Hospital update.

[altxatu]

Today I got out of the hospital. I’ve been in since the 20 of July. I don’t even know what day today is. I’m so out of touch with reality right now. I have no idea what news happened other than the big stories on the TV news. Watching TV news makes me yearn for internet print media. It’s much more concise and I can find whatever I’m interested in. Plus I find it really disturbing that none of the news stations had much to say about Bolton being chosen for the UN behind congress’s back. In fact the news story was followed up by something so ridiculous I had to wonder if anyone is actually paying any attention. It makes me wonder how anyone can possibly think that there is a liberal bias in the media. If anything they fall over backwards to please the conservatives while trying to balance that with actually reporting the news, which is so terrible that no matter how you put it, it makes the conservatives look like dipshits. My English is equally terrible. Anyway my hospital odyssey. I when in and they immediately put me on pain killers, which god bless them for that. It hurt so damned bad. Almost as quickly they put me on some nausea medication. Which may or may not have helped. If it did I’d hate to see what would have happened if it didn’t. I was throwing up everything in sight. I tried to eat as much as I could but nothing would stay down. I was so dehydrated that I couldn’t stop drinking water by the gallon full but it wouldn’t stay put. It went on like this for a few days. Then the nausea seemed to back off a little as my stomach got slightly better thought the miracle of modern steroids. Yep folks, I’m a steroid using junkie now. And I will be for a good month or two. I don’t really like the effects its having on me (sudden changes in temperament is the only effect I notice so far) So I decided I was well enough to wonder around and I seemed ready to. So for a few days I wondered downstairs in the cafeteria and enjoyed life as much as I could. I still stayed in bed most of the day but I did a little exercise like walking around and going as fast as I could, and I did a lot of stretching so I wouldn’t get all bound up, which I think worked. I did most of that in the shower so my muscles would be warm and my movement wouldn’t be so limited. I learned along time ago that stretching when your cold isn’t good and you can really hurt yourself that way. So without having the energy to do some serious jumping jacks or anything of that nature I let the 110 degree (the water in the shower had a thermometer) wash over me and warm me up as much as it could. It isn’t ideal but it isn’t the worst either. So I though I was doing really well. That was the Saturday and Sunday, then Monday was the scheduled day of relase when I was admitted. Which was fine by me. I was ready to leave. Sometime between Sunday night and Monday I started to take a turn for the worse. I stopped walking around as much, I tried Monday and Tuesday to wonder around but it hurt more and more each day. By this time I had a PICC line in my arm because I wasn’t taking to the IV well, and the TPN needed deeper penetration into my veins than an IV could afford. Let me explain this; a PICC line is exactly like an IV in fact it looks like an IV except one important thing. It’s in one of the two main veins in your arm. Which means that you get minor surgery when its put in. The line itself is about 7 inches line and they dig the whole thing in your vein. The PICC nurse who did mine was very skilled and only had to cut a hole about a quarter inch around. Then they use clamps to hold open the wound and then manually find the vein inject the vein with painkiller and then they cut open the vein so they can stick in the PICC line. This gives whatever they happen to give me a more direct access to my bloodlines as opposed to the shallow veins that are used for IV’s. The TPN is basically calories in a bag. It contains everything you need to survive on a dietary level. Vitamins, mineral, starches. All of that stuff. It comes in a big ass bag, it’s white kinda milky and smells like shit. It is the worst smell I have ever smelled in my entire life. And I worked on a shrimp boat. But I didn’t mind it because I was losing weight, and fast. I went in at 198, then I was at 195, then 193. It wasn’t pretty. I haven’t been that small in a long time and I didn’t want to be that small now. The PICC line was a godsend, or so I thought. I got worse as the week continued. By now I had been in a week and had gotten overall, much worse. I couldn’t control the diarrhea or vomiting anymore. The cramps had spread beyond their base camp of my abdomen to each and every bone in my body. It was such a deep pain I don’t think any pain killer could have ever gotten to