r/CHRONIC ILLNESS Reaction with L. A. Sprague

DayQuil-fueled honesty, hospital chaos, and the kind of humor you only learn after too many appointments. I’m L. A. Sprague, and while I’m fighting a cold (yes, I’m congested and a little loopy), I’m reading through Reddit threads from the chronic illness community and reacting to the funniest, strangest, and most relatable medical moments people have lived through.

We get into everything from wholesome nurse stories and pop culture in the hospital halls to the darker side of “funny,” like medication reactions, ER overwhelm, and waking up confused after pain meds. It’s a reminder that chronic illness isn’t just symptoms like POTS, tachycardia, or endometriosis pain, it’s also the emotional whiplash of trying to stay human in a system that can feel impersonal.

Then we shift into sharp comebacks and petty one-liners people use when strangers misunderstand disability, including the reality of ambulatory wheelchair users and the ableist assumptions that show up in public. As a Christian with chronic illness, I also talk through a tender topic: why “I’m praying for you” can be deeply comforting in one moment and exhausting in another, depending on the tone, the theology, and whether you feel seen as a person.

If you need a break from heaviness without pretending life is easy, press play. Subscribe, share this with a friend who gets it, and leave a review so more chronically ill Christians can find the show.

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Transcript

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DayQuil Cold Open And Setup

SPEAKER_00 0:01

I'm your Jesus loving and pote host, Ellie Sprague. Welcome to Christians with Chronic Illnesses. Hey guys, how's it going? How are you? Sincerely, I'd love to know. I'm sick right now. I mean, Law, we're always sick. But I'm like, I have a cold. You know. And I'm on DayQuil, and I thought it'd be funny to record an episode while practically high-end Dayquill. I know some of you probably don't think that's funny. But it's also like, I'm taking the amount that's recommended. And also it's Daequil. It's gonna help me record this episode and get through it. Anyway, how's it going? I'm so happy that you're here. Welcome to Christians with Chronic Illnesses. Today I'm gonna be reviewing some Reddit stories, some Reddit posts from R slash chronic illness, I think. I was gonna do a a wow, I'm kinda dizzy. Anyway, I was gonna do a like continuation of my depression stuff. Wait, no, my story having to do with depression. But anyway, today I just don't got the energy for that. Let's be so honest. So let's read it or let's read a few Reddit stories together. Let's have some fun. And if this is your first time, hi. I'm usually not this unhinged, and I highly recommend you go back and listen to the other Christians with Chronic Illnesses episodes where I interview chronically ill Christians, and on the halftime show, I talk about anything relating to Christianity, chronic illness, and my personal story. I'm LA Sprague. Let's get into it. Okay, here we go, y'all. I'm sorry if there's some coughing and sneezing and nose blowing. Let's go. R

