All’s Meh That Ends Meh

You ever have one of those weeks where you feel like the world is crumbling around you, and you can’t quite find shelter from it? What ever can go bad does go bad? Yeah? Well I most definitely had that week last week, and it moved right on into the weekend for a nearly 7-day run of crap piled upon crap.

Oh, and the two weeks prior to that I was hobbled by my big toe. So yeah, July has been a real banger.

A little background for you: Our 22-year old daughter has had painful menstrual cycles since she was first blessed with a period as a teen. Super painful cramps, vomiting, and just a general feeling of discomfort. But as she’s gotten older and out of school she’s a had few get so bad that we had to take her to the ER so she could get IV fluids, anti-nausea, potassium and pain meds. She can’t hold any pills down long enough for them to take hold. Since 2023 this has happened once a year. In June this happened once again, on a Saturday. We took her in and were there for several hours before the meds took hold and she was allowed to leave.

Now we’re not idiots, we have been looking down many avenues as to the cause for this. Colitis? Crohn’s? Endometriosis? Hormone imbalance? She’s had scans, scopes, and ultrasounds and nothing is showing, at least at the time of the tests. But every time we go in it’s all the same things; dehydration, low potassium, stomach cramping, and vomiting. Like clockwork.

Well Tuesday our daughter texts my wife in the morning telling her it’s started up again. She didn’t want to go to the ER and wanted to try and wait it out, so my wife went over to her place and worked from there, taking care of our kiddo and her grandpuppy Celeste. Well after all day and she was still vomiting my wife loaded her up and went to the ER. After 4 hours or so she was over it and they went home. Wednesday was quiet and she was okay, not eating much just taking it easy.

Thursday morning it started up…again. Twice in one week. Two months in a row is bad enough, but twice in two days is alarming. She went back to the ER and got all the usuals; IV fluids, anti-nausea, and pain meds. Her potassium was extremely low, so she ended up getting 4 IV bags full. The doc decided to admit her and get her in a room and out of the ER(the ER waiting room was insanely full.) The change of scenery was nice, and she was already starting to feel better. We’d hoped she could go home, but the IVs were going to keep coming for hours, so she stayed the night with my wife sleeping in the chair next to her.

We had her doggo at the house, so I went home around 9:30pm and Celeste and I went to bed. She curled right up to me. She was out of sorts not seeing her mom for so long.

Friday morning I was hoping she’d be discharged early, but after they gave her a pill to swallow it hit her stomach and she began throwing up again. By the time I got off work and made it to the hospital she was looking good. Color back and seemed ready to roll. We asked to be discharged, but before she left we wanted to make sure she could keep food down, so she ate chicken noodle soup and a little chocolate ice cream and she was fine. So we left with like 7 prescriptions of various anti-nausea, antacids and pain relievers and headed home.

We felt like maybe we were over the hump, and Saturday was great. No issues, and she came over to spend the night and have dinner with us. She had work in the morning and figured she’d just go to work from our place. Well Sunday arrived and I woke to hearing her throwing up in the bathroom. This felt like a hellish version of Groundhog Day. Very tired, scared, frustrated, and kind of helpless. I remembered she had an anti-nausea med that dissolved under the tongue that they gave her, as well as a suppository version. She left them at her apartment, so I drove over and got them. She was able to keep the pill under her tongue and fell asleep. Slept four hours and woke up better.

So throughout all of these trips to the ER her blood work would show THC, as she’s a user of the weed pens, vapes, dabs, etc…no flower just the pens. Most of the docs brought it up in a more condescending way(“Well you know, weed is bad…”) and would write off these visits as her fault. It got pretty aggravating to me. Yes, she gets high but what does that have to do with these awful periods? If it was weed then it would happen more often than just when her periods would start.

Well on Thursday we saw a female doc, an Internal Medicine doc. She brought up pot and I was waiting for the usual “weed is bad” speech but we didn’t get that. She explained that there were a lot of younger people coming into the ER with the exact same symptoms as our daughter and it was from the use of these pens. She’d said “Hey, if you want to smoke pot then smoke flower. But whatever they’re putting into those pens is making people sick.” That got me thinking, so I did a search on weed pens making people ill and I came across something called CHS, or Cannabinoid Hyperemesis Syndrome. I’m not going to go into all of it, but you can look it up right here if you’re so inclined. Essentially, after prolonged use and using pens with very high percentages it causes ALL of the symptoms that our daughter was experiencing.

This was eye opening, but then I thought why is it happening at just her period? Well I looked up CHS and menstrual cycles and found a whole other group of people dealing with this. The pain gets far worse during a woman’s period. I found a whole reddit page dedicated to it. The biggest way to know for sure that this is what you have? Stop using weed. Also, a hot shower or bath stops the nausea which we found out Sunday.

We knew she smoked pot, but we didn’t know to what extent or how strong of a pot strain she was using. All of this started when she was dating/living with her ex 2 1/2 years ago. She was basically dealing with that shitty relationship by numbing herself. He was an extremely heavy user of all sorts of chemicals. How that kid has a functioning brain at this point is beyond me. I’m just glad our daughter got out when she did. Things could have been a lot worse.

I’m not saying that CHS is the final answer, but I feel that it’s the right direction to head in. She’s still planning to talk to her OB/GYN about having some hormone tests done, and possibly even seeing an endocrinologist. But for the time being, the weed is a hard pass. Her doc had also put her on birth control(she hasn’t used birth control for almost two years now due to some skin issues it caused.) It’s a new one, so hopefully it helps with the periods and doesn’t make her skin scaley.

Sorry to throw all that on you, but man talking about it makes me feel better. After 2 1/2 years it’s nice to at least have a possible cause of all her pain and fear. And after reading that Reddit page it felt all but certain this is the right direction to go.

And hey, if you or your kids dabble in the Pen Afflecks and Penjamin Franklins please keep my tale in mind. I think moderate use is fine, it’s the habitual users that should probably take note. Last thing I want is any readers or their loved ones going thru what we’ve been going thru. And this isn’t an anti-weed rant, not at all. Just be smart about your use, and maybe consider just rolling an old-fashioned joint. Like grandma used to make.

I texted my boss Sunday telling him I was staying home Monday due to not knowing how my daughter was going to be. Thankfully she was okay. I went to her place in the morning to go to the vet with her. Celeste had a hematoma in her left ear, so I took them to the vet to get it drained. She did great, and afterward my daughter and I grabbed some breakfast. She was off Monday, so later on she was going to go see a friend and hang out.

I headed to Fort Wayne to pick up a couple guitars I had work done on. I also stopped at Sweetwater and did a little daydreaming. It was a much needed reprieve from the last couple weeks. Of course, I was feeling a little bit of anxiety waiting for my phone to go off with a text or call from my daughter telling me she was throwing up again. A little PTSD of my own, I suppose.

One day at a time. That’s all we can do, right?

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Update: Back at the hospital with more pain and vomiting. A CT scan showed our daughter has Colitis. She’s been admitted and is getting fluids, anti-nausea, pain meds, and two antibiotics. The ER doc was very dismissive(asshole) and told her to stop doing pot. Knowing full well that she had Colitis, he discharged her like she was faking it or something.

My wife had the forethought to say we wanted her admitted, and we saw the fantastic doc from last week. She’s being properly taken care of now.

Be your own advocate, especially women. These male docs can be real pricks.