From my ER visit of 6 hours, I'm taken up to the 4th floor, the “heart patient” unit because of my shortness of breath and lung pain...both of which have disappeared, since I'm in a controlled environment. I have all these sticky “pastie” things stuck to my chest, stomach, and other parts of my anatomy and these are connected to this little box, the size which is a bit larger than a card box. The biggest problem with this stupid thing is that the stickies don't always stay attached so the telemetry department calls the floor and sends someone in to check on the box...this was happening about every 2-3 hours, not much sleep for me!
The nurse in charge of my care when I came in,asked me about my meds and vitamins. Most of it was already in the computer from my last stay, so it was pretty easy, my just saying, “yes” except for vitamins. The last time I was in the hospital was for my knee surgery and the doc didn't want me taking anything that he didn't feel was necessary so I did update the area of vitamins, saying that I took 10,000 I.u. Of Vitamin D3 daily—which is 2 pills at home.
The next morning, the nurse comes in with my meds...and I find out that all they have it 1000 I.u. D3's. Yep, they brought me TEN vitamins! I refused, saying it just wasn't that important. Of course, the orders were never changed and every morning I would refuse those pills and the nurses thought it was pretty funny. The humor on it was lost on me after the third day and I will be checking my bill to see if I was charged for these, I'm sure I will be.
I was lucky enough to get the bed near the window on the 4th floor and could look out upon the woods that are around Good Sam. The hospital campus backs up into the woods and the view allows me to remember the world outside...and not to jump OUT of the window. But, then, there were the vampires...
The vampires are obviously the blood sucking lab techs who show up in the middle of the night(and are perky! WTF?!?!?!? It's 3:30 a.m. And I haven't been drinking!). On the second night, I had one wake me up at 3:30 a.m. And another wake me up less than an hour later! I tell her that I just had labs. She says, “Oh, yeah, I'm supposed to do your labs at 6 a.m., but I was already on this floor so I checked with the nurse to see if I could get this done.” I asked her, “How about checking with the patient?!?!?!? I'd like to get some sleep—there's a rumour that sleep actually helps in the healing process!” She laughed. I was hooked up to the IV so I couldn't punch her.
I now have at least 3 doctors on my case: the ortho, my GP and infectious diseases maybe looking in, depending on what happens with the knee. He won't be called in unless they have to do surgery which they won't decide until Labor Day. My knee is doing something sort of funny...when I came in, it was swollen and a red around the knee cap and knee...now that redness is spreading to the inside of my leg, but the outside of my knee is now back to its normal color. As the weekend progresses, so does this redness—but as it progresses to the inside of my leg, it does retreat from the knee area...very strange and it does have the doctors and nurses puzzled. The term, “MRSA” was mentioned, but more as an afterthought than the real deal. The cellulitus is not spreading down or up the leg or to any other part of my body. If it was MRSA, it would not be contained to one part of my body. I'm on 500 ML of vancomycin, twice a day—a very strong antibiotic, but after 2 days, it doesn't seem to be having the effect that the doctors wanted. So they order another antibiotic, cy{mumble}cyclin...I just call it kickasscyclin—I'm now getting that for a day or 2 to see how that effects my fevers and swollen knee.
I also meet nicer nurses. The one asked me what I wanted to be my goals and I told her I like to sleep through the night! And, with that, Dawn changed my program....I love Dawn...
I think that some of the antics in the hospital will do better if they are different posts because of the “issues”...the vampires love to talk over the patients, dietary could mess up a wet dream, why am I only paired with patients that are over 70?!?!?!?!?
More to come---------
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