** I had typed this in the Feb, but somehow it got saved as a draft. Enjoy!**
On the way to my room, I heard my name called and felt somebody kiss me on the cheek. I said "I can't open my eyes right now, but tell me who you are." It was my sweet friend Stella who I've known the entire time I've worked here. If you have to be in the hospital, it is at least to be around people who you know and who you know care about you.
Once I got to my room back in the ER, 2 nurses met me in there. Mary (how appropriate) and Angie. One of them said "Any friend of Valerie's is a friend of ours" and helped in every way they could. I simply could not lay still on the stretcher; somehow moving made the pain the tiniest bit better. Finally Angie told me that if I could stay still long enough, she'd start an IV and give me pain medicine. Music to my ears. I believe I even offered to let them cut both of my pinkies off if need be. I got a dose of pain and nausea medicine though my IV and it wasn't long before my pain went from a 10+ to around a 5. Half! Just like that. I felt like a new woman. Not great, but I was better able to catch my breath and relax a little bit.
Someone came and took me to have an ultrasound of my gallbladder. (Note: That was the weirdest part of the whole thing. Being carted around the hospital-- MY hospital-- on a stretcher. Just weird.) I honestly don't know if I went back to my room or went straight to have a CT scan done. If I'm being completely honest, I really don't remember which one I went to first. I do remember having the CT machine talking to me and it scaring me so much I jumped big enough to hit my hands on both sides of the scanner. I startle easy. One time the machine told me to breath again... and I'd dozed off. I yelled back to the tech (likely in a pretty sing songy voice) "Uh, yeah... I didn't hold my breath. Y'all need to do that again?" Oy.
Once I went back to my room in the ER, I had another dose of medicine. I think I napped some. I know I attempted to watch some TV, but it was the middle of Big Bang Theory and I didn't want to ruin it and I turned it off. I know I sent some texts to people, with one eye open and typing with one finger. It's really the only way I could see the letters enough to do it! Ha.
My friend Tara who was at the hospital having pre-operative labs drawn for her gallbladder removal the following Thursday came by to see me. (She's since told me that my state made her "so so sad" and that I looked "pitiful".) She ran into one of our doctor friends in the hallway who came to see me... and I hit him. He pushed on the most sore part of my abdomen to try to assess me and I slapped his hand away and told him to get off of me because that hurt. Nice. I think he left pretty soon after that. Ha. But seriously, I DO remember him telling Kristen and Tara to call him if they felt like I was getting the run around. He's a good guy.
Dr. Daniel came back in and told us the results. My US hadn't shown any gallstones and my CT was unremarkable. One of my liver enzymes was slightly elevated, but nothing major. She'd spoken with the doctor on call for my doctor and he wanted to get a surgeon on board. She said "So I've spoken with Dr. Stevens and ---"
Right there I interrupted her. You should know BHE had 2 Drs. Stevens. Well, a Greg and a Natalie. One w a V. One with the PH. One is (is my oh so humble opinion) waaaay better than the other. I cut off the doctor, sat straight up, snapped out of my spurious state long enough to ask "Greg or Natalie?? Greg or Natalie??" Once I was assured that it was the "good" doctor, I let her finish.
Basically I had 2 choices. I could stay and be admitted and have further testing (a HIDA scan) or go home and follow up with the surgeon later. Ahh. Music to my ears. HOME! I told her that yes yes yes I wanted to go home. She left the room to go get all of my discharge paperwork together.
Once she left the room, Kristen came over and sat on my stretcher. She looked at me and said, "Kim. I'm not going to try to tell you what to do because I know you don't like that and you're very independent, but I want to go on record and say I think it's a bad idea for you to go home. What are you going to do if the pain gets that bad again? I have to work tomorrow so I won't be able to bring you back to the ER."
I tried to say I didn't want to. I tried to plead my case. But she said "Sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do in order to get better." Sigh. I agreed. Though had I had all my faculties about her, I would have realized that no matter when she had to work she'd have taken me back to the ER. Crap. I was at my hospital. As a patient.
Monday, February 13, 2012
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Gally- B Part 2
Hopefully the computer won't work against me this time. I just want to remember some of these details for my own sake.
I think I left off last time that I had sent some texts to my nursey friends to see what they thought. It crossed my mind that I was awake for almost 24 hours and I didn't eat a whole lot so I wondered if maybe I had a build up of acid in my stomach. I decided to eat a little something. Big mistake. Huge. (Pretty Woman reference.) Once I ate half of a peanut butter sandwich, my pain got even worse. I learned back when I had my crazy allergic reaction to not stay home and tough it out and the pain was so terrible awful that I knew I'd have to go somewhere.
I called Kristen and asked her if she was busy and could she take me to the hospital. She said she's be there in 12-15 minutes. Y'all. I'm pretty sure that was THE longest minutes of my life. Of course it's 5pm at this point and traffic is terrible.
I feel like I've had to say this the last few months and maybe if I have to say it it's not really true, but I feel like I have a fairly high pain tolerance. This. Pain. Was. Awful. All I can think to describe it was this: you know when you are trying to get the last little bit of toothpaste out of the tube and you squeeze it up? That's what somebody was doing to the middle of me. I called my Momma and told her I was going to the ER ("Sounds like that's where you need to be. Keep us posted."). Mostly, and this is so sad for me to admit now, I laid on the floor in front of my door so I could see when Kristen would come. I'd get up occasionally to grab my insurance card, make sure I had my ID, get my cell phone charger, etc, but only for the count of 20 seconds. I figured I could tolerate the searing pain for that long. It seemed like the only way I could get remotely comfortable (which really wasn't comfortable at all) was on my hands and knees on the floor.
