I refused to take off my clothes for the first 24 hours at the hospital because I thought they were going to let me go home…they didn’t (also, not sure why I’m clutching my chest like that–very dramatic)

I���ve always felt like I was pretty in-tune with my body, at least in regard to health. I���m the kind of person who could tell you exactly when they were ovulating or would leave a party because I was tired and sleep was more important than socializing. But, I���ve been feeling pretty rundown for a while now, and just chalked up my exhaustion to having a less-than-stellar sleeper, moving, and trying to cobble together some semblance of a career during nap times.

Who wouldn���t be exhausted?

Except I wasn���t just run-of-the-mill exhausted. I���ve been sick for months and didn���t know it. At least, that���s what the nice infectious disease doctor at the hospital thinks. You see, a couple of weeks ago I woke up with intense pain in my abdomen and shoulder. I didn���t really understand the connection and just assumed that I had gas and had slept in a weird position and tweaked my shoulder. The pain faded and a night or two later came back with the same coupling. Still, I didn���t think much of it until I started to feel really weak, started having dizzy spells, I may have actually fainted at one point, nausea set in and some scary sweating-chill combos kept me up at night. Still I walked around like this for about a week before heading to the doctor. Because, you know, I have a baby to take care of and a book coming out and things to do.

But eventually, when my fever spiked at 102 and I could no longer breathe without wincing in pain, I went to an urgent care center. The doctor suspected my spleen was enlarged and took some blood work. Apparently, spleen pain radiates to the shoulder. Who knew?

It turns out I had mono. I didn���t even know you could get mono at 34? And even though I had a diagnosis I couldn���t help but feel like something bigger was wrong, I mean the pain in my abdomen was crippling���that���s not normal mono pain. I gave in to the stubborn nagging of my intuition and decided that I���d go to the Emergency Room on Wednesday night after The Fella got home from work. My parents begged me to call an ambulance, but I told them that ambulances are for really sick people and I was just going to the ER as a precaution, so that I wouldn���t pass out while I was alone at home with The Little Fella. Luckily, my best friend is a serious superstar and spent a very long night in the ER with me, entertaining me while experienced morphine for the first time and proceeded to tell the whole ER that I was totally good now and no longer needed medical attention (a very nice resident, informed me that I would no longer feel that way once the morphine wore off). I was actually pretty surprised when the catscan showed that I had a belly full of blood and had been living with a ruptured spleen for a week. I was admitted, and after a few days of blood tests, found out that I���d had mono for a long time. I just had never given myself a chance to heal, and was just running around on four hours of sleep a night like it was no big deal.

I���m lucky, the rupture in my spleen was relatively small as far as ruptures go and the doctors don���t think I���ll need surgery. Which is good because I���m seriously phobic of surgery (if you’ve read about my mom’s history with surgery, you’ll understand why), and the internal bleeding should resolve itself as my spleen heals. In the meantime I need to rest.

I wouldn’t say hospital food is good, but I will say it was nice to eat a few meals without a tiny dictatortot yelling at me for some of my food.

I���m not sure I really know how to rest anymore, but I am lucky in that I have a great network of friends and family helping out with The Little Fella so that I can sit around watching Netflix like a bum.

All this has been a real wakeup call, I need to pay more attention to myself. It���s as simple as that. And yet that is so very hard.