The leaky vein gets the i.v.

Morning has brooo-ken, like the first moooooorning. Alarm bells are riiiiinging soon after dawn. IV is beeeeping, nurses aren't coo-oooming. Roommate complain-ing, over and o'er.

I love retrofitting songs to my liking. Maybe a bit too much. :) Anyhoo....

My arms reject i.vs. I've touched on this fact before, but it never ceases to amaze me when the nursing staff seems surprised that I've been warning them that my veins are going bad and then they do. It seems like a novel concept, like I'm psychic and can predict it. Either that, or since I'm the current occupant of my body, I know when things feel off kilter sooner than their technology does.

Morning of day four started out like every other morning. Obnoxious blood draw at unholy hours, residents rounding before 7am, asking you the same questions the residents had asked day before (and prompting me to bite my tongue from replying 'read my chart for the answers and let me sleep, will ya?'), and the arrival of the ever present clear liquid assortment tray. I don't know what I can stomach less, though, the thought of more tepid apple juice having to be sucked down to prove that i could hold down liquids or my roommate chewing loudly, belly aching that her coffee wasn't hot enough, her french toast wasn't perfect enough, and her eggs tasted a bit overcooked. Hello, I'm not allowed to eat. Could you keep your complaining about your legitimately solid food to yourself?

Shortly thereafter, the nutritionist showed up and asked what and how much I had eaten for breakfast. I pointed to the mug of beef broth and said, "What do you think?" "Well, haven't they sent you any solid food?" "Nope, I haven't been approved for anything yet by the doctors." "Well, how do they expect you to go home if they don't know if you can keep down/process through solid foods?" "Beats me."

She leaves. Day four begins like normal, with Mom coming over from the hotel attached to the hospital and starting the day. I had a whole new staff during this day, with not one nurse I'd had before on the previous 3 days. My nurse came in, took one look at my arm and said, "Does it hurt? It's quite swollen and hot, and it looks like your i.v. is going bad." Had it not been her first day with me, I would have blinked and said DUH, but considering this was her first look at my arm, I acknowledged that my arm was indeed hurting and swollen to about double the size it should have been.  Jasmine (my nurse) decided to run the rest of the bag that I had on the line, and then change it afterward.  After that, she was going to take it out and put in a new iv, even knowing how difficult my veins are.  The swelling just wasn't going to get any better and we both knew it.

Because my veins tend to be....fragile...Jasmine went and got a hot pack and wrapped my arm in a towel to get the blood flowing. I had ivs in both arms, so though we were taking one out of the arm, it had to go back into the same one again. The amount of bruises and bad spots already were making it difficult, and they couldn't put it above the one they had just taken out, or it would have continued to pump fluid down in the already blown section of the vein.  So Jasmine manages to find a small but functional vein, takes out the old iv and runs a new one with a bit of difficulty, but at least it will give my already overtaxed vein a break.  She notices on my other arm that the iv that was there was also swollen and hot, and asks if I want to replace that one as well.  I told her no, since that was strictly for the pain bolus that I wasn't using, and that I was going to try to keep that one intact for as long as possible to prevent yet another iv being run.  Thankfully she understood, and just let me keep it for the time being. 

The day progressed without incident.  The roommate was yelling at the nurses and sleeping with her tv on as usual.  I went for two laps around the floor with my trusty walker, UGGS for stability, and much to the envy of the floor, did NOT flash the general public.  We had rigged up a system a few years back with my original surgery (thanks to Carrie) with my black watch plaid boxers over the catheter and up on my legs covering my bum so that I didn't have to try to balance with a walker, a gown open in the back and flashing, and another gown draped on my shoulders to attempt to keep me modest. It was a beautiful system that served me well as I trudged along the corridors and made fun of the decor.  I did notice when I stood up to do my walk that my bladder felt full and my catheter collection bag seemed empty, but pushed the thought aside for the time being, just proud of myself for progressing as quickly as I was.

