Warning Ya'll Now, This Is Not Such A Happy Post
Well, Friday morning the plan was to start headin' on over to Texas and instead about two hours after I went to sleep my grandmother woke me up with
Which, of course, gets me awake in two seconds. She needed my aunt to take her to the ER but she wasn't answering the phone, apparently since I'm not 21 I'm not legally allowed to sign for anything if something were to happen so I needed my aunt in order to take her.
So we headed up to the ER which took a ridiculous thirty minutes and I checked her in. I wound up waiting alone in the waiting room for well over an hour since only one of us was allowed to go back when a friend text me wishing me well for our trip. Once I explained to her where I was she rushed up with breakfast, bless her, because it was too freakin' early and just not a good morning start. And honestly, waiting alone with no news? Seriously. Blows. My aunt came out a while later saying that they weren't really sure what was wrong, but they were scheduling her for a Cath at noon with her choice doctor (my grandmother works in the Cardiac Cath Lab there, she was the person to actually start it up so she knows all the doctors there)and hopefully they would be able to find out what was causing the chest pains-which she'd been having for a few weeks and was convinced it was something she'd had before and nothing to worry about. I'd nagged her about going to the doctor, and she'd gone at least once or twice but the echo showed nothing so she thought she was fine until Friday morning. Thank God she caught it before we were on the road. But that my grandmother couldn't be too bad off since she was back in the room with the doctor fussing over me. She was telling the doctor's that someone better go check on me because she wasn't sure I'd had breakfast that morning and things like that. She's ridiculous like that, but I love her. I laughed when my aunt told me that. She's having chest pains but she's worried about my eating something and not being left alone.
Anyway, so my aunt went back with my grandmother after a minor breakdown, while my friend drove me to the high school to pick up my sister and take care of family phone calls, things like that. I finally got to go into the Cath Recovery and Admissions room and spent a few hours with her (everything's two freaking hours off, I swear) so she didn't go in for another two hours past schedule. I stayed there for nearly thirteen hours, and the Cath took a lot longer than it should have which made us nervous.
Er, if you don't know anything about Cath's it stands for Catheterization and its basically, not really total surgery, but they make a small incision in the groin in order to check out the heart by inserting a catheter into an artery, when they're done they can either pinch the artery together and wait a few minutes for it to heal itself or stitch it up with a perclose and if needed they do stints and angioplasties and things like that. So a normal cath that doesn't require any of those things only takes thirty minutes. When about 2 1/2 hours passed (which generally means at least one stint is being put in because that can take like 3 hours) with no word, we got really worried. Turns out they did an FFR in one of the mains and with setup and everything they just ran over and the doctor then got called into another case so he hadn't been able to come see us.
This extremely long ass story short (er, not that it's really short NOW as it is) they made her stay in the hospital the past few days because they couldn't identify which vessel was causing problems. Three of the vessels have narrowed down to 40% (it takes 60% or more for them to place a stint), a few other smaller, more insignificant vessels that nothing can be done about had narrowed as well, and there was some calcifying of the plaque that had attached to its the vessel which was blocking the already narrowed vessel. One of the doctors speculated that parts of it had broken off and when trying to move past the narrowed passage it had caused the pain.
We finally got home this afternoon with a shitload of new medications and a strict diet to follow just to be on the safe side, even though her cholesterol is good and all that jazz. So I'm completely drained. I feel like I could sleep for a week. Like all that wasn't torture enough, I freaking hate hospitals and the last time I was there outside of visiting my grandmother or picking her up from work was to watch someone die, so not a good place, my mother then had to add to the drama (which is so not new), and my sister, too. I think I slept maybe nine hours or so the past three days, drifting in and out of chairs at the hospital and in between running errands. Thankfully one of my teachers was nice enough to give me until Wednesday to catch up before she starts marking things late and I haven't heard back from the other one. I wore myself down last night, which I'd already made myself sick that first day without eating because I was too preoccupied, so I had a pounding headache and my entire face was just on fire. I passed out somewhere around 1:30 or 2 and was up by 7:30 running around and shit so I could get back to the hospital.
