Hubby’s Turn

     So far it’s been a pretty tough year.  I’ve been sicker than I’ve ever been in my life and I’ve been in and out of the hospital.

     My husband does industrial maintanance, and I’ve always known that it could be a dangerous profession.  It really hit home for me on June 18th.  I was running errands and when I came home my daughter met me at the door to tell me that his work just called, that my husband had been in an electrocution accident and was in the hospital.  A couple of my friends went with me and off we ran to the hosptial.  I got there just after the doctor had stitched up his face and told me that he wanted to transfer him to the burn unit in Fort Wayne, just over 1oo miles for us.

     I stayed with him through his 2 day hospital stay which included some skin grafting.  He got some sort of infection in his leg that put him right back in the hospital for a few days.  I never left his side and got a small taste of what he’s been going through and continues to go through with me.

     He was out of work for a couple of months, and we’re still dealing with the nightmare of workers comp.  He has some permanant damage to a nerve in his leg, and some scarring that I think only makes him look handsomer, but other than that he’s as good as new.  Once again we are some pretty lucky people.  It was a 3-phase electrocution, and the survival rate is not that high.  It showed me the internal strength that not only my husband has, but I have too.  I thought if I could get through this with him, then we could get through anything.  Little did I know that theory was about to be tested

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Fears and Repercussions

     My last post I wrote soon after getting home from the hospital.  At the time it was the hardest thing I’ve been though emotionally and physically.  I didn’t know that things would get worse before the summer was over.

     I’m really such a lucky woman, when I broke down, and believe me I broke down I was able to go to one of my best friends and just unload everything on him.  I didn’t want to break down with DH, he was going through his own mental freakout.  When I went to my friend and unloaded everything on him, he just sat and listened to me, and that’s what I needed more than anything.

     I think about my 16 year old daughter dressing my by herself so I wouldn’t be naked when the fire department and EMS arrived.  My neighbor was hear when the ambulance brought me out and was sure I wouldn’t be coming home.  Even now, if DH can’t reach me on the phone he panics, and I spent weeks afraid to fall asleep, scared that I wouldn’t wake up. 

     I remember vomiting so much the night before, that cognitivly I wasn’t able to put together that the more I threw up the more my blood sugars would increase and I couldn’t seem to wrap my brain around the fact that I needed to get to the hospital.  My family and I sure learned alot.  I printed and posted the symptoms of DKA, so we would know what to do if this happened in the future.  I remember my ribs hurt when I took a deep breath, but I kept telling myself it was just a panic attack and all I needed was a good nights sleep.  I guess that explains the pneumonia.

     I’m still having effects from the coma.  My short term memory seems to have left me completely, I figure it’s either the coma or all the pot I smoked in high school coming back to haunt me.  I prefer to blame the coma.

The Coma, or How I spent Easter

Sick people in the hospital should not be allowed on the internet.  I have alot of emails to explain.

     I wrote this soon after I came home from the hospital.  Instead of retyping, I thought I’d just let this post stand as is.  I knew I was sick the night before, but I thought I was throwing up diet Pepsi.  I didn’t know it was blood.

  Rudy tried to wake me up about 9am Easter morning and I was completely unresponsive.  I had not been feeling well the night before.  Rudy called 911 and they got me to the hospital in Starke by 10.  At 1 that morning they called Rudy back in to sign transfer papers, they said I was dying.

I don’t remember anything until Wednesday when I became aware that I was in a hospital in an ICU Bed.  They told me my blood sugars were in the 1100 range and that I had been in a diabetic coma.  They were also treating me for pneumonia, pancreatitis, and that my blood pressure was 40/20.  In addition to my port they were also running in whole blood through IV.

The theory is that the celebrex I was taking for my shoulder had given my a GI Bleed.

I got home from Laporte hospital on Saturday, and did spend the night in Pulaski Hospital Tuesday for some lung treatments and pain control and I got home last night.  I am completely in official freakout mode and I feel like I’m in the middle of a mental mind fuck, pardon the term.

