12/24/22

 So, the noises in the hospital are so interesting. I have a neighbor that is watching old time movies, the guy coughing his brains out across the hall. The lady kitty corner to me having some sort of cardiac event. The lady down the hall coughing so aggressively I am not sure how she is still alive.

I slept with my mask on to say the least. The hot and moist collection of morning breath in my mask was reminiscent of the days spent with Ethan in icu. Not pleasant.

I requested a walker to get to the bathroom. The nurse insists on walking me there. This poor woman. She takes the brunt of my weight as I am bent over hobbling along. 

When I woke up, I still had no relief. I also asked for some sort of stool softener with oxycodone. I would assume this would be a proactive standard protocol with opioids, which sadly isn’t the case. I want to make sure it doesn’t become an issue for me. Luckily they added them to my list.

My MRI showed a severely herniated disc with other discs bulging. This is causing pressure on my sciatic nerve and causing the radiating stabbing pain.

My fluids were cold going in, so I tucked the line under my back so I could warm them up with body heat before entering. This will be my tip for anyone that gets iv fluids.  It works and is far more bearable.

Two of the ladies across the hall are here because they just stopped taking their medication. My public service announcement is, please take your prescribed medications as directed, especially if you are diabetic or in heart failure as was the case for these two women. These poor nurses having to say “you have to take your medication” to these grown adults is causing me to roll my eyes hard. 

These were likely the people ahead of me yesterday in the emergency room ahead of me.  They caused their own “emergency” and I had to wait longer because of it.

Then this interaction happened…..I was not the patient.

Nurse: “we need to discharge you in a wheel chair.”

Patient “I am going to walk.”

Nurse “you can’t walk without assistance.”

Patient “I am not walking alone, Jesus is walking beside me.”

How do you argue with that?

Later on, I heard this interaction: 

Patient 1” do you know Darlene? She died.”

Patient 2 “awwww she died? Ohhhhhh…..she was my best friend…..how did she die?”

Patient 1 “I don’t know they just buried her.”

Poor Darlene….her best friend had no idea she was dead nor did she attend the funeral. Did Darlene die because she was buried alive??????? Rip Darlene.

The morning passed with no visit from PT or ortho. 

I inquired and was told PT was coming. The second time was informed PT had already come and gone. What? 

A third time I inquired and PT showed up. He didn’t get very far as my pain is not controlled so sitting and standing were out of the option. He did a nerve press on my butt cheek with his elbow. It was painful but in a good way. He told me to replicate it with a tennis ball. I texted Paul to grab one of Penny’s balls and bring it. But not the chewed up busted ones, one that was intact.

I asked the nurse about when ortho was coming. He said “Monday”. Are you kidding me? My heart sank. I asked for the anti inflammatory as that worked best so far at offering relief. The nurse said “it was discontinued”. I asked “why”, wondering if my bloodwork indicated my kidney was suffering. He didn’t know.

I asked if I could talk to the doctor.

The doctor showed up with a little bit of an attitude.I asked her about the anti inflammatory and she said my kidney value had elevated so she discontinued it. I explained that I understood but wondered what they could do for pain in place of that since that gave me a little bit of relief. Her plan was to continue with the lidocaine patch (which wasn’t working) and oxycodone (which wasn’t working). Thanks lady! I can get better service at the vets office.

 I asked her when the ortho team was coming and what the nurse had said about Monday. She then said “well ortho is here but only for emergencies. They may not see you because your condition isn’t life threatening” I asked her if she could try to contact them and made a point to say, “ If we don’t ask, my chances of them coming is 0%. If we do ask, my chances of them coming jumps to 50%.” She seemed annoyed.  Paul was there and confirmed that she was in fact, snarky.

What did she want me to do? Continue with a treatment plan that wasn’t working? That’s ridiculous and I was not going to participate in it.

I asked her what the plan was. I asked if they did continuous rate infusions, what the plan was for managing pain was etc. she asked me if I wanted to try morphine. I told her I wanted to try something that could reduce my pain.

I was a bit frustrated at this point. That this woman just seemed to not be actively working on my case. 

The ortho team came shortly after that and did an exam. Paul was uncomfortable because they had to an “internal” exam to check some things. They said that I would have to seek outpatient treatment in the form of a treatment or surgery next week. They couldn’t offer any surgery or treatment options at the hospital except medicinal management. This was disappointing. I chose this hospital because it was a bigger, teaching hospital and hoped their neurology/ortho department could offer those things.

While all of this was going on, they hens across the hall were picking a fight with the nurse and accusing her of giving them “bad water” and said the nurse was “trying to kill me with nasty water” and “I want to walk out so she gets fired”. This woman complained for a good 40 minutes about the bad water and the dirty bathroom and the “evil” nurse.

This woman was pissed at the nurse because the nurse told her that she couldn’t have cranberry juice because her diabetes was uncontrolled (she stopped doing her injections) and her blood glucose was high. The lady felt this nurse was being evil. Paul and I were dying at this woman’s unrealistic temper tantrum….. on Christmas Eve!

My nurse gave me some IV morphine. That took the edge off and I was able to sit to eat for 2-3 minutes without excruciating pain. Finally! Progress. I had been eating lying flat, which eating salad like that is a bit messy.

Now I have to alternate morphine with Tylenol every 2 hours. I have also learned that they only give medications when they are requested. So now I set timers in my phone to alert the nurse when my medications are due.

When the time for Tylenol came, the nurse said it was discontinued. I had to alternate oxycodone and morphine. It seems that there keeps being a lack of communication. 

This was supposed to be our first year home as a family since 2019. Life had a different plan for us. That’s ok. We will deal with this mini crisis. It is not nearly as bad as other years, and that I am thankful for.

My bright side is everyone that reached out. Thank you to each and every person. I also do appreciate the staff at hospitals that put up with crazy patients like my neighbors across the hall.

Merry Christmas Eve🎄