Sunday, January 13, 2013

My five long days in the hospital

So.....here is my hospital story. UGH! On Dec. 31st i was having bend over pains in my abdomen to the point of where i was not enjoying the end of night munchies as i had no appetite to WANT to. It had started at about 7pm. The pain woke me up @6am on a day that i could have been sleeping in :( I went downstairs to try to be able to curl more into a ball, walk, do something to help but nothing helped and i finally crawled back into bed and for the first time since i can remember.....i told the girls that i would not be able to get out of bed.....too much pain. It was bad.
I tried toast with butter and honey with peppermint tea....only got in one bite and a few sips of tea. I am forgetful of order here but i know that i heard the girls struggling with Sophina's eating and i knew that it would not be long and i would have to help. Sure enough, Ally came up and said that Sophina would not eat or drink for any of them. I took my heating pad with me and put it on my belly then my back to try to help with the pain. I was hunched over trying to feed Sophina.....i got her fed and got her to drink quite a bit of milk but just didn't have it in me to fight her anymore. I went back up to bed and tried one more bite of toast and another sip of tea and promptly went to sleep.
It was lunchtime and there was a need for mom so i woke up. The phone rang....Bob was on the phone and said that i should probably go in. LeAnne called the medical group for me while i was on with Bob and found out that the one i go to was closed for New Year's and the other one was already past booked for the whole rest of the day/night....the only choice was the ER. The girls said that they would hold down the fort.
SIX HOURS of waiting in the waiting room in the ER. Bob and LeAnne were with me the entire time. I finally got into the back where they did all kinds of tests. Tests were showing that something was wrong.....several tests were coming back WAY out of whack and i remember one test was SEVENTEEN times what it should be. They did a cat scan and had me drink some awful stuff......i had not eaten and i had hardly drunk anything due to the fact that the nurse told me that i couldn't in case they had to do surgery! UGH! I drank the stuff as fast as they told me and after the first scan on the Cat scan...i threw up all over the floor and into the lovely TINY bag put in front of my face as i lay there on my side on the scan table. The scan came back that my colon was VERY inflamed.
I was admitted to the hospital 12 hours after i had come into the hospital. LeAnne was with me the entire time and Bob (who is fighting cancer) was with me for eight of those hours as i didn't want him to be back in the room where they did the tests.........YET, he sat in that ER waiting room for a couple hours waiting. He came back to the hospital VERY late in the night with a few items he got from the girls for me. Scott was on his way home from work...a day early as he WAS planning on coming home for our only family CHRISTmas celebration with his side. His family had not seen Scott for a full year.
Sophina got very sick, coming off of the bus from preschool with a NAP on the way home. Scott said she had a near 104 temp. The doctors could not understand why i was still having pain....NOT as bad as before but it was still there AND i was having slight nausea after eating the little bit that i tried again to eat. They decided that i needed a colonoscopy to see what we were dealing with.
I dehydrate VERY easily and get migraines when i do. Thinking that since i had the IV, i should be fine....they started me on the horrible Crystal Light Drink that would "make my BM's look like pee". I had learned to SIP it SLOWLY from the cat scan.....SO i drank slowly from 2:30pm until i showed them that i thought i was done....MANY hours later. Again, i couldn't eat or drink. I had gone many nights without food, drink or sleep. The IV must not have been giving me enough because i wrote a note on FB that i could tell that i was fighting a migraine......hit POST and BOOM i fell onto the partially upright mattress in a ball and never moved a muscle for the next four hours. I never ever in my worst imaginations had ever known that a migraine could be so overwhelming. The half of my body closest to the mattress was falling asleep and there was nothing i could do about it. I was alone and in the worst pain and nausea i have ever experienced in my life. They gave me TWO Imitrex and it did NOTHING. The nurses were amazing. I could not see anyone as i couldn't even open my eyes and my body had collapsed with my head looking at my knees if i had opened them....i was in a ball. The RN was getting frantic as i could hear it in her voice....she needed to get me better before this colonoscopy! There was another nurse who was AMAZING in that she rubbed my pressure points in my head! She could only do it for a few seconds BUT i got some relief. That same voice got me an ice pack and put it on my head....again SOME relief. OH how i was longing for someone to come and rub my head with the oils that i had seen across the room before i fell onto the mattress so many hours before. They gave me another Imitrex....this time in the form of a shot in my belly. NOTHING The nurse was now getting angry as they were short staffed and i was not able to help her get me ready and she was getting called that i was late. She was doing her best but there was no one available to help her. I had had to go to the bathroom for a long time......i was now feeling very drugged, lightheaded and like i couldn't walk. I got to the bathroom with much help and another nurse came for a minute to help get me onto the bed for traveling. The ice pack/massager of my head nurse was the one who took me down....oh my....i felt like someone had given me bad drugs....i felt a different kind of awful.
They got me down there......i was now in tears.....i felt so alone as no one even knew what the last four hours had been like and no one knew that i was going into the procedure in a way that was NOT ideal. I laid on that bed with tears streaming down the sides of my face and no ability to wipe them......they had to actually help me sign the paperwork......i could barely lift my arm. i MADE SURE that the anestheseologist knew that i had had so many drugs just moments before and i told him that i was NOT used to it.
They contemplated not going ahead with it. I begged them to do it because i could not ever go through the whole process that i had endured again! They decided to go for it. They told me that they were going to give me a relaxer before they gave me the 'real stuff' and i told them to not give me too much because i knew i would not need much. I made it maybe thirty seconds and never even saw the doorway as i was OUT! Next thing i knew, i was awake and felt like i had had the deepest sleep of my life and then felt weird.
Dr Liveringhouse (?) let me know that they found no cancer or any other serious thing but next week would let me know the findings of the biopsies. I called them this morning and saw the findings this afternoon at the check up.....NOTHING! They decided that it was a bad viral infection!!!
The nurses laughed during my five day stay when people would tell me that i should be there to rest! HA! There were so many interruptions in sleep....1:30am/4am and 7:30 there was blood pressure, temperature, etc..... my blood pressure would take 3-4 tries and i would struggle to get back to sleep. The day time was no different. PLUS, the alarms, the hacking of people all around in the rooms around, the throwing up.....all of the noises i could hear. The fact that my arm had to be kept in a straight out position didn't help sleep at all AND then there was that long tube attached too. The nurses and doctors all agreed that this WAS NOT the place to get 'rest'.
SO....five days in the hospital.....horrible and painful things that would not have happened if i had been home.....i can't imagine the cost......it stopped our family CHRISTmas gathering......our family was in three different places......ALL for the outcome of a 'nasty viral infection'. i will never understand.....but i guess that i don't need to. I AM ALWAYS BLESSED

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