Still here

It has been 10 nights going on 11 days and I still have not been able to go home.

The DR was supposed to release me Monday morning sometime. He wrote my release papers

where they said patient will be going home with (medical word for feeding tube.) But he forgot to write the orders for the feeding tube. So they could not send me home. Which turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

Monday was a good day. I was not sick at all and I honestly thought that I was getting better. I was nervous about going home and possibly getting sick again. Anyway, Monday night was not as nice. I started to get sick again and was in extreme pain. This was new to me as I hadn't been in pain before. I was just extremely sick. So the pain took me by complete surprise. When I explained it to my nurse she was surprised too. I tried to walk around to see if it was just gas, but that didn't seem to help anything.

Finally about 5 AM Tuesday I fell asleep for a little bit. The DR ordered an ultrasound to see what was causing the pain. The tech came up to see me which was nice. Although I wasn't overly thrilled at being woken up at 7 AM. When the tech left I was able to fall asleep again. It wasn't as peacefull. I would wake up on and off. I remember my mom arriving and sitting here for awhile. I also remember her saying she was going to get some lunch and be back shortly. The next time I woke up was when my nurse came in, probably around 1 PM, he told me he had some consent paperwork to sign before surgery. I was instantly awake and like wait what!!!!!!..... My brain was so shocked and I remember my mom saying she would be back shortly after all she had just gone to get lunch. I started crying, called my mom and I told her they wanted to take me back and do surgery within the next 15 mins. She told me to make them wait to take me down.

I called Brandon and told him I was going in for surgery, but when I started to look at the consent forms it was for a different patient. I was like well maybe they are mistaken then and its not me they want to do surgery on. Right as I finished that sentence the surgical nurse came in to take me down to pre-op. I told her she had to wait for my mom. Here I am 27, tears in my eyes, telling the nurse I want my mommy. I was so thrown by this surgery thing. I told her that my floor nurse gave me the wrong paperwork. So they had to redo the consent forms. Also my floor nurse told me they were just going to go in and look around at my gallbladder to see if that was the cause of my troubles. The surgical nurse kept telling me they were going in to remove my gallbladder. I was so confused and upset that when my mom showed up they let her go down to pre-op with me.

The surgical nurse also told my floor nurse to start an IV on me. My floor nurse wasn't able to do it so they called some other person in. He went for the veins in my arm (where the elbow creases) This vein imparticular had been poked 5 times prior and blown out 5 time prior. It looks like someone put it through the meat grinder. I tell this guy that he isn't going to be able to get anything, but I don't know any better and he tried anyway. Of course he had to do a little fishing in the vein to try and get anything out of it. Hurt like a son of a gun. He then tries to retract blood from it, but low and behold there was no blood coming from it. He then tried to flush it and it burned like a mother too. I was just like you have got to be kidding when he left it in taped it and said it was good to go. First thing I did when I saw the anesthesiologist was tell him my IV was very ify and he may want to redo it. He then tried to flush it and got a nice big bubble of water just above the vein. Again the dang floor nurse blew out the vein. The anesthesiologist was able to find a different one. He told me that if I hadn't let him know he would have noticed half way through drugging me that it wasn't working properly and could have caused major issues with me not being out and feeling the surgery. I wasn't very happy with the stupid floor nurses after that.

This is my poor arm right before they took the last IV out of it

Anyway, the DR went in found that my gallbladder was in very bad shape and needed to be removed. After 2 hours in surgery some time in recovery I was back in my room getting pain killers and feeling pretty good for the first time in awhile. I thought it kind of ironic that I was happier after surgery than for weeks prior. The DR is hoping that this takes care of the nausea and pain and I can eventually start eating regularly. Hopefully this is the end of the sickness and the beginning of my recovery. The DR is supposedly sending me home tomorrow morning sometime. I am ready to get out of here. Also I believe this means feeding tube for 1 more week not 2..... Here's to hoping. Oh yeah the lab techs now have to get blood out of my feet. There are officially no more veins in my hands and arms that will give them enough blood for their tests. I look like a druggie. I am just relieved that this mess seems like it is finally, finally, finally coming to an end and the sun is starting to come shine.