Upon getting back to bed (ooooh, fresh sheets, and they don't smell and aren't covered in my hair [I shed like a dog in springtime after surgery]) I was visited by a resident, who informed me that there was no reason I had to still be on clear liquids, and that the next morning I'd be delivered a food tray with real ::gasp:: food on it! As happy as I was to hear it, I had to refrain from informing her that going from clear liquids to a 'normal' diet isn't the best thing for my intestines, and figured that I'd just order things that were a bit easier on my system. I laid back down and was in pain, something I hadn't really felt in about 24 hours. It wasn't just pain, though, but pressure too, and no amount of rearranging my body seemed to be making it better. DING! My bladder was killing me. Again, I had reached the point in the hospital stay where my catheter had stopped emptying my bladder, and it was all backed up inside of me. Considering all that had been cut, stretched, pulled, unbent, and rearranged inside of me, a full bladder putting pressure on it all surely didn't feel like a hug from the Snuggle bear. Rather, it felt like a little gnome was trying to poke his way out of my bladder with a dull butter knife.


I paged and the afternoon tech and nurse came in. I explained my pain, and that I've dealt with it before. They seemed a bit incredulous, until they started manually manipulating the tube and surprise! it filled the whole catheter collection bag right up. The one guy seemed fairly amazed that 1, my bladder could hold that much at one time and 2, the catheter really didn't seem to be working. He graciously told me that if it happened again, to just page him and let him know, and he'd be back down to empty my bladder again. The rest of the day finished without incident, mom went back to the hotel, and I got ready for what I hoped would be a good night's sleep.

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. Page #1 to nurses station that my i.v. was beeping and I needed a fluid change. This was around 2am, and the response time was slow. Page #2 about 10 minutes later, and I was assured that my night nurse (who I hadn't yet met) would be there to fix it in a jiffy. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. About 15 minutes after it began, my lovely roommate pages the nurses station screaming about how my i.v. won't let her sleep. After me having to deal with her tv at all hours of the night and morning, after all of her complaining about everything, she really had the nerve to call the nurses station and complain about me? In rushes my nurse, who speaks very little English, doesn't turn on the lights and just starts pressing random buttons.

Oh. My. Good. Gracious. Know the bad i.v. that was still in my left arm? The one that we were nursing? The one that was only for the pain bolus and nothing else? Well, the nurse blew my vein. Instead of stopping the beeping on my other i.v. like I was trying to tell him, he just kept repeating "you in pain?" and hit a big bolus of the pain meds. Have you ever bruised yourself? Like a good whack on the forehead or arm, and you instantly feel the pressure as the bruise expands? Add in severe pain into an already bruised vein and I literally felt it blow in my arm. I started yelling, he panicked, and I insisted on him getting someone else after he told me that he could run a new i.v.  There was no way, considering he couldn't even understand what he had done wrong, that I was going to trust him to to put a new i.v. in my arm.  He sent out an urgent page for an i.v. tech, and in the meantime stopped the rest of the bag from going in.

Know what the kicker was in all of this?  Roomie was complaining, very loudly, that the lights were on over my bed and they were disturbing her sleep.  UHHH.....REALLY?!?  If she hadn't have paged for the urgent attention of my nurse, he wouldn't have rushed in and pressed a bunch of wrong buttons and blown my vein.  And if he hadn't blown my vein then there wouldn't be an i.v. tech in there at whatever hour of the morning with the lights on running a new i.v.  So thanks, roomie.  And by the way, you have NO room to complain.  None.  So suck up the lights being on for a half hour since you're the one that caused it.

Rant over.  Stepping off of my soap box.  But you get the point.

Once the new i.v. was run, my nurse put his tail between his legs and slunk away, sending in assistants the rest of the night when my catheter needed to be drained, too afraid of me yelling at him again.  I can't say I was too happy to have the new i.v. in, as I hadn't been using the bolus of pain meds anyway, but considering it was the middle of the night they couldn't get orders to discontinue the line.  Eventually, catheter re-drained and new i.v. run, I passed out for a mere few hours until the residents came in to do their rounding.    