I don’t know what I would have done without the support and great love of my friends and family.  Angie and Lisa called every day, I think Michelle was on the phone to the ICU nurses every other hour.  Howie, Janet who fed me.  Kevin, who I almost have talked into dying my hair for me this weekend. Bill who asked Rudy about me daily and last but not least Sara and my husband Rudy who both give so much to me and only ask that I love them in return, and I do…very much.   I have the most loyal and kind friends and family who would do anything for me, I need only ask.  I don’t want to forget Rudy’s mom who will frequently listen to the ravings of this crazy woman.

I can’t forget Tommy and Heather…Tommy who called me in the hospital even though as he puts it it breaks his heart and Heather who promised to get me the hell out of here for a couple of weeks.  I love all of you and I’m humbled by your love for me.

I promise that I am going to take better care of myself and I am going to get better.

     As for the emails I had to explain:  I felt lost in the hospital, scared to death even, because I was in ICU I had no phone in my room and no one thought to tell my that my husband was calling hourly to check on me.  I was so confused I felt abondoned enough to email my sister and let he know I was going to become a lesbian and move in with her in Kentucky.  It was a good plan except for the part where I’m not actually a lesbian.  I just thought since it was working out so well for her that I could give it a try.  To her credit, she did remind me that my plan would have never worked given that I’m not actually a lesbian.  Months later, I can actually see where she had a point.

The Rudest Surgeon

     Lest everyone think I forgot, I do know I’m a very lucky woman.  I’ve been surrounded by not just my husband and kids, but an entire community and neighborhood of people who love and care about me.  That’s how I ended up with a whole posse coming to the hospital for my hernia surgery.  I thought I was done writing about it, until my husband reminded me what the surgeon did.

     I was in outpatient recovery with two of my best friends and hubby had to go out and move the car, which is when the surgeon came in to talk about how the surgery went.  One of my friends asked if he could wait just a minute until my husband came back when the doctor told him, “No, I have other patients.”  When hubby walked in a minute later he was furious.  Turns out the nurse had told him earlier to wait in the chapel and the doctor would come there to talk to him, and the doctor left all of them waiting there for over an hour and never did show up.  It was only when he grabbed a nurse to find out what was going on when the nurse told him he had to move the car and brought everyone else back to recovery to be with me.  So he never did talk to my husband.

  During my follow-up and subsequent surgeries, is when I noticed Dr.S. would be backing out of the room while I was trying to ask him questions.  The last time he did that I got up and followed him to the nurse’s station to let him know that I was his patient, he was my doctor and I deserved a few minutes of his time and attention instead of being made to feel like I was bothering him.  Which brings me to my point, I’ve had some terrific doctors, but I’ve also had some who were just rude.

     During one of my sub-clavian central line placements, done while my 16-year-old daughter was in the room, I don’t know what nerve he hit but I got an intense burning pain that shot from my armpit all the way down to my fingertips.  I screamed and the surgeon literally yelled at me to quit screaming.  I yelled right back at him to quit hurting me.  His response to that was to tell the nurse assisting him to inject me with Valium, and blamed it on a deformity I must have in my anatomy.  I still get angry when I think about that.  I’m not sure it’s ethical to use drugs to shut me up.  As a matter of fact this is the same doctor who did my gallbladder surgery.  I gave him my very extensive surgical history, while I was waiting in pre-op I started reading my chart that was on the foot of my bed.  The only thing it said was that my history was positive for an appendectomy.  I still have my appendix.

     Of course now I have to mention my favorite surgeon.  He brought me Godiva chocolate before making me npo.  Npo is when you can no longer have anything to eat or drink.   When I asked if he could use a local instead of general anesthesia, he told me no.  Actually what he said was that the last thing he needed was me telling him how to operate while he was operating.

3 Surgeries in 2 Weeks

   
  I was back in the hospital twice in February, first with a mrsa infection, followed by more vomiting and wrenching pain in my stomach.  The surgeon came in after a ct scan and told me I had an incisional hernia that had to be repaired.  I made sure he knew about the mrsa, and surgery was scheduled.  For some reason I came out of anesthia mad at the world.  I ripped off my blood pressure cuff and demanded to go home.  It was completely unlike anything I’ve ever done, and it gave the the nickname “The angry redhead.”  My friends still laugh about it.  Either way I got to go home.

     I’m really starting to hate hospitals at this point.  I knew I was getting depressed as hell.  I had the mindset that I was never going to be anything more than a patient and I hated it.  One of my nurses went to the same church I went to and would introduce me to her family and friends as a “problem child” and a frequent flier.  I hated that so much  I eventually changed churches.

