I find it difficult right now to write anything. Putting cogent thoughts together, or even messy ones, distresses.
Just plain exhaustion and an increasingly pervasive depression.
Today, infectious disease appointments -- to draw a vancomycin "trough" level, get PICC dressing changed, etc.
Tuesday, The Boutiqueur and the infectious disease infusion center.
Wednesday, the orthopods -- stitches out? Some sort of plan?
Thursday -- sleep.
Friday, Hawaiian-Shirted Neuro-Man, a supremely important appointment.
We are infusing every morning at 11 am, though we'd like to edge that more toward noon.
It's babyish, but my throat bothers me more than anything -- it represents air and life, I guess. On the way to the hospital last week, Fred and I pooh-poohed said sore throat. Then, after being tubed, both for surgery and for intensivists' amusement, it was horrible. I sound like a croaking toad. Fred checked it and saw white patches on the side that hurts -- the ID Guy, when I finally whined enough that he actually looked, said it was "an ulcer." Fred rechecked it, saw no ulcer, still saw white stuff. The Bette-Midler-Lookalike Hearsepitalist -- oh, did we clash -- flashed a light on the right side of my throat and chirped that she didn't see anything. I'm sure she didn't.
I asked for throat lozenges beginning on Tuesday evening. They were reordered twice. Never showed up. When The Fredster settled me in bed here in my beloved Marlinspike Hall, deep, deep in the Tête de Hergé, he ran by the grocery and picked up four flavors, all sugar-free. Some lowfat plain yogurt. Feline supplies.
The dead zone in my right lung is back, in spades. ["in spades"?] Technically, I have pneumonia. Thick yellow crap. You are welcome!
The Boutiqueur, from a distance of safety, opined over the phone that maybe what happened was an assault by mucus plug. All I know is that I have reexperienced the breathless terror twice at home when the I-cannot-swallow thing happened. He always tells me it is anxiety.
I don't think so. It doesn't happen when I am anxious, for one. For two, I am fairly insightful about my emotional life, cognizant of schtuff like anxiety.
Back away, back away from the volatile.
Would you believe that the only "washing up" that happened in the hospital happened with Fred's help on Wednesday night? That the bed sheets were never changed -- only a new top sheet whenever I managed to spill coffee on it. Cough. Patient care? What patient care? It was all meds, meds, meds. If Fred hadn't been there, my teeth would have grown brown fuzz.
Hey, maybe that was the idea. My brown-fuzzed teeth were at the center of a grand immunological experiment. I'm just saying.
I made an ICU nurse cry. And not from hurt, oh no. She wanted to KILL me. I kid you not. Is it my fault that she was the person who finally pushed me over the edge? She decided to invent information rather than say "don't know but will find out..." That happened a lot. I consider it lying and, at least, unhelpful to my recovery to be given misinformation. She lied about the echo results, about the monitored bed, about the phone, about my meds, about the palsy in my hand -- but above all? She ignored, and was pissed off by, my frequent frequent frequent requests that she stop-the-fuck touching my legs.
I don't do the 20 out of 10 pain scale crap. For the first time ever, in hospital, at least, I went to 10/10. It felt like every nerve fiber, muscle fiber, was twitching nonstop. My legs burned like dry old wood in a fresh flame. Yes, very Joan of Arc -- nod to Leonard Cohen (and Jennifer Warnes). No, I don't see my battle as kin to her fiery epic; Yes, I find the transcripts of her interrogations and trials fascinating reading.
So, anyway, it hurt like hell. My right foot and leg were caught up in horrible contractures. Every time someone decided to pat my knees, pass a cord or tube over my body, brush me with their humongous booby, it was like an electrical jolt that served to amplify the pain that had already been keeping me company.
I would say to This Weepy Nursey, "Please don't touch me..." This Weepy Nursey would snarl, "I know, I know, you don't like to be touched." Like to be touched? Hell, I LOVE being touched. Ah, but don't go down that road. Let her think I am just some effed-up eccentric.