The Roommate from H-E-Double Hockey Sticks

End of day three, I was still in pain at this point, but at least it was being better controlled by the medications.  I had done my lap around the floor as I'd promised, and exhausted, got back into bed.  Mom was there, as she always is by my side when I'm hospitalized, and would help the nursing staff in whatever was needed with me to get me clean and comfortable. 

The nurses always offer to give me a sponge bath of sorts.  Having been through them at other hospitals, I know that they're not always as gentle and understanding as needed.  With Mom, I know that if I say "Stop, it hurts" she knows I'm serious.  She's gotten used to seeing my hairy arm pits and hairy legs after surgery, and I don't feel self conscious about it.  Yeah, I know nurses are used to seeing that sort of thing, and used to bathing patients, but with Mom I know I'll have exactly what I need without worry.  So bathed with clean sheets and exercised  for the day, I'm assisted back into bed.  The dinner tray had been brought. Again, clear liquids on the tray. I drank some juice, but I did not want the rest of what was offered, so I pushed the tray table off to the side, Mom turned off the lights, and I started dozing in and out of sleep.   

Mom had the tv on low so she could keep up with what was going on daily.  If you know me, you know I can sleep with full lights on, tv blaring, on a train in the middle of an accident, and would still not wake up.  Compound that with pain medications that cause drowsiness, and I'm down for the count as long as I can find a comfortable position.  Vitals were done yet again, waking me back out of my slumber, but I passed back out quickly.  Technically speaking, visitors have to be off the floor by 9pm, but since we were quiet and I was young, the nurses were generous in letting Mom stay in my room.  They had one of those chair thingies that pushes back into a sleeping surface of sorts.  I won't call it bed because that would be too nice.  But it was sufficient.  After sleeping in it for 3 nights in a row, I urged Mom to go to the hotel attached to the hospital to actually get a good night's sleep for once and reluctantly, she complied. 

My tv went off, and around 11pm I had one of my last vitals checks of the night and figured I was good for the time being.  I found a comfortable position at last.  Between the pillows provided by the hospital and the thick memory foam pillow thingie Mom brought for me I was able to squash, rearrange, and mash myself a little nest in the bed.  I also prefer sleeping almost vertically, so I put the head of the bed upright.  For some reason, it puts less pressure on my abdomen when needing to get in and out of the bed.  The nurses always urge me to lay down more flat, but I simply can't. So anyway...lights off, tv off, getting a few precious moments of shut eye when...

Am I dreaming?  Am I back in the OR?  Why is it so bright all of the sudden?  I open my eyes, look at the clock which reads 1am, and realize my roommate has turned on all the lights to her half of the room and turned her tv on full blast.  Apparently she couldn't sleep and decided to entertain herself at my sleeping expense.  Had there been a bedpan within reach, so help me, I would have launched it at her.  Even in my weakened state, I'm sure I could have at the very least gotten her attention with it.  But not wanting to make waves, I rolled over, tuned it out, and went back to sleep.  When the nurses came in mid eve to do vitals, they had her turn it all off, so I felt vindicated.  Wham!  Lights on again.  It was the 2am blood draw.  They turned all the lights on in the room to do hers!  But when it came to doing my veins, they shut her lights off so that she could relax.  Really?!?  With the selective and split lighting system in the hospital rooms, there is no reason they couldn't have done that with me too, but apparently she asked that the lights be turned fully on to make sure they could see.  Ugh.  Arm pricked, blood drawn, I pass out again.   That is, until she turned it all back on again. At 330am.  I'm not prone to violence (well, sometimes when drivers don't use their turn signals I yell) but I wanted to take my i.v. over and jab it in her arm so that my pain meds would make HER drowsy.  What gave her the right to ruin my precious moments of sleep?  Again, the nurses turned her set off when they realized it was on. 