     I thought I was healing pretty good until I woke up about 5 days later and the incision was so red and swollen I knew I was going to have to go back in.  I went to the ER, was admitted and the surgeon was by to see me in the morning and scheduled the surgery for later that day.  The mesh had to be removed and a drainage tube was put in and I was put on some heavy duty antibiotics.  I did not get to go home after this surgery.  Good thing because 2 days later the drainage tube lost it’s suction and I was going back into the OR.  The drainage tube was taken out and the incision reopened to heal from the inside out again.  I did get to go home then.  Home health care was back to do packing and dressing changes daily for a week and I seemed to be doing well.

     A few days after that I had to go see my family doctor because I was getting some foul drainage once again.  As soon as he saw me he sent me back to the ER to get admitted for antibiotics.  This was a new doctor that I had only seen maybe 3 times because I had just gotten insurance again, and for some reason I forgot to let him know that I had a port.  The ER doctor remembered and suggested I could do IV antibiotics at home.  It only took a day to arrange and I was so happy that I could stay home.  Of course my refridgerater was stocked with so much vanco, that it looked like a pharmacy.

     I was on so many meds that I was starting to feel like I was becoming my mother.  My frozen shoulder was hurting me so bad, that I asked my ortho to put me on Celebrex and it really seemed to be making a difference.  Little did I know that my whole world was about to come crashing down.

One Limb at a Time

     Last year, right around this time I woke up one morning with a pretty sore shoulder.  I figured I must have slept on it and I’d be back to normal in a day or two.  Of course if you haven’t figured it out by now, it’s usually not that simple with me.  The thing just got worse and worse until I finally brought it up to my doc, who checked my range of motion and thought I might have a torn rotator cuff so off I go to the very expensive MRI.  MRI shows some mild inflammation, but that’s about it and now I’m going to an equally expensive neck MRI.  Apparently some neck issues can give you shoulder pain.  The neck MRI shows some degenerative disc disease but nothing to explain my ever-increasing pain.

     I’m on pain meds for my chronic pain already, but it’s just not touching this and I’m getting more frustrated not having any answers so I hit the internet looking for some.  I think I found it.  I couldn’t get in with my doc, so I make an appointment with his nurse practitioner, and I can’t wait to tell her I think I have a frozen shoulder.  By this time my range of motion is so bad, I’m having a hard time dressing myself, washing my hair or doing anything, and nights are the worst.  The pain is so bad I’m not sleeping more than a couple hours a night at best.  Well, she pretty much tells me I don’t know what I’m talking about and puts me on the lowest dose fentanyl patch and dilaudid for breakthrough pain.  While this does help I still can’t take care of basic hygiene.  I never did get a referral but when I got home I made an appointment to see an ortho.

      By the time I get to see him, I can no longer put my hand behind my back or move it more than a couple inches in any direction.  I didn’t tell the ortho what I thought it was, I wanted him to draw his own conclusions.  I’m finding that alot of doctors and nurses really don’t want patients diagnosing themselves.  They tend to get a little condenscending, if not downright insulting.  It’s not like it’s going to put them out of a job.  I can’t write my own prescriptions.

     The ortho looks at my MRI, sends me to the hospital for a shoulder X-Ray, and tries to manipulate the hell out of my shoulder.  He really took his time, and he listened to me, the he diagnoses me with….wait for it……..a frozen shoulder.  Frozen shoulder affects about 3% of the population.  It typically follows an injury but alot of the time you can’t pinpoint a cause.  It does affect a substantial number of diabetics and we figured that’s what’s happended to me.  It’s usually a condition that resolves itself, but to run it’s course can take from 1 to 3 years.

     So, a year and alot of painful physical therapy later, I can say this;  the pain is no longer increasing on a daily basis, it’s kind of leveled off, but my range of motion while better, is still very limited and the pain can still be pretty bad.  I’m off the fentanyl and dilaudid now and back on percocet.  Night time is still very hard, but I find if I put my headphones in  and listen to some classic rock on my ipod, it’s definitly more manageble.  Here’s the kicker though, as my left shoulder is starting to improve, my right shoulder is starting to freeze up.  Here we go again.