home again, home again
spent the night in the er. went to do the bandage change last night and... well, houston, we had a problem.
it was the full moon yesterday, so of course the er was full. my doctor, after i called her office and the answering service had her call me, said to put hydrogen peroxide on it, bandage it up really well, and come into her office tomorrow (which is now today). i said, um, i just filled three thick pads in less than ten minutes, i'm going to the er. she said, "if you feel like you should."
um, yes. please.
so anyways. it was full moon and the er at the SLOW hospital was packed. we got there a little after 12:30am. i finally got triage'd by 1:30ish, and then justin crashed. heather brought him home at my request. he'd literally spent 11 hours getting to & from, and dealing with work. he was exhausted and i could tell he was also about twenty minutes away from a panic attack. so she brought him home and put him to bed.
i still hadn't moved by the time heather came back, and neither had any other patient. someone requested to watch the michael jackson coverage on cnn. sigh. and i had been so successfully avoiding it. anyways. around 3ish (i think) they called me back into a room. at this point a nurse came in and told me to take off my hoodie (which provided convenient front-zip access, and was oh so warm) and made me put on a hospital robe... that opened in the back, and made access to the problem area impossible. we asked if it could be turned around. the nurse did thankfully realize this would be a better idea.
that nurse took more blood from me than i've ever given in my life. it felt like tons. she tried to put an iv in my right arm, and it blew. omg, it hurt. i cried a lot. i asked her for a few minutes to calm down before another stick, and she gladly obliged. the second stick went much better. so i sat there with an iv in my arm and not a damn thing hooked up to it. i got some morphine eventually. thank jaysus.
i finally saw a doctor around 6. he was AMAZING. he asked what was going on, asked if he could see the wound, let heather help in the moving of bandages out of the way so he could get a couple samples of the goop that was still leaking from me. he was just wonderful. by the time all of that happened, it was nearly 7, time for my surgeon to be entering the hospital. they paged her at least twice, if not more. she showed up by 8:30. i'm not going to go through the gory details, but her "little washing off" of my wound hurt like a motherfucker. i can't even imagine how it would have been if i hadn't gotten the morphine. i really wish that she would let someone stay to hold my hand, but she refuses. sigh.
on the plus side, my left breast doesn't hurt at all anymore, and it no longer is fire engine red... justin just said it's red like my face. i can handle that. oh, and can i mention how happy i am that the smell is gone? the smell is why we decided to go to the er. the stuff that poured out of my breast smelled like a truly horrible infection. yeah, a little hydrogen peroxide will clean that right up... sigh. when i told the er doc that my surgeon had said that, he said, "huh. well, i'm very glad you came in."
so, all bandaged up, with a cotton sports bra underneath the hospital-issued support bra. i feel much better. i slept soundly between 11am and 1pm, when we did a bandage change. nothing horrendous. justin called off work to stay home and help me with bandages and all that. and it just goes to show that i knew something was not right in there, and i'm glad i finally figured it out. a little sad it involved a minor explosion and a sleepness night in the er, but still, glad it was figured out.
it was the full moon yesterday, so of course the er was full. my doctor, after i called her office and the answering service had her call me, said to put hydrogen peroxide on it, bandage it up really well, and come into her office tomorrow (which is now today). i said, um, i just filled three thick pads in less than ten minutes, i'm going to the er. she said, "if you feel like you should."
um, yes. please.
so anyways. it was full moon and the er at the SLOW hospital was packed. we got there a little after 12:30am. i finally got triage'd by 1:30ish, and then justin crashed. heather brought him home at my request. he'd literally spent 11 hours getting to & from, and dealing with work. he was exhausted and i could tell he was also about twenty minutes away from a panic attack. so she brought him home and put him to bed.
i still hadn't moved by the time heather came back, and neither had any other patient. someone requested to watch the michael jackson coverage on cnn. sigh. and i had been so successfully avoiding it. anyways. around 3ish (i think) they called me back into a room. at this point a nurse came in and told me to take off my hoodie (which provided convenient front-zip access, and was oh so warm) and made me put on a hospital robe... that opened in the back, and made access to the problem area impossible. we asked if it could be turned around. the nurse did thankfully realize this would be a better idea.
that nurse took more blood from me than i've ever given in my life. it felt like tons. she tried to put an iv in my right arm, and it blew. omg, it hurt. i cried a lot. i asked her for a few minutes to calm down before another stick, and she gladly obliged. the second stick went much better. so i sat there with an iv in my arm and not a damn thing hooked up to it. i got some morphine eventually. thank jaysus.
i finally saw a doctor around 6. he was AMAZING. he asked what was going on, asked if he could see the wound, let heather help in the moving of bandages out of the way so he could get a couple samples of the goop that was still leaking from me. he was just wonderful. by the time all of that happened, it was nearly 7, time for my surgeon to be entering the hospital. they paged her at least twice, if not more. she showed up by 8:30. i'm not going to go through the gory details, but her "little washing off" of my wound hurt like a motherfucker. i can't even imagine how it would have been if i hadn't gotten the morphine. i really wish that she would let someone stay to hold my hand, but she refuses. sigh.
on the plus side, my left breast doesn't hurt at all anymore, and it no longer is fire engine red... justin just said it's red like my face. i can handle that. oh, and can i mention how happy i am that the smell is gone? the smell is why we decided to go to the er. the stuff that poured out of my breast smelled like a truly horrible infection. yeah, a little hydrogen peroxide will clean that right up... sigh. when i told the er doc that my surgeon had said that, he said, "huh. well, i'm very glad you came in."
so, all bandaged up, with a cotton sports bra underneath the hospital-issued support bra. i feel much better. i slept soundly between 11am and 1pm, when we did a bandage change. nothing horrendous. justin called off work to stay home and help me with bandages and all that. and it just goes to show that i knew something was not right in there, and i'm glad i finally figured it out. a little sad it involved a minor explosion and a sleepness night in the er, but still, glad it was figured out.