Was I really going to have to graciously put up with her for the rest of my duration?  When sleep is a precious enough commodity, and is so instrumental in healing, could I afford to have her blaring the tv during what were normal slumber hours?  Truly, in my 20 years of being in and out of the hospitals, she was the real roommate from H-E-Double Hockey Sticks.  Yes, the roommate from hell.  And if you think that label isn't justified just from turning the tv and lights on, I promise you, she only gets worse. 

Like the beach, only worse

Eyes fluttered open.  Pain.  Which means I'm alive.  But I'm in pain and immobile and flat on my back.  I lay there in recovery, not moving, waiting for a nurse to come over.  She asks me what my pain level is, and I tell her it's a 9.  She says that's too high and I have to wait for it to come down.  Eyes close again.

I wake, not sure how much longer later.  I notice I have not one but two i.v.s, one in my right hand and one on my left arm.  The nurse stops by again, asks my pain level.  I again, tell her it's a 9.  She again tells me it's too high, though she informs me that my hair looks amazing.  I'm not kidding.  She tells me that it looks like I could walk out and go to a club, and that hair never looks that good post op.  Not caring, I pass back out.

When I wake the third time, I again get seen by the nurse.  I ask how soon I can get out of recovery and up to my room to see my family, and she says, "..when your pain level decreases," at which point she asks it.  I tell her it's a 6 (it was still a 9) just so I could get transferred up to a room.  She calls for transport, and I'm on the move.

As I get wheeled on my bed into the elevator, I notice we are headed to the fifth floor.  Normally I've been on the second floor when I've had surgery with Dr. Lee, and I'm not quite sure why we're headed that much further up.  Once on the floor, I'm wheeled into a room much like Surgical Step Down at Vassar, with a nurses station in the center, 24 hour care, and 5 or 6 bed slots.  As I'm being wheeled in the door, I feel my catheter bag get caught on the door, so I let out a bit of a yelp.  The guy wheeling me asks what's going on, and I told him, and he rearranges my bed and tells me not to worry, that it wouldn't really have pulled out.  Easy for him to say, he didn't feel the tug of the line as it got caught on the door frame.  But I got placed into slot 4, and soon thereafter, in walk Mom, Dad, Aunt Donna, and Joe.  What a welcome sight.

All ask how I'm doing, and are happy to see I've come out of it okay.  I ask where I am, and I'm told by my nurse Rich that I'm in the spinal trauma unit.  Normally if I was on a different pain medication, I'd be on a different floor, but since they had me on ketamine and phentanol, the ketamine had to have continuous monitoring for the first 24 hours that it's being put into my veins.  My 'neighbor' in bed slot #5 is Amish.  His parents came in from Michigan because of his spinal injury.  He was a new father, and his wife was there with their 2 week old baby.  Apparently, his horse acted up and he ended up having an accident and broke the tendons/ligaments in his neck, and if I remember correctly, he broke his back as well, so again, when everyone thinks I've gone through the ringer, remember him in prayer.  He's looking at a 6 month recovery with a brand new baby and young wife.  He'll have some obstacle to overcome.  His family took him home after only 48 hours because his mom said he'd recover better at home, and I have no doubt she's correct.