Teh drama has ended for the most part, thank god. But I have to keep her away from cholesterol, sodium, stress and anything strenuous for the next few weeks when she's got two more doctor's appointments and then I'm finally forcing her to see teh Vascular surgeon because we are NOT going through this again. She may not want to live to 100, but that's too damn bad because as far as I'm concerned she doesn't have a say.
Er, okay, so I've rambled but it's been a stressful weekend with no one to talk to, and I'm letting it out not before I just make myself sicker. Sometimes being the strong one can seriously bite, but oh well. I'm just glad things are getting better and she's home where I can watch her 24/7 instead of during stupid ass visiting hours.
Um, besides that nothing much has happened. I've been pretty preoccupied with one subject. However my sister seriously pissed me off coming home at 2:30 in the morning last night when I have enough on my mind. I told my mom that was it and that she needed a curfew and voila, finally she's got it. Also something random, but hysterical to me, my mom got upset because I said that someone could spend the night (one of my sister's friends that I've pretty much adopted) without asking her and she left a voicemail after I hung up on her saying that she's the parent, blah, blah, blah and that if I want to act like she's my kid then I should take care of her, just move out and take care of her, etc. The hysterical part is that I DO take care of my sister and my mom is living with ME and my grandmother. I'm not living with my mother, she had to live with us because she's too irresponsible, incompetent and challenged when it comes to men to take care of herself or ever any of us. I've been taking care of myself and my sister my whole life, when my sister has a problem with anything, homework or otherwise it's me she comes to. I pick her up from school, I feed her, buy her clothes, drive her places, do her laundry and things that PARENTS do. So I've already met the requirement, thank you very much.
*takes deep breath* Okay, enough bitching. It's pointless. I'm just tired and not thinking straight. I've forgotten my meds the past two days as well and that's not helping much. Bah. I'm going to try and get some writing done and relax now that my grandmother's gone to bed and my sister's still out. Once she gets home at 1 I can go to bed. Nite!
<3
Which, of course, gets me awake in two seconds. She needed my aunt to take her to the ER but she wasn't answering the phone, apparently since I'm not 21 I'm not legally allowed to sign for anything if something were to happen so I needed my aunt in order to take her.
So we headed up to the ER which took a ridiculous thirty minutes and I checked her in. I wound up waiting alone in the waiting room for well over an hour since only one of us was allowed to go back when a friend text me wishing me well for our trip. Once I explained to her where I was she rushed up with breakfast, bless her, because it was too freakin' early and just not a good morning start. And honestly, waiting alone with no news? Seriously. Blows. My aunt came out a while later saying that they weren't really sure what was wrong, but they were scheduling her for a Cath at noon with her choice doctor (my grandmother works in the Cardiac Cath Lab there, she was the person to actually start it up so she knows all the doctors there)and hopefully they would be able to find out what was causing the chest pains-which she'd been having for a few weeks and was convinced it was something she'd had before and nothing to worry about. I'd nagged her about going to the doctor, and she'd gone at least once or twice but the echo showed nothing so she thought she was fine until Friday morning. Thank God she caught it before we were on the road. But that my grandmother couldn't be too bad off since she was back in the room with the doctor fussing over me. She was telling the doctor's that someone better go check on me because she wasn't sure I'd had breakfast that morning and things like that. She's ridiculous like that, but I love her. I laughed when my aunt told me that. She's having chest pains but she's worried about my eating something and not being left alone.
Anyway, so my aunt went back with my grandmother after a minor breakdown, while my friend drove me to the high school to pick up my sister and take care of family phone calls, things like that. I finally got to go into the Cath Recovery and Admissions room and spent a few hours with her (everything's two freaking hours off, I swear) so she didn't go in for another two hours past schedule. I stayed there for nearly thirteen hours, and the Cath took a lot longer than it should have which made us nervous.
