Hospitals…
Posted in Funny Stuff, Life on Sep 13th, 2007 No Comments »
you either love them or you hate them. I’m on the hate’n side right now *L* I’m actually writing this from my bed in room 910 bed B *L* I was feeling good on my last post then something happened. I got sick. Not the *cough cough* sick the *blek* sick. I starting throwing my guts up non-stop Thursday during math class. I ended up leaving after that class and missing my english and computer class completely. As I drove home I had to stop twice to throw up on the side of the road and as soon as I got home I erped again. Were not talking about an hour’s drive either. Were talking like 20 minutes hitting every red light in between. I felt freaking awful! So I figured I’d caught a virus or something, and climbed into bed and tried to sleep in between heaves. Can you tell I haven’t quite found a good word for puking yet? Heck is there one? *L* Anyways..Fast forward to Sunday evening (4 days later) I’m balled up in bed, feeling sicker than you know what, cramping in my entire body, shaking like I’m 90 years old whenever I try to walk, running 101.9 temps and hadn’t taken a shower for days. I also hadn’t kept a single thing down since the slice of bread with peanut butter I’d eaten right before I left for class on Thursday. Water, Gatorade, Jello - NOTHING. So Jay and Momma decided it was time for an E.R. visit. Momma stayed with the kids and we were off the the E.R. thinking they could get me re-hydrated and I’d be back home in a few hours. We couldn’t have been more wrong *L* They started taking my vitals and temp and asked if I was taking anything. I had started taking good old Zofran that I’d had. Zofran is an anti nausea they give to cancer patients going through chemo. It’s amazing stuff and works in a second. I got it because I got so insanely sick (Hyperemesis Gravarium is the technical term for it) while I was preggo and that was the only thing that worked and was safe for baby. We might as well of told that nurse I was on crack. She stood up with a stern look and said “and just where did YOU get Zofran?” *lmao* I woulda fell out laughing but I was to weak to move let alone laugh at that point. Jay explained the wheres and the whys but the whole time thinking “You see, we got it from some dude on the street corner…our first hit was free but after that we’d have to pay. You know anti nausea meds are a hot seller these days” *L* Again just our stupid sense of humor. Anyways where was I…Oh yeah they got me taken back pretty quick. Hooked me up to an IV and started loading me up. They were drawing blood, doing x-rays and wanting every sample known to man. I was actually kinda impressed. Previous visits (mainly for Jay’s kidney stones) had resulted in hours of waiting for someone with a less than give a crap if your in pain attitude to ask you how you feel and leave to never been seen again. These guys were on the ball. So tests started coming back and apparently I was very low on Potassium (I was at a 2.5). I think it’s something important now because when that test came back they started hooking me up to heart monitors and calling to have be admitted for the night. They told me I was hypokalemic and wanted to know why I’d waited so long to visit the E.R. So I was honest and told them “it was all about the Benjamins” *L*Hospitals are a darn racket. I refer to our hospital system as the medical mafia. I really thought I had food poisoning and would suffer it out a few days then get better and I was not about to pay someone $600 so they could tell me drink fluids and get some rest. I can do that at home for free. That wasn’t the case this time so I got to ride in an ambulance (transfered to a different hospital) and was admitted. Great - what fun right? HA - wrong. I got there at midnight and thought well I’ll get some rest. AH no…apparently it is a nurse’s job to ensure you never sleep *LOL* As soon as I would close my eyes someone new would come in, ask a series of questions, take some blood, add another I.V. bag and then tell me “hope you can get some sleep” and leave. I’d been asleep all of 2 whole hours when shift change happened. Another blessing *sarcasm* because the original nurse needs to explain everything that happened, what your taking, what your needs are ect. to the relieving nurse at your bedside. OK..fine. Now its 6am. I still feel like crap and sick but now I’m hooked up to a jillion bags of crap and I need to pee. I got up and tried to take this rolly I.V. machine thing with me but it was plugged in so I sat back down and paged the nurse. A few moments later I hear…
Nice friendly nurse voice - “nurses station - how can I help you?”
Me - “Uh yeah I need to go pee but I’m hooked up to this I.V. thing and it’s plugged in. Can someone come help me?”
Nice friendly nurse voice - “no problem I’ll let your nurse know”
5 minutes later still nobody. Now keep in mind I have by this point had 5 - 1000mL go through me, 1/2 way through my 6th - I HAD to pee. So I paged again.
Nice friendly nurse voice - “nurses station - how can I help you?”
Me - “uh yeah I really need to pee. Like right now. Can someone PLEASE come down here and unhook this so I can go”
Nice friendly nurse voice - “oh I’m sorry we’ll be there in a sec”
Great! My bladder is about to burst like a balloon and she forgot. So here comes my nurse “oh let me help you” and yanks the cord out of the wall wraps it on top of my bags and says “there you go - sorry about that”
I headed for the bathroom thinking “Now WTF? Why couldn’t they have told me I could just unplug the darn thing 8 minutes ago?!” so frustrating. I had some really nice genuinely good nurses but It sure seemed like it was one thing after another. Apparently when there is air in the line or your infusion (how do you like that word?*L*) is complete the machine beeps. A very LOUD and annoying beep, and keeps beeping until someone comes to push some buttons. I figured out how to do it myself by day 2 *proud* The hospital food was actually pretty decent. It wasn’t super cool that they were always trying to take my tray though *L* “are you done yet?” - “uh no you see, I’m still chewing” gosh that got old real quick. My roomie wasn’t to bad either. We were about the same age but she has Crohn’s disease and was also dehydrated bad like me. She got to leave earlier today and now my new roomie is a 90 year old woman who talks, whines - very loud and makes absolutely no sense. I think she was brought here to drive the nurse’s insane. OK let’s get this wrapped up and make this long story short. I know to late for that huh?! They gave me a CT scan and took a million blood tests and wanted to do a colonoscopy tomorrow but they still have no clue what was wrong. I willed myself better when I heard that *LOL* My body decided it had enough of this place and started fixing itself. I started feeling pretty good today. I’m not taking any medicine and I can eat again *woohoo* After 5 days in the hospital - I’m so glad I get to go home*L*