it. My bones left like they were rebelling and trying to rip themselves from my dying body in a desperate effort. They felt like they were splitting in half and cannibalizing everything. It hurt. And it got worse. I thought I was doing better. But lo! It was my imagination. And everyone else’s too. I had everyone fooled. I was prepared to be outta there by that weekend. Or so I thought. One good day will do that to you. Friday came. I relapsed. I didn’t mind it this time so much, I was beginning to lose hope of leaving anytime soon. I sat back and said to myself “take your time to heal but do it right the first time.” I seemed to start getting better. In fact my crohns was getting better. By that Monday I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. But I had noticed in my various states that the nurses hadn’t been doing a very good job. I looked at my notebook and apparently in my clearer moments (I don’t remember much of anything, I only knew you came or called if there was some physical evidence I could attach it to.) but I had written down nurses names and what they had down wrong or said that pissed me off for some reason. And not wanting to write my reasons were pretty good. And no I won’t tell anyone. I thought that it was just small things and I didn’t think much of it. But Monday I got sick, real sick. I had a high fever and the pain was unbelievable. My white blood count was through the roof, which meant that not only was my crohn’s back in full effect, but he brought his brothers, cousins, friends, and anyone else he could find to the party. But unknown to me or anyone else I was fighting off a serious staph infection. Which I had gotten because of the neglect of my nurse’s. They were supposed to clear the PICC line every shift (12 hours) but it hadn’t been down in three or four days. So it was clogged with TPN, saline, and all my medications, it had backed up and nothing would go down or in, or out. This gave a perfect opportunity for staph to grow, and it did. It took two days for me to fight it off, which I did. By then the PICC line had come out (It fell out when I was sleeping, I had gotten the tape all wet in the shower earlier that day and the tape wa the only thing holding it in, plus I remember scratching it in my sleep because it hurt like the dickens. I wonder if I didn’t pull it out myself) and I had to stop all IV’s. In fact I had to start taking antibiotics again, which wasn’t fun but my body handled it nicely this time. By Wednesday I was right as rain and ready to go. I was kept two extra days because of the staph infection thing, and the fact that the steroids and another medication I’m going to be taking reducing the overall white count in my blood. Which means I need to have blood drawn every week until otherwise stated. Oh well, it looks like I’m going to be a heroin addict for awhile longer. My arms are already bruised and have track marks. Meh, what’s a little more gonna do? SO I left today. I dropped my prescription off at the hospital prescription place and found out that they needed my insurance card. My parents being so loving and wonderful left for the beach on Thursday cause it is vacation time and they needed some time off. So I don’t have it. I called and called and called. They never answered and when they did, this is what I was told. “Tough luck, you’re gonna havfta wait until we get back. It sucks I know, but what are gonna do?” So here I am in the shadow of remission fresh out of the hospital with no medication whatsoever. No way to get medication, because the doctor won’t re-write the order. So I’m fucked. Hardcore. I’m looking for a hospital repeat here within this weekend. Oh and my car blew a tire sitting in my driveway for no reason what the fuck ever. And I have to pay bills with all that money I made in the hospital. Thanks for supporting your son guys. Give yourself a big round of applause. You really deserve it. Oh and I smell like smoke, and hospital, and that stuff that the nurses use to steralise their hands. Or at least I think so. I can defiantly smell the antibiotic stuff and the smoke. I think because that last few nights I felt well I hung around the lobby and talked to people, most of them were smokers and were puffing away outside. So my mind still associates all that stuff. I think that’s what it is, but it makes me paranoid. I hate smelling like smoke. Or at least thinking I smell like smoke.

On a brighter note, I had noted that having a healthy body seems to help in the recovery process and while I’m sick. So that means I am going to have to be even more serious about working out, and working hard when I do manual labor. I have to push myself close but not too far. It might suck some days as I remember it once did, but it will help in the long run.