Er, if you don't know anything about Cath's it stands for Catheterization and its basically, not really total surgery, but they make a small incision in the groin in order to check out the heart by inserting a catheter into an artery, when they're done they can either pinch the artery together and wait a few minutes for it to heal itself or stitch it up with a perclose and if needed they do stints and angioplasties and things like that. So a normal cath that doesn't require any of those things only takes thirty minutes. When about 2 1/2 hours passed (which generally means at least one stint is being put in because that can take like 3 hours) with no word, we got really worried. Turns out they did an FFR in one of the mains and with setup and everything they just ran over and the doctor then got called into another case so he hadn't been able to come see us.
This extremely long ass story short (er, not that it's really short NOW as it is) they made her stay in the hospital the past few days because they couldn't identify which vessel was causing problems. Three of the vessels have narrowed down to 40% (it takes 60% or more for them to place a stint), a few other smaller, more insignificant vessels that nothing can be done about had narrowed as well, and there was some calcifying of the plaque that had attached to its the vessel which was blocking the already narrowed vessel. One of the doctors speculated that parts of it had broken off and when trying to move past the narrowed passage it had caused the pain.
We finally got home this afternoon with a shitload of new medications and a strict diet to follow just to be on the safe side, even though her cholesterol is good and all that jazz. So I'm completely drained. I feel like I could sleep for a week. Like all that wasn't torture enough, I freaking hate hospitals and the last time I was there outside of visiting my grandmother or picking her up from work was to watch someone die, so not a good place, my mother then had to add to the drama (which is so not new), and my sister, too. I think I slept maybe nine hours or so the past three days, drifting in and out of chairs at the hospital and in between running errands. Thankfully one of my teachers was nice enough to give me until Wednesday to catch up before she starts marking things late and I haven't heard back from the other one. I wore myself down last night, which I'd already made myself sick that first day without eating because I was too preoccupied, so I had a pounding headache and my entire face was just on fire. I passed out somewhere around 1:30 or 2 and was up by 7:30 running around and shit so I could get back to the hospital.
Teh drama has ended for the most part, thank god. But I have to keep her away from cholesterol, sodium, stress and anything strenuous for the next few weeks when she's got two more doctor's appointments and then I'm finally forcing her to see teh Vascular surgeon because we are NOT going through this again. She may not want to live to 100, but that's too damn bad because as far as I'm concerned she doesn't have a say.
Er, okay, so I've rambled but it's been a stressful weekend with no one to talk to, and I'm letting it out not before I just make myself sicker. Sometimes being the strong one can seriously bite, but oh well. I'm just glad things are getting better and she's home where I can watch her 24/7 instead of during stupid ass visiting hours.
Um, besides that nothing much has happened. I've been pretty preoccupied with one subject. However my sister seriously pissed me off coming home at 2:30 in the morning last night when I have enough on my mind. I told my mom that was it and that she needed a curfew and voila, finally she's got it. Also something random, but hysterical to me, my mom got upset because I said that someone could spend the night (one of my sister's friends that I've pretty much adopted) without asking her and she left a voicemail after I hung up on her saying that she's the parent, blah, blah, blah and that if I want to act like she's my kid then I should take care of her, just move out and take care of her, etc. The hysterical part is that I DO take care of my sister and my mom is living with ME and my grandmother. I'm not living with my mother, she had to live with us because she's too irresponsible, incompetent and challenged when it comes to men to take care of herself or ever any of us. I've been taking care of myself and my sister my whole life, when my sister has a problem with anything, homework or otherwise it's me she comes to. I pick her up from school, I feed her, buy her clothes, drive her places, do her laundry and things that PARENTS do. So I've already met the requirement, thank you very much.
*takes deep breath* Okay, enough bitching. It's pointless. I'm just tired and not thinking straight. I've forgotten my meds the past two days as well and that's not helping much. Bah. I'm going to try and get some writing done and relax now that my grandmother's gone to bed and my sister's still out. Once she gets home at 1 I can go to bed. Nite!
<3