Movin on Up

     Well we did it.  Three weeks ago we moved into our new house.  I had forgotten how hard and just how stressful it is to move.  Don’t worry, it’s all coming back to me now.

     This place is gigantasaures!  We have to practictly scream to hear each other from one end of the house to the other.  I guess I wasn’t joking when I nicknamed it the “mansion.”  This is the hardest I’ve worked in a long time and I only had to take three days off to visit what will no doubt be my new neighborhood hospital.  Kidney infection strikes again.

     I do love it here, I feel like this is my dream house.  A hundred year old victorian with all original woodwork and leaded glass windows.  Dark finished hardwood floors in the master, and a surprisingly open floor plan.  Walk-in closets everywhere.  The glass is so old it’s wavy, and I finally have a 2nd bathroom.  I’m off to bed now, I am so sore and tired.

Much Goings On

Hospital (Photo credit: José Goulão)

     I know I know, it took me awhile to get around to my blog.  Apologies to all my readers, life has been crazy.

     I’ve always written that I want to be honest and true to myself in my writing, otherwise what’s the point?   It really was a rough summer for me and a personal low.  I think I already wrote about my new ulcer, if I haven’t just know that I have a new ulcer.  I think it was July when I landed  back  in the hospital and my labs were really good so I thought I would be going home, I didn’t realize that right behind me my blood pressure decided to do something ridiculous like be 50/30, so once again I found myself in ICU. 

     I think I’ve always made it clear to everyone that I’m a chronic pain patient in pain management and on some pretty heavy pain medication, and when I can’t keep anything down that includes my pain medicine so by the time I get to the ER I’m in pretty rough shape from the pain.  However I knew there wasn’t a lot they could do for me with my low bp, but by the next morning it was back to normal.  The doctor came in to make rounds and I asked him to put me back on my oral pain meds or injections and imagine my surprise when he said no that every time I’m in the hospital I’m on morphine and  I was a drug seeker.  Really?  I had my meds in my purse not 5 feet away from me.  I explained that to him to no avail.  I was so upset I left and I just managed to stay out of the hospital until last night.  A couple of trips to the ER aside.

     evidently, he was the only doctor on staff who felt that way, because every time I’ve been in the ER I’ve been given pain meds and no, I didn’t ask for them.  I guess I’m now a little defensive about the whole damn subject.

     Last week, my husband had to have arthroscopic surgery on his left knee and he’s been out of work for the better part of a month and I can’t remember a time when we’ve been this  broke.  Don’t get me wrong, we’re getting by day by day but wondering where the grocery money is going to come from is stressing us both out.  Did I mention we’re supposed to move in about 11 days and I have no idea where the money to close is going to come from?  I’m keeping the faith the Lord will provide.

Too Damned Long

     So much to catch up on I’m not even sure where to start.  I’ll be posting an update in the next day or two, I promise.

Back In

Back in the hospital we’ll fill everyone in when I’m back to a full sized keyboard.  thank you to everyone for all thr cards,letters, well wishers and prayers.  They mean the world to me and my family

Why I Write

Why I Write

http://maddogmedic.com/wp-trackback.php?p=473

One of the first people to read my blog when I first started writing.  He was a great encouragement and one reason why I kept going.  Pop on over to read his blog, it’s fasinating learning about medical care on the other side of the world

Better

    It’s been a rough couple of weeks.  Rudy had to take me to the ER four times I think, and I was admitted twice.  I simply could not stop vomiting.  The phenergan doesn’t seem to be working as well as it did.  In fact one doctor gave me a shot of Thorazine, that knocked me out for a good 6 hours.  As soon as I woke up though I was still  throwing up.

     I could go into ketoacidosis very easily, fortunately I never got to that point.  The gastroparesis has gotten really bad even though my glucose readings are good. 

     I had to have some minor surgery, I was discharged the same day and damned if I wasn’t back in the hospital the next day.  I have to follow up with a gastroenterologist. 

    What scared my husband is that I went over a week without eating anything.  Chicken water and jello doesn’t count.  He’s watching me lose more and more weight and it really does bother him.

     On the other hand I’m feeling much better now and I’m looking forward to spending time with him.

