Dates: May 9-17.
After spending Thursday night fighting cold and flu symptoms, Friday morning had me dealing with pain...in a major way. None of the trifecta of painkillers, (Oxycodone, Vicodin and Dilaudid) could help me, even when I majorly dosed up on the trifecta. This means that the pain was so out of control that even after taking enough meds to down a horse, I was still up and wracked in pain.
Norio took me to Urgent care and I was taken straight to the back. They looked in my chart and gave me IV Dilaudid, which didn't help. It took forever (like 4 tries) to get an IV ...they even looked on my feet, but finally they got one in my thumb. I was dehydrated, zonked out and still in pain. They transferred me to the hospital and that's where the fun stuff begins.
I was in the Progressive Care Unit for some reason, because the docs felt that my breathing wasn't on par due to the high level of pain meds I was on. On Saturday evening, Norio got a call from the docs saying that they would have to intubate me to protect my airway. Talk about something out of an episode of HOUSE.
Next thing you know, I wake up Sunday morning on the ventilator, struggling trying not to pull the damn thing out of my mouth. It was awful, it felt like a giant cactus shoved into your chest all the way down to your stomach and the machine was forcing me to breathe. The docs came to me and told me that my choices was to either stay on the vent and get sufficient pain meds, or get off it and be in some pain. They didn't want to OD me. I was like, TAKE THAT SHIT OUT RIGHT NOW! A few hours later to my relief they did. Sometime during that stint someone had stuck a PICC line in my arm (thank goodness!), which was there for the rest of the admission.
I think I was in the ICU for a few more days for observation and then I got moved to a regular med surg unit. I didn't really remember much until Tuesday when my sister flew into town to take care of me and make sure I wasn't getting kilt. (I love my family!) She stayed the whole week and is just leaving tomorrow...I'm going to miss her. She was at my bedside almost 24/7 and we talked alot, when I wasn't sleeping (which wasn't often!)
There were some more issues with pain control through the rest of the admission but by Saturday I was ready to get the hell out of there. I was sick of the vital signs, constant supervision and inability to do anything by myself. And I was sick and tired of the nurses as nice as they were and the crappy ass food. It's good to be home!
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3 comments:
Glad you're out of the hospital! Man that was not a good 9 days!
At least you didn't end up on the vent because of acute chest syndrome but rather from respiratory depression secondary to narcotics. Being a nurse I have to look at the bright side of even a bad situation. :)
Yes you did take a lovely picture even being tubed.
I hope you get some good rest before you jump back into the fray at work.
Try to stay away from Mr. Streptococcus in the future.
Wow, what a horrible experience! In a previous blog entry you mentioned you started taking Nicosan. I would probably guess you didn't tell your doctor this as it is not approved for sale here, but do you still intend to take it? Anyway, it's amazing how you are still able to have such a positive attitude after something like this - you should give seminars! =)
I'm glad you're getting back on your feet. My daughter recently had a crisis as well. two weeks before finals. She was in the hospital for a week.
I so pray for a cure to this monstrous disease
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