So Mom tells me my surgery went well.  It was shorter than anticipated because, well, it ended up being a different surgery than originally anticipated.  Dr. Polynice had drawn a diagram thingie to show Mom and Dad what happened instead of what was planned.  Originally, I was supposed to have the gracilis muscle taken from my thigh, but when Dr. Lee opened me up, they solved the answer to one of the problems I've been having.  Wait for it, wait for it.....my uterus had tipped over!!!!!  Yes, that is worthy of five exclamation points.  Apparently, where my large intestine used to be was a large empty void (kind of like my head on most nights) and my uterus decided to be lazy and take a nice long nap.  It laid down in the hole where my intestine used to be and was kinda stuck to the pelvic floor next to the sinus tract that needed to be removed.  When Dr. Polynice saw this, he realized it needed to be propped back up, and my gracilis muscles weren't going to be sufficient enough to do it, so they took one of my abdominal muscles instead.  Everyone has two rectus abdominus muscles, better known as the 6 pack muscles.  The left one of mine (the side under my heart) helps to support my stoma, so they detached the right hand one at the top and flipped it upside down, threading it behind my uterus, and eventually stuffing it down into the sinus tract area of the rectal spot that wasn't healing.  Technically, they killed two birds with one stone, or rather, filled two holes with one muscle.  Dr. Polynice filled the now missing muscle space on the right side of my abdomen with some sterilized pork tissue stuff.  Does this mean when I sweat I'll smell like bacon?  Boy, that'll get me a husband in no time!  And the further good news in all of this?  My value for black market spare body parts has decreased that much more. 

Okay, so back to post op.  Within five minutes of being in the room and getting settled, they bring in a new bed, but it's not just any bed.  Oh no, it's some special fancy schmancy bed that all of the nursing staff seems to be in envy over for me.  Apparently, the bed is called a cavillon or something like that, and it's filled with sand and is hard as a rock, but the minute they plug it in, it becomes like a sandstorm under your body, 'gently cradling it and promoting healing.'  They told me it's like experiencing a water bed.  I protested being transferred, but they insisted and before too many more minutes had passed, a moving crew had passed me from my air bed into this sand bed.  I was in too much pain to notice, but soon I'd find out.  The bed was like the beach, only worse....

I've been such a Casper

Wow.  Did I just say that?  And why did it sound like something out of 'Clueless'? 

I've been very absent recently.  Life has taken a beyond hectic turn since right before the dash.  Many of you (I say that as if I have an abundance of followers, when I know that isn't the case) have wondered if I survived the dash, and if so, how did I do.  I shall henceforth update.

Because I'm writing this, it does indeed confirm that I survived the dash but man, was it hard.  Mind you, Rich and I trained a whole lot more than I did last year.  When I talked Rich into doing it with me, I explained everything that went on last year.  What I didn't realize is they'd take last year's event, which I thought was tough, and make it that much harder.  This year's dash was less like last year's and more like a mini Tough Mudder, and I wasn't the only one who thought so. 

I ended up in a pack of guys who also ran last year's, and we were commiserating about the increase in difficulty level from 2010 to 2011.  The organizers of the dash thought it would be so much fun to go even higher on the ski slope this year.  And the obstacles from last year?  Yeah.  They would have been child's play this year.  They took the tire run/high knees thing like football players do, and threw in a few rows of junked cars and large trucks to hurdle over in between the 4 rows of tires.  And the 4' high walls from last year?  This year, they were a bit higher and you had to palm over them with upper body strength and then duck under barbed wire walls, about 4 rows of them.  The swamp trudge was complicated by massive logs strung on tension through the middle that you had to hurdle over.  There was this teeter totter thingie that was about 15 feet up in the air that you had to go up and then partway down and back up and then fully down, and it had little rungs on it.  The problem is that it was only about a 2x6x12 so it wasn't that wide and from the height it was a little daunting if you fell off onto the rocky terrain.  Hmmm.  What else.  Oh, the cargo nets took some crack cocaine and beefed up, they made a horizontal one you had to scramble over which was difficult.  There was a forest of tires that swung and hit hard when the person ahead of you pushed them out of the way and you got them on the back swing.  And the worst part?  Instead of going up the ski slope, across a tad, and then back down, they started the down, and went back up, and then down, and then back up and then down, and then back up and then down, and just for fun back up before the final down.  My legs tried to detach themselves and hop the ski lift down at one point.  There were a few more crazy things that aren't popping into memory right now, but needless to say it was hard.