After what seemed like a week, Kristen pulled up. I remember taking the few things I had gathered and walking out of the house as she was getting out of her car and saying "Don't get out. Just drive.". And I proceeded to climb in the backseat of her car and rode on my hands and knees. Friends. Yes. You read that sentence right.
Again, it was 5pm Louisville/St. Matthews traffic so I felt like those few miles we were driving to Mexico. I couldn't catch my breath at this point, so my toes and fingers started to go numb. After spouting off the worst case scenarios (sometimes being a nurse isn't a good thing!), Kristen finally just told me to say the Lord's prayer to keep my mind focused on something else. (Aside-- I now know how much she was freaking out on the inside-- and I don't think me saying over and over "Be near me, Jesus" helped the freaking, but she was portrayed to me the epitome of calm.) That helped.
I remember telling her I would need her help to get inside the hospital because I didn't think I'd be able to walk in alone. I remember asking her what I was going to do if I had to wait to be seen for hours. Her reply was simple-- she'd get me a blanket to lay on the floor while she called every doctor friend we had to try to get us back quicker.
Finally, we were at the hospital. (I was sure we'd been in the car long enough to be in Mexico!) We pull up to the ER and she helps me inside. By the grace of God, the triage nurse was my very BFF from college. She took one look at me and said "Kim, oh my goodness what's wrong?" I could point and say "Pain" and that's about it. She put in a wheelchair, gave somebody orders to take my straight back to room 6 (I think) and called back to have a nurse meet me in the room. She knew my full name and my birthday so she even registered me-- I didn't even have to do that! I am so so thankful that she was there!
Keep in mind that at this point, I'm delirious from pain. I'm mildly delirious from being tired. In Part 3, we get to add in me being delirious from IV narcotics.
I think I left off last time that I had sent some texts to my nursey friends to see what they thought. It crossed my mind that I was awake for almost 24 hours and I didn't eat a whole lot so I wondered if maybe I had a build up of acid in my stomach. I decided to eat a little something. Big mistake. Huge. (Pretty Woman reference.) Once I ate half of a peanut butter sandwich, my pain got even worse. I learned back when I had my crazy allergic reaction to not stay home and tough it out and the pain was so terrible awful that I knew I'd have to go somewhere.
I called Kristen and asked her if she was busy and could she take me to the hospital. She said she's be there in 12-15 minutes. Y'all. I'm pretty sure that was THE longest minutes of my life. Of course it's 5pm at this point and traffic is terrible.
I feel like I've had to say this the last few months and maybe if I have to say it it's not really true, but I feel like I have a fairly high pain tolerance. This. Pain. Was. Awful. All I can think to describe it was this: you know when you are trying to get the last little bit of toothpaste out of the tube and you squeeze it up? That's what somebody was doing to the middle of me. I called my Momma and told her I was going to the ER ("Sounds like that's where you need to be. Keep us posted."). Mostly, and this is so sad for me to admit now, I laid on the floor in front of my door so I could see when Kristen would come. I'd get up occasionally to grab my insurance card, make sure I had my ID, get my cell phone charger, etc, but only for the count of 20 seconds. I figured I could tolerate the searing pain for that long. It seemed like the only way I could get remotely comfortable (which really wasn't comfortable at all) was on my hands and knees on the floor.
After what seemed like a week, Kristen pulled up. I remember taking the few things I had gathered and walking out of the house as she was getting out of her car and saying "Don't get out. Just drive.". And I proceeded to climb in the backseat of her car and rode on my hands and knees. Friends. Yes. You read that sentence right.
Again, it was 5pm Louisville/St. Matthews traffic so I felt like those few miles we were driving to Mexico. I couldn't catch my breath at this point, so my toes and fingers started to go numb. After spouting off the worst case scenarios (sometimes being a nurse isn't a good thing!), Kristen finally just told me to say the Lord's prayer to keep my mind focused on something else. (Aside-- I now know how much she was freaking out on the inside-- and I don't think me saying over and over "Be near me, Jesus" helped the freaking, but she was portrayed to me the epitome of calm.) That helped.
I remember telling her I would need her help to get inside the hospital because I didn't think I'd be able to walk in alone. I remember asking her what I was going to do if I had to wait to be seen for hours. Her reply was simple-- she'd get me a blanket to lay on the floor while she called every doctor friend we had to try to get us back quicker.
Finally, we were at the hospital. (I was sure we'd been in the car long enough to be in Mexico!) We pull up to the ER and she helps me inside. By the grace of God, the triage nurse was my very BFF from college. She took one look at me and said "Kim, oh my goodness what's wrong?" I could point and say "Pain" and that's about it. She put in a wheelchair, gave somebody orders to take my straight back to room 6 (I think) and called back to have a nurse meet me in the room. She knew my full name and my birthday so she even registered me-- I didn't even have to do that! I am so so thankful that she was there!
Keep in mind that at this point, I'm delirious from pain. I'm mildly delirious from being tired. In Part 3, we get to add in me being delirious from IV narcotics.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