They all had their ID cards hanging by lanyards around their tiny little easily-snapped necks. Bend over a patient's bed and these laminated thangs, they land on the patient. "But I didn't touch you. Gaawwwddd!" complained This Bitch of a Weepy Nurse. Leaving me to explain about ID cards, cords, tubes, boobies -- sounding like an insane person. Leaving This Bitch of a Weepy Nurse to roll her eyes, and do it again.
"But I BARELY touched you!"
So I had a meltdown. So I called her some sort of idiot in front of a colleague. So I maligned her knowledge base. She had it coming. "You don't have to talk to me like I am an idiot. Just explain it to me," said This Bitch of a Weepy [sobsob] Nurse. "Apparently, I do," was my response.
She actually brought me my standard dose of methadone as a response to the pain arc. When I told her something more immediate and short-acting was called for, she practically threw it at me and I could see "Effing Drug Addict" play across the marquee of her mind. I spared her a recitation of the half-life of methadone.
I take 15 mg of percocet for bad breakthrough pain. Two 7.5/325 tablets. And that's what the pain management service ordered for me in hospital. This Bitch of a Weepy [sobsob] Nurse, however, decided that since they only carried 5 mg tablets, that two 5 mg percocets was the equivalent order. Hellloooo? I tried pointing out that if we tried three 5 mg tablets, we'd be doin' good. But that's too much Tylenol, she countered. Damned if it doesn't come in immediate release form without ANY apap, and at the 15 mg dose, too...
Once out of ICU, there was no quibbling back-and-forth about it. People also had to be told "please don't touch; please ask/tell before touching" only twice or so, and then were kind enough to spread the word. The problem on the floor? Inexplicable! Big old white bandage on left shoulder... But still, fairly hefty "pats" on the shoulder. I never said anything, but felt my pupils explode and the smile on my face freeze into a death mask grimace... That hurt a heck of a lot less than the slightest touch to my arms or legs.
I've got to stop.
In case you don't see it, or get it, or feel it? I think there is PTSD lurking in me whenever stuff goes even slightly wrong in the hospital -- when things go majorly wrong? As Mr. T might opine: "I pity the fool."
It goes back to May 22, 2002.
The final thing that wants to leak out of my fingertips this morning, before trying to clean up this bloated corpse and set off to see the ID folk, is an accounting of how frustrating it is to explain to the student nurse in ICU that the ventilator had been turned off for a trial prior to extubation. "It's breathing for you, sweety!" she kept chirping. I wanted to scratch her face off. Finally, I put my hand on my chest, so that she could see its rise and fall versus the non-activity of the machine. "oh!" she said, and ran out of the room, ostensibly "to tell somebody." Thank God for Respiratory Therapists... I had been started on my "trial" a good 45 minutes earlier, unbeknownst to my caretakers.
See? That kind of thing doesn't matter. Best to forget it. Don't dwell on the negative. Make like a duck and let it roll off your back. Don't sweat the small stuff.
Have you ever had pneumonia, lousy O2 sats, and tried to breathe through a straw, all the while trying to positively impress the People in White with your... vivacity?
All right, next time? I will continue to exorcise my demons, particularly The Bette-Midler-Lookalike Hearsepitalist who tried to kill me with insulin.
I am so grateful for this space.
And I am sorry for making the nurse cry, for enraging her, for putting her down. I am sorry I told her that the ICU needed to do an inservice on CRPS/RSD. I was basically alone, and afraid, and in pain. And stuck back in 2002, when forces -- in the guise of Doctors and Nurses -- conspired to devastate me.
Someone, Anyone -- give me a week, and then kick me in the butt. Okay?
(O Lord, Hear my prayer! Let something treatable have grown in the lab, one of Your smaller creations that wants a more hospitable home.)
Just plain exhaustion and an increasingly pervasive depression.