Reddit Hilarious Hospital Moments

SPEAKER_00 2:04

chronic illness, your most hilarious hospital story. Hello, hello! First time posting this on Reddit. Coming to you, fellow users, with a J pouch. S B S O C D M D D A M D D brother, and many other thingy murbobs. I love this person. We've all been in the hospital probably several times at this point. Laughter is the very best medicine. Hey, that's biblical. So give me your most hilarious hospital stories. Alright, guys. Let's go. Alright, Slender slut. Let's see what you gotta say. Oh. I was in the in the hospital when the Barbie movie from 2023 was released. Good movie. And a nurse pulled me aside to show me the trailer with Ryan Gosling singing, I'm just Ken. She was wearing hot pink scrubs. I was wearing matching buttoned-down pink PJs, and it was fabulous. We watched it twice on her phone. That's very wholesome. I love that. I was also in the hospital when the Taylor Swift Eras tour was on and witnessed the nurses and doctors trying to get tickets. Many a nurse ran down the hall after scoring some while another nurse skulked teary eyes after not getting any. Devastating. Days before, packs had formed between cliques of nurses and other staff to get tickets for one another, and the floor was barren of staff and the open floor when the tickets were being released. It was a rehab slash neuro slash adolescent specialty floor. The heirs tour was a topic of conversation for months before and afterwards. First of all, valid for the nurses because I also, you know, like before the Aeros Tour wasn't a big Taylor Swift fan, but now I am, so as news you lose, I guess. Anyway, that's very cute. Does sound entertaining, can agree with that comments. Loki looks like there's follow-ups, but I'm not that interested in the story. So let's move on to another one. Alright, cyborg knitter, who has CRPS, Shogrins, M C T D, R A D, non IPF, and Burn Hip Bum Hip? What does that mean? On the day I was being discharged from step down slash telementary unit, my nurses were super sad. We asked what was up. My mom and I aren't that good of company. What we're good storytellers, to be fair. The one nurse looked at me with a total puppy dog eyes and tried to convince me to stay a while longer. It was heavily debated due to the holdup on some needed testing. If I'd said I wanted to stay, I would have. I told her I wanted to go home to my kitties. She exclaimed, Whose room am I going to hide in from the crazy people? That's cute. They'd been hanging out in my room to avoid the odious relatives of some of my room neighbors. Yeah. Yep. I feel like I've heard stories like this before where it's like you're the one sane patient or the one patient that's not like overbearing, like you're sick, but you're at least reasonable. And so the nurses come hide in your room. Guys, let's try to be that person. But not saying like don't be needy, because if you have needs, then you have needs, point blank, period. But also, like try to be sane and kind, I guess. Anyway, well, it's hard to be sane when you're literally insane in some ways. I guess that's why there's mental health wards anyway. I get I don't know. I guess it's not a bad thing being the needy patient. Comment your thoughts. You know what I mean though? Like, if you're kind, like the nurses are gonna want to be with you even if you're crazy and needy if you're kind. You know what I'm saying? Right? Comment your thoughts. And if you don't want to comment your thoughts, you could just comment on orange heart, you know, just helps the algorithm keep going and know that you're you're here and you're interested in interacting. Oh my gosh, guys, this is so random, but I bought a plant yesterday. Me and my husband bought a plant, and it's like taller than any of my other plants, and it was only five dollars. Okay, moving on. I'm not sure this qualifies. There are sure to be people who do not find the humor in this. You have been warned. You have been warned. However, knowing myself and my typical hospital experiences, I do find humor in the story. Okay, guys, lighten up, lighten up, and if you're sensitive or don't have a sense of humor, you should probably move to a different episode. Just kidding. We all have different senses of humor. It's okay. I'm so I'm a sensitive person, I'll be so honest. But we're gonna read it anyway.

Pain Meds And A Scary Blackout

SPEAKER_00 6:49

I was having severe pain. I would later find out was endometriosis horrible lesions on my diaphragm. But at the time it was causing it to hurt when I breathe, and I was advised by my medical team to go to the ER. ER was stacked that day, but they got me triad triaged, put an IV in and put me in a bed in the hallway. An hour of riding in the hallway without a bed opening up. They decided to push morphine and then 0.02 of fentanyl. I hate fentanyl, guys. Listen, okay, side story about fentanyl. I got a minor surgery a few months ago and they gave me some FEDI. Listen, I was so agitated and grumpy. I literally it was so bad.

unknown 7:41

It was so bad.

SPEAKER_00 7:42

I don't know what it was. Fentanyl is supposed to like calm people down. It did the opposite for me, bro. I was like agitated. And you know what I did on the car ride home? Because we had like a three, four-hour car ride home. And I literally played a horse game that I have, which is really fun. Let me let me plug this game. I'm not even being sponsored, but it's really fun. But but you can only have one horse unless you play the unless you pay the like monthly fee, which I'm not doing that. It's no Ever Run. It's called Ever Run, and you're a horse that saves the forest via basically playing Tempo Run. Anyway, so what I did on the ride home on that fentanyl was I just put in my headphones. I had the Ever Run in front of me and ignored my husband and my friend who were with me. Sorry guys. I have apologized to them since you should know. Back to the story. I remember feeling drowsy and falling asleep in the hallway. To be clear, I had been given both medications in the past, and I had had both since, without ever having another incident. When I awoke, I was sitting up in the bed in a large private ICU room. Oh, and there was a nurse just outside the door peeking in so I could only see him from the eyes, like he was hiding. I don't know why I was angry. Yes! Yes, she gets it. But I was screaming like a banshee at him. I can see you! As soon as the words left my mouth, it's like I came out of whatever blackout state I had been in, and I realized I was strapped to the bed with leather padded handcuffs. I don't know how much time had passed. What did she do? To this day, I still don't know what happened. After that scream, I was able to calm down. I asked the nursing staff what I had done and what happened. All they would do is that tight-lipped grimace and shrug. I need to know like what is the tight lip grimace? What? They removed the restraints. It wasn't in my chart notes, not even a difficult patient or drug interactions. I am five foot and a hundred pounds on a day with clinical malnutrition, so I'd really like to know what I did that scared the entire staff so bad they wouldn't even say. Oh, later in the same hospital stay, my blood was pulling really bad while I was laying in bed. So the blood was pulling on the back of my legs and arms. Their nurse came in and said, Huh. So I replied, What? What's huh? And she said, Oh, it's nothing, but I've only ever seen that kind of nothing in the morgue. As she pointed to the mottled pattern on my skin. Bro. Brutal. I think it it depends on my mood. Either I would have laughed and like that's so funny, or would have been like, How dare you make fun of me like that? Or like make a comment as insensitive as that. And to be honest, if I was on Fetty, it'd probably be the late the latter. To be completely honest. Comment. Oh my god, Jesus! What the heck did you do? XD. I woke up from major surgery with my arms tied to my bed like this once. Apparently, it was because I had yanked out my own pick line in my unconscious state. Another person said, My arms are often pretty badly mottled, and my last CR visit to the doctor looked at me concerned, was like, Do your arms always look like this? Way? Yes, Doc, they do. Wow. Alright. Next story.