Me in my little gown with my feeding tube.. Looking lovely as ever ;)

Can't wait to be FREE

Last Sunday I was not feeling so well. I had to have my grandpa drive me to the emeregency room. I didn't think that it would be the start of a 9 day stay.

From the beginning:
Most of you know I had surgery April 12th. It was a pretty difficult surgery and I was having a hard time from the start. I ended up staying in the hospital that time longer than usual. I am supposed to be very carefull of what I ate afterwards. Believe me, I was very cautious. It wasn't worth the discomfort that being careless caused. For some reason though I never truly got well afterwards. I was constantly sick and couldn't figure out why. I tried to just get past it and live life the best I could.

Brandon and I had planned to go on a vacation. It wasn't the best timing since the surgery, but we weren't able to move his days off. So we went on our vacation which was totally fun with a few moments of misery. I was so sick some days that we weren't able to do much. I would throw up on an average of 5 times a day. The problem was I wasn't eating or drinking much of anything, because I was always feeling sick. I honestly thought that it could have been morning sickness if it weren't for the fact I just had a pregnancy test with the surgery. Anyway, more on the vacation later.

Half way through our vacation I just stopped eating completly. I would be able to keep some liquids down but not much. When we got home the vomitting increased to about 10 times a day and was getting worse. It was so miserable, it wasn't quick and simple it would choke me and was very violent. Finally my DR. figured it was time to do a scope to see if he could find anything. After the scope they did find an ulcer. The DR gave me medication for it and sent me home. Was supposed to go back in 10 days. The night after the scope I was so miserable and sick I couldn't even keep liquids down. I let it go on for a couple more days when Brandon finally told me I had to call the DR. or he would. I wasn't wanting to burden the DR. with anything it was Memorial Day Weekend. I figured it would just pass. I gave into Brandon though and called the DR Sunday morning and he instructed me to go to the Emergency Room.

While in emergency they ran tests did a CT Scan and gave me nausea medicine. After enough medicine I finally started to feel half way decent. The tests they ran on me concerned my DR enough that he decided to admit me to the floor. My potassium levels way low ( I have gotten a ton of potassium daily and it is still lower than they would like. I know have to take horse pills that have been broken up into fourths.) The DR also wanted to put me on a constant drip to help the ulcer. I was thinking that I could be going home shortly after that but later Sunday night I got sick again as usual and this time none of the medicine they were giving me helped. My poor veins were colapsing due to the potassium pumping through them. It went back and fourth like this for the first half of the week.

My DR has been completly baffled by what is going on. He figured it was coming from the ulcer, but they ran another CT Scan and that showed that the ulcer was getting better and I was still getting sicker. Wed he wanted to try to give me Tordal to see if that would help with the nausea. He also sent me down to get a tube down me since it had been over 2 weeks since I had eaten anything. The tube wasn't very fun and that first night one of the nurses clogged it. I ended up having to go in and get it done again. I finally decided if this one clogs or something happens there is absolutely NO way I would go through getting the tube in again. Anyway the tube feedings instantly made me sick along with being extremly tired of being in the hospital, throwing up... I was about at my witts end. I was miserable and adjittated I wanted to just die. I was so down that that is all I could think of. Just let it end. Being sick like that drains every ounce of fight/energy out of you. I was amazed I had anything left.

My DR still has no clue what is going on. They are trying everything they can. They put me on some antibiotics incase there was an infection somewhere. My temp was normal so they were just shooting in the dark. My mom told him how anxious I had been so he prescribed me Marinol. Between that and the Tordal I got some courage and tried to eat something. At first everything tasted so sweet but eventually I was able to keep it down. The Marinol was a lifesaver. All they told me about it was that it would calm me down, decrease my nausea and make me hungry. I didn't think much about it till the DR said that he prescribed the legal version of Pot. POT seriously... lol I just laughed. But I will tell you it helped. I still have moments of queesieness. I still get scared I will get sick again. I'm not happy about going home with the feeding tube. I have 2 weeks of the tube while at home, hopefully that will keep me well when I leave here.

I should be going home tomorrow the 9th day of being in here. It will be nice to sleep through the night without being woken for vitals or to be poked again by the lab people. I don't have any veins left. It got pretty close to them having to put it in my neck. Small miracles. So here's to hopeing that everything turns out well as soon as I go home.