Today, infectious disease appointments -- to draw a vancomycin "trough" level, get PICC dressing changed, etc.
Tuesday, The Boutiqueur and the infectious disease infusion center.
Wednesday, the orthopods -- stitches out? Some sort of plan?
Thursday -- sleep.
Friday, Hawaiian-Shirted Neuro-Man, a supremely important appointment.
We are infusing every morning at 11 am, though we'd like to edge that more toward noon.
It's babyish, but my throat bothers me more than anything -- it represents air and life, I guess. On the way to the hospital last week, Fred and I pooh-poohed said sore throat. Then, after being tubed, both for surgery and for intensivists' amusement, it was horrible. I sound like a croaking toad. Fred checked it and saw white patches on the side that hurts -- the ID Guy, when I finally whined enough that he actually looked, said it was "an ulcer." Fred rechecked it, saw no ulcer, still saw white stuff. The Bette-Midler-Lookalike Hearsepitalist -- oh, did we clash -- flashed a light on the right side of my throat and chirped that she didn't see anything. I'm sure she didn't.
I asked for throat lozenges beginning on Tuesday evening. They were reordered twice. Never showed up. When The Fredster settled me in bed here in my beloved Marlinspike Hall, deep, deep in the Tête de Hergé, he ran by the grocery and picked up four flavors, all sugar-free. Some lowfat plain yogurt. Feline supplies.
The dead zone in my right lung is back, in spades. ["in spades"?] Technically, I have pneumonia. Thick yellow crap. You are welcome!
The Boutiqueur, from a distance of safety, opined over the phone that maybe what happened was an assault by mucus plug. All I know is that I have reexperienced the breathless terror twice at home when the I-cannot-swallow thing happened. He always tells me it is anxiety.
I don't think so. It doesn't happen when I am anxious, for one. For two, I am fairly insightful about my emotional life, cognizant of schtuff like anxiety.
Back away, back away from the volatile.
Would you believe that the only "washing up" that happened in the hospital happened with Fred's help on Wednesday night? That the bed sheets were never changed -- only a new top sheet whenever I managed to spill coffee on it. Cough. Patient care? What patient care? It was all meds, meds, meds. If Fred hadn't been there, my teeth would have grown brown fuzz.
Hey, maybe that was the idea. My brown-fuzzed teeth were at the center of a grand immunological experiment. I'm just saying.
I made an ICU nurse cry. And not from hurt, oh no. She wanted to KILL me. I kid you not. Is it my fault that she was the person who finally pushed me over the edge? She decided to invent information rather than say "don't know but will find out..." That happened a lot. I consider it lying and, at least, unhelpful to my recovery to be given misinformation. She lied about the echo results, about the monitored bed, about the phone, about my meds, about the palsy in my hand -- but above all? She ignored, and was pissed off by, my frequent frequent frequent requests that she stop-the-fuck touching my legs.
I don't do the 20 out of 10 pain scale crap. For the first time ever, in hospital, at least, I went to 10/10. It felt like every nerve fiber, muscle fiber, was twitching nonstop. My legs burned like dry old wood in a fresh flame. Yes, very Joan of Arc -- nod to Leonard Cohen (and Jennifer Warnes). No, I don't see my battle as kin to her fiery epic; Yes, I find the transcripts of her interrogations and trials fascinating reading.
So, anyway, it hurt like hell. My right foot and leg were caught up in horrible contractures. Every time someone decided to pat my knees, pass a cord or tube over my body, brush me with their humongous booby, it was like an electrical jolt that served to amplify the pain that had already been keeping me company.
I would say to This Weepy Nursey, "Please don't touch me..." This Weepy Nursey would snarl, "I know, I know, you don't like to be touched." Like to be touched? Hell, I LOVE being touched. Ah, but don't go down that road. Let her think I am just some effed-up eccentric.