     I found out more things from my hospitalization in March when I was on the ventilator.  My nurse told me I was septic and the reason I was so combative was that I wasn’t breathing.  That’s not what was in my head though.  In my head I just wanted them to slow down and tell me what they were doing.  evidently there was no time for that.  I’m still having some anxiety over all that, but it is getting better.

     I’m looking forward to this week with my husband, thanks for listening.

One Foot in the Grave and the other on a Banana Peel, and then I Slipped

     It’s been a bad few weeks and I don’t even know where to begin.  I guess I’ll start with the bladder infection, only because any time I get an infection of any kind my blood sugars spiral out of control very quickly and I end up chasing them.  It doesn’t work, I just get sicker and sicker and the sicker I get, the higher my blood sugars get and all cognitive function and reasoning flies out the window.

     All I could do was sleep, and that should have been my first clue that things were going to spiral out of control.  I just didn’t see it.  I had a change in my pain meds, and some other meds and I attributed my sleepiness to that.  What a fool I was, and this time it almost cost me my life.

     My daughter Sarah came home on Friday and immediately knew that something was very wrong.  I had been vomiting and she emptied my basin for me and told me I needed to get to the hospital.  I’m ashamed to say that all I could do was beg her not to wake up her dad and I do remember telling her that if I didn’t feel better the next day I would go.  It was extremely unfair of me to put that burden on her.  If I had died I can only imagine how she would blame herself.  When I see her this weekend I’m going to tell her that when I’m that sick she should ignore whatever I’m saying and just do what she thinks is the right thing.

     Rudy was getting an idea already that I was getting pretty sick, but I’ve become a master at hiding from him just how sick I am.  The rest of the story is based on what I remember, which is pretty sketchy and filled in by what Rudy, Sarah and the Doctors and Nurses at the hospital told me.

     It was now Saturday and I don’t remember if all of this took place before or after Sarah’s shift at Walgreens.  I remember that she was pretty mad at me for not going to the hospital like I promised her and for not letting Rudy know just how bad it had gotten, I didn’t realize how sick I really was.  It must have been late, he had fallen asleep on the couch and he tells me that something, he doesn’t know what, but we credit it to God woke him from a sound sleep telling him that he needed to check on me.  He said he could smell the acetone on my breath as soon as he opened the door and I remember him saying that I had to get to the hospital.  Even then I tried to argue with him that I wasn’t that sick.

     He said I was slurring my words and I looked like I was dying.  I heard him tell Sarah to call 911 for an ambulance, even then I thought he was overreacting.  I remember him dressing me before the ambulance got here and I remember him saying that if it didn’t get here in a minute he was going to put me in the truck and take me himself.  He picked me up and carried me out of the bedroom into the living room.  I remember seeing the ambulance pull up to our door and Rudy lifted me up and carried me to the gurney and walked me outside.

     Our town just within this past month went from strictly EMS service to advanced life support with paramedics, and what a blessing that was to me.  Rudy walking me outside is the last thing I remember before getting to the hospital. 

     I remember only a few minutes of the ER., and I’m ashamed of every one of them.  I was surrounded by doctors and nurses and it seemed they all had their hands on me at once cutting off my clothes and doing things to me, all without talking to me and I was extremely combative.  I remember trying to fight them all off of me and in my head I was thinking I just needed them to slow down and tell me what they were doing.  That’s the last thing I remember and the next thing I knew was that I was in a room and there was a cna in there and I asked where I was.  I was told in ICU and then I asked what hospital I was in.  I had no sense of time lost even though it was almost 3 days later.

     It was my husband who told me I was intubated in the ER.  Evidently my efforts to breathe was not moving oxygen.  I do know that my first day of awareness, I was hallucinating.  I don’t know if that was residual effects from the sedation drugs or not.  I kept hearing Rudy call my name when he wasn’t in the room.  I also remember thinking or knowing that I was hallucinating but not to tell anyone or I’d be heading to the “One flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” hospital.

     This is what I know now.  I’ve been sufferring from anxiety attacks ever since I’ve been home and I’m afraid to fall asleep when I’m here by myself.  I don’t know if you can get PTSD from a hospital stay, but I really do feel shell shocked.  The ER doctor told Rudy that had he waited another hour I would not be here.  I’m frightened,  and I don’t remember ever feeling quite so vulnerable as I do now.  I don’t know how to cope with this, it’s beyond me.