ICU Chaos And Medical Mishaps

SPEAKER_00 11:22

I was in the hospital for Pope funeral, and all the nurses were taught taking bets on who the new Pope would be. It was kind of hilarious in between the Ivy steroids seeing which orthodoxy the nurse knew currently go was wait. Which orthodoxy the nurses were currently Googling. Okay, that's pretty funny. If not probably slightly illegal. I wonder how much trouble you would get in if exchanging monetary bets while on the clock like that. I mean, it's mostly slow done favors like who grabs the takeout rather than actual money. Alright, let's hear you Lucy Quist. My spoon my my last hospitalization, there was just about to release me from the ICU. Apparently I was snoozing because they came in and startled me awake and my heart rate shot to 115 cent off the monitor monitor. I was telling them, oh, it just does that. I have inappropriate sinus tachycardia, and that's normal for me. But of course, they had to do EKG E-G, one of those. I just started lithium. It's the heart one. It was normal and my heart rate went back down after a few minutes. I made sure to tell my nurses I have IST before they took vitals after that. I don't know what IST is. Let's look it up. Oh, it's literally just inappropriate sinus tachycardia. Okay, gotcha. Alright, let's see. I'll do one more of these hospital stories. When I had to get re-catharized since I couldn't pee three days after it was removed. Student nurse jabbing me a million times trying to get it in. So much pain I was nearly in tears. Anyway, she finally slips it in and is happy with herself, and then I have to tell her it's my vagina. Like you're a nurse and you don't know the difference. Finally, she got a wonderful nurse who painlessly inserted it into my urethra easily on the first go. I've had way more horror stories in all my surgeries and long hospital stays. More like living there than funny ones. But sometimes it's just an awful, it's so awful, it's laughable. Yes, yes. It's so awful, it's laughable, I think, is the most relatable thing. That's horrible though. I'm so so sorry to this person that had to experience this. Alright, moving on. I'm only gonna do this for a little bit longer because I really don't feel good. So only been 13 minutes. Guys, I'm so tired. And I feel like I have a fever. Okay.