They all had their ID cards hanging by lanyards around their tiny little easily-snapped necks. Bend over a patient's bed and these laminated thangs, they land on the patient. "But I didn't touch you. Gaawwwddd!" complained This Bitch of a Weepy Nurse. Leaving me to explain about ID cards, cords, tubes, boobies -- sounding like an insane person. Leaving This Bitch of a Weepy Nurse to roll her eyes, and do it again.
"But I BARELY touched you!"
So I had a meltdown. So I called her some sort of idiot in front of a colleague. So I maligned her knowledge base. She had it coming. "You don't have to talk to me like I am an idiot. Just explain it to me," said This Bitch of a Weepy [sobsob] Nurse. "Apparently, I do," was my response.
She actually brought me my standard dose of methadone as a response to the pain arc. When I told her something more immediate and short-acting was called for, she practically threw it at me and I could see "Effing Drug Addict" play across the marquee of her mind. I spared her a recitation of the half-life of methadone.
I take 15 mg of percocet for bad breakthrough pain. Two 7.5/325 tablets. And that's what the pain management service ordered for me in hospital. This Bitch of a Weepy [sobsob] Nurse, however, decided that since they only carried 5 mg tablets, that two 5 mg percocets was the equivalent order. Hellloooo? I tried pointing out that if we tried three 5 mg tablets, we'd be doin' good. But that's too much Tylenol, she countered. Damned if it doesn't come in immediate release form without ANY apap, and at the 15 mg dose, too...
Once out of ICU, there was no quibbling back-and-forth about it. People also had to be told "please don't touch; please ask/tell before touching" only twice or so, and then were kind enough to spread the word. The problem on the floor? Inexplicable! Big old white bandage on left shoulder... But still, fairly hefty "pats" on the shoulder. I never said anything, but felt my pupils explode and the smile on my face freeze into a death mask grimace... That hurt a heck of a lot less than the slightest touch to my arms or legs.
I've got to stop.
In case you don't see it, or get it, or feel it? I think there is PTSD lurking in me whenever stuff goes even slightly wrong in the hospital -- when things go majorly wrong? As Mr. T might opine: "I pity the fool."
It goes back to May 22, 2002.
The final thing that wants to leak out of my fingertips this morning, before trying to clean up this bloated corpse and set off to see the ID folk, is an accounting of how frustrating it is to explain to the student nurse in ICU that the ventilator had been turned off for a trial prior to extubation. "It's breathing for you, sweety!" she kept chirping. I wanted to scratch her face off. Finally, I put my hand on my chest, so that she could see its rise and fall versus the non-activity of the machine. "oh!" she said, and ran out of the room, ostensibly "to tell somebody." Thank God for Respiratory Therapists... I had been started on my "trial" a good 45 minutes earlier, unbeknownst to my caretakers.
See? That kind of thing doesn't matter. Best to forget it. Don't dwell on the negative. Make like a duck and let it roll off your back. Don't sweat the small stuff.
Have you ever had pneumonia, lousy O2 sats, and tried to breathe through a straw, all the while trying to positively impress the People in White with your... vivacity?
All right, next time? I will continue to exorcise my demons, particularly The Bette-Midler-Lookalike Hearsepitalist who tried to kill me with insulin.
I am so grateful for this space.
And I am sorry for making the nurse cry, for enraging her, for putting her down. I am sorry I told her that the ICU needed to do an inservice on CRPS/RSD. I was basically alone, and afraid, and in pain. And stuck back in 2002, when forces -- in the guise of Doctors and Nurses -- conspired to devastate me.
Someone, Anyone -- give me a week, and then kick me in the butt. Okay?
(O Lord, Hear my prayer! Let something treatable have grown in the lab, one of Your smaller creations that wants a more hospitable home.)
"My bone clings to my skin and my flesh,
ReplyDeleteAnd I have escaped only by the skin of my teeth.'
--Job 19:20
Oh dear, this sounds far beyond the reach of the handy-dandy grabber-on-a-stick. May you have some peace and healing.