in February.

But I am really ready for a string of days where