Chronic Illness Comebacks And Quips

SPEAKER_00 14:02

What's the funniest comment, response, or racist retort you've ever made to someone regarding your chronic illness? I love this. I cannot wait to hear this one. I've been wanting to make this post and ask this question for kind of a while now. But after seeing someone else's post yesterday, they asked the exact opposite question. I was finally inspired. So tell me guys, what's the funniest comment you've ever made to someone regarding your chronic illness conditions? Whether it was off the cuff or your go-to reply or the generic expressions we all hear we hear all the time. I want to read about it. My personal favorite story. I was seeing a new pain specialist to give a nerve ablation a shot after having received trigger points for the last five-ish years. The doctor asked me any chance you could be pregnant. At this point, I had already answered this question via paperwork and verbally at least three times with the fact that I'm a hundred percent celiac. No. Celibate. This just in focus, you can have babies even if you're celibate. Moving no, gone. Celiacs, even if you have celiacs. You can't have babies if you're celibate. Rereading what she said, she answered this question at least three times with the fact that she's 100% celibate. Chronic illness really does me dirty. Haha, for real. I used to write about how I was sterile and hadn't had a period in 50 years due to either all my chronic illness issues or super strong chemotherapy I needed, or possibly probably a little bit of both. So, casual as a frick, I say, if I am, then you can just call me Mary. I have no idea where it came from, to be honest. The nurse assisting him burst out in laughter, and my mother just sighed and covered her face while also snickering, and the doctor didn't understand at first. I don't know if it was a slight language barrier. English was very obviously not his first language, or because my tone was so nonchalant. But he paused and tried to clarify. So the nurse told him the answer was no, and Oxel explained the quip I made. I know I have several other stories, but the brain fog struggle is real, so I'm having a hard time recollecting any others. But please share with me your medical traumatize them back andor petty revenge stories. Much love. Obligatory edit. Extremely coincidentally, I actually had my trigger points appointment today and am only just now settling in to read all of your stories. Guys, when I say I can't remember the last time I chuckled and cackled this much, it was not an understatement. That's cute. Let's hear the quips and let's hear your opinions as a Christian with chronic illness. If she'd if you should reply with these quips, let me know. All right. I'm young and look able-bodied, as many of us are. One time I was at the mechanic who was an older middle-aged guy. We were talking in this shop where it was a little noisy. My brain injury makes it difficult for me to differ differentiate sounds, especially with background noises. So I asked him twice to please speak up. He kept ignoring that. So I finally interrupted a min sentence and shout, son, you gotta speak up. The look on his face being called son by a young woman laughed my butt off. He did finally speak louder. Okay, that one's cute and wholesome. I like that one because it's like whether he was actually ignoring it or not, or just not doing it speaking up well. It is cute that as a young person she called him son and like kind of played that like you know, you should be an older person who'd say that. I like that she reversed it on him, and that's very cute. I think that's appropriate as a Christian. Thumbs up. So a little background info first. My initials are AED in the country, the Netherlands. There are devices spread all over the country for CPR with shocks called AED. Okay. Now to the story. A while ago, I went into a hypotensive crisis and I had to call an ambulance. When one of the guys was struggling, was plugging me onto monitors. They were asking me loads of questions. One being, what are your min initials? So I replied, AED. Shocking, right? The guy plugging me onto the monitors burst out in laughter. So did my partner. Cute. That one's cute. I guess I didn't make this to someone specific. I put my chair in the back of my car and then walked to the driver's seat. I used to exclaim, it's a miracle when I stood up, but I had to stop because my husband didn't appreciate the looks. That's funny. Do you get it? Like someone's like putting their wheelchair into the back of the car, and then they walk to the front of the car, and they say it's a miracle, because people don't understand that like a wheelchair doesn't have to just be used for people that are like paralyzed. Like one thing that has like bewildered me being chronically ill, because I used to think that too, that you only used a wheelchair if you were like paralyzed, right? And you go to Walmart and there's wheelchairs that you can use. So it's like, oh, well, if you were paralyzed, you would have come in with a wheelchair. There shouldn't be those wheelchairs there to use if you could walk to the door and then go in and use the wheelchair, put the wheelchair back, and then go walk to your car. And now I'm just realizing, oh yeah, it's not that simple. Sometimes people get really dizzy and yeah, it it's not good, and so it's safer for them to be in a wheelchair than to potentially collapse in the store, or also just not feel like awful the entire time. Yeah, anyway, that changed my perspective too. But that's funny. I like the little quip of it's a miracle, because it's like you already know that you're probably gonna like be looked at and stared at, or at least that's like you know, there's people out there that are ableists and people that are nosy or people that just misunderstand like I used to. And so heard, heard. So yeah, I think that's funny. I think that's appropriate. But I also don't blame her husband for being like, honey, storm it. Because that would be a lot of attention. Alright. A nurse that was prepping me for a surgery didn't know what celiac was, not celibacy, celiac. Very common amongst medical professioners professioners, professionals, and asked me what happens if I ingest or I'm given gluten. It shows up in some meds. My response was then you'd better get a few bedpans and have a poncho on hand. She didn't seem amused, but I don't know. I was chuckling afterwards. Yeah, that's funny. That nurse should have a sense of humor. That's funny. I am an am ambulatory wheelchair user. What does that mean? Let's look it up. Ambulatory. Wait, can I just Google this right here? Search. Wow, that was so much easier. I shouldn't have done that in the past. Relating to or adapted for walking. A place for walking. Wait, that didn't really help me. Able to walk about and not bedroom bedroom. Okay, okay, okay. So I'm guessing they're just not paralyzed. I'm an ambulatory wheelchair user. A few years ago at Christmas, we were waiting in line to see Santa. When I was my daughter's when it was my daughter's turn, Santa asked me my husband to take take a picture to. So I stood up and my husband said loudly, It's a Christmas miracle. Everyone in the room lost it. That's cute. That's cute. Whatever people say I'm praying for you, I like to reply, I will say a spell for you by moving. Okay. That's funny. Very funny. I know that one's like debatable because we're Christians, but I think it's funny. And I think like the heart behind why that's funny is because it's like wait, guys, don't read ahead of me. I