In spite of the changes to the course and the much more difficult obstacles I finished in: 55:16!!!!!  I knocked a full 6 minutes off my time from last year.  I couldn't have been any happier.  I swore it took me an hour and a half, but when Mom and Dad said I came in at under an hour, and then my shoe tag confirmed it, I was amazed.  Rich came in about 3 minutes ahead of me which was the exact same pace/distance we kept during our training, so it definitely paid off. 

We were muddy, tired, sweaty, slightly out of breath, but overall happy.  And like the crazies we are, we're signing up for next year again.  Actually, I already did and Rich is doing it soon.  It's going to be my incentive/inspiration for a speedy healing.  Our goal in 2012?  To knock another 5 minutes off of our times.  And if I REALLY heal up, we're going to try for Tough Mudder in November 2012 too.  I think Rich caught the adrenalin junkie bug too :) 

If you want to view pics (though this year's photography company SUCKED) go to http://www.sportphoto.com/ look for the warrior dash series.  Click on the 2011 Windham WD Saturday August 13
When prompted to enter bib number, put in 80604.  They keep threatening to archive the pics, so if you want to see them, look before Sept 23. 

I'll post a 'rest of August/pre surgery update' hopefully tomorrow.  Love to all and thanks for the well wishes. 

Hugs,

B

in the illustrious words of Monty Python...

And now for something completely different. 

I blog for family, friends, and self.  It's not necessarily therapy for me, but I've been hoping over the year I've been doing it that it wasn't just people I knew who had been reading it and upping my visitor count.  I've hoped that someone would find my blog who might be inspired, uplifted, encouraged, able to be helped in any way.  How excited was I that I got an email the other night from a gentleman who stumbled upon it through google searching. 

People ask me frequently if I ever blame or question God for what has happened to me over the years.  They say I have a right to be upset, and wonder why it isn't time for someone else to deal with an issue and for me to have a break.  For everyone who has questioned, I always reply the same.  If God can use me as a witness to anyone, so be it, and that I'm sure there is someone out there who is worse off than I.  And for all who think what I've been through is a lot, the man who contacted me puts me to shame.  I won't disclose personal details, but it's pretty remarkable that he is alive to even speak with me regarding his case. 

Basically, he was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis in 2010, they tried every form of medication, and within a month he was in surgery.  They created a J pouch (common for Ulcerative Colitis), it went bad, and there were complications.  He had 4 major surgeries within a few weeks, including 3 in 3 days, went septic, went hemmoragic, ended up needing 30 pints of blood transfused, had a lung collapse, ended up on dialysis, and somehow managed to stay alive.  But through it all he managed to keep his strength and faith in the Lord.  Here is someone, wife, 5 sons, who could easily question God, blame God, get angry at God for the burden to himself, his family, his church, but instead found the blessing through it all.  His testimony astounds me and makes me feel remorseful for every time I've felt even the slightest bit sorry for myself.   

Why did he contact me, you might ask?  Well, come to find out he's not healing either from his last surgery, and will be undergoing the same surgery I will but a bit later on.  He too will be getting the gracilis cut out and stuffed in places unmentionable.  He too will have the worry and wonder of whether this one will be the one to work, or whether he'll be looking at more surgery down the road.  As nice as it is sometimes to know I'm not the only one going through it is as sad as it makes me to hear he is facing the exact same thing.  I would never wish this on my worst enemy, let alone a loving husband and father of five. 

I will be going through surgery before he, and hopefully will be able to give him pointers on the recovery, and be able to encourage his spirit and lift him up in prayer.  Afterall, who knows better than someone who has just gone through it? 

So every time you think of me, think of him too.  Think of how far he has come, and yet how far he still has to go.  Think of what he has to lose and how he still has chosen not to.  And though things in your life might not seem great at times, remember there is always, ALWAYS someone worse off than you are.  Life will work out.  Things will turn around and look up.  Just trust in the power of the Lord and put your faith and hope in him. 

Much love always,

B