When Prayer Comments Hit A Nerve

SPEAKER_00 22:35

think one of the reasons that's funny is because it's like it's weird because even as a Christian, it can get tiring to hear like I'm praying for you. Because I think I think it depends where that person's heart is from, right? Because there's nothing wrong with people praying for us, and we're grateful when people are praying for us, especially if we're in a mature and confident stance in our faith and in our health. Like we're grateful for that. But I think where it can get like annoying is like if it's someone that believes like you need to just pray more, you need to just like believe more and you'll be healed, it can feel almost like oh, like I'm better than you, like I'm gonna pray for you because obviously you don't pray enough for yourself. And so I think it definitely depends who is saying it, and you know, and then there's other times where maybe like you're doubting your faith and you're having problems, and so like when you're already in a place where like you're still a Christian, but like you're not sure what you believe about God and prayer and all this stuff, it's like it can be hard to hear that, and maybe instead of it being so focused on the faith, you just want them to see you as a person, and so I can see why you know you want to be petty and maybe say something about I will cast a spell for you before moonlight or whatever. It's funny. I'm not gonna say if you can or cannot say that. I personally wouldn't. I think it kind of shows a little bit of insecurity, but I also can see where they're coming from. It is kind of funny. Moving on. When I had an NG tube, I got a lot of looks and whisperers behind my back. So sometimes I'd look them dead in the eyes and go, What? Is there something on my face that would usually make them walk away? Love that. I don't know if this counts, and I'm sorry in advance if it's any way insensitive. Warning. This could be insensitive. It was very it was funny to my spouse and I. I have epilepsy and my main seizure type are absence seizures. And during one, my eyes roll back for up to 30 seconds. Sometimes my spouse and I give each other crap and mess with each other for fun. Well, my spouse was giving me crap and making funny comments about some random thing, and then said, Did you just roll your eyes at me? Jokingly, of course. And I replied, Roll my eyes, a seizure, I can't even tell anymore, which resulted in a mutual laughter. Cute. I love people finding humor and their illness. I think that's great. I think it's good. My one of my friends, Emma, shout out to you. She's a loyal listener to this, so that's so cute. But she likes to call my pots pots and pans, and that's very endearing. Okay, guys. I'm not gonna lie, I don't think I can do this anymore. But it was an absolute pleasure being with you, doing some light reading. This definitely

Closing Thoughts And Ways To Connect

SPEAKER_00 25:27

isn't my personal favorite episode I've ever done, but I hope you enjoyed some of the stories. If you're having a rough day, I hope you enjoyed some of the commentary, and maybe we'll do more Reddit things in the future when I'm a little less drowsy. But I can literally feel myself getting a fever right now. So I'm gonna get off of here and go get some rest. But I love you guys so much. Thanks for being around. If this is your first time with Christians with chronic illnesses, please feel free to go back and listen to our other episodes again where I interview chronically ill Christians and talk about other topics relating to chronic illness and Christianity. If you're listening, thanks for being here. I love you very much. I'm very grateful that you would spend your precious and limited time with Christians with chronic illnesses. What what? In case you don't know, we have a Patreon. If you would like to give, maybe see some exclusive episodes, get a free sticker, you can go look at our different Patreon memberships starting at $1 a month, and they increase in really cool benefits the more that you give per month. But all that to say, I'm just a little potsy girl trying to benefit the world, trying to provide a little bit for me and my husband. So if you'd like to contribute to the show and to me and my husband's well-being, feel more than free to go to our Patreon. If not, that's chill. I'm so happy that you're here. We have a Discord chat that you can join for the free. We have a Facebook group that you can join for the free. You can see those links in the show notes below. Love you guys. Feel free to comment an orange heart. Give us a like and a follow and a rating, as it helps not only us as Christians with chronic illnesses and me and my husband, but it lets the algorithm know that you're listening and interested, and then maybe other people who are chronically ill Christians could listen to it, so you know. Ugh, okay. I hate doing the advertising bit, it just feels so gross and manipulative. Okay, love you guys. Bye! Thank you so much for being a part of the Christians with Chronic Illnesses community. Please remember to follow Rate and subscribe to the show. You can also follow us on our socials at CWCI Podcast. And if you're interested in sharing your story, please email us at cwcipodcast at gmail.com. If you are interested in contributing to the production of Christians with chronic illnesses, please see the show notes below for subscriptions starting as low as $1 a month, or email us for a more direct way to give. This show is hosted and produced by Ellie Sprague, and our incredible logo, thumbnail, and overall CWCI artist is Brianna Middleton. This show is intended for entertainment and encouragement purposes only. Please talk to your doctor before trying anything you hear on this show. Until next Monday.