MHE 2

When we last left our hero it was going on the night of his first day in the hospital, he was tired having been up since 6:30AM to get to his appointment at VLCC early, so he could get to his PCP’s office at 8:30AM. And we know how that worked out, don’t we?

By this time I had hooked up the computer and was on line via an unsecured WiFi link. Because it was unsecured and the hospital could read everything I wrote, I didn’t visit my blog but contented to play at some other sites. In retrospect, I could have logged my impressions to a Word document for later posting, but that would have required thinking.

It took me so long to get online because the only outlets available were on the bed, and Nurse A. didn’t know if they could be used. She put in a call to the computer area, but they never got back to the customer, I mean the patient, with an answer. The nurse on nights had no issues with using the bed outlets and plugged me right in!

So there I was, trying to sleep and couldn’t! Nothing I tried would let me sleep without chemical intervention. And no chemicals were forthcoming.

Morning came and I was still trying to get some sleep. Nurse Lisa came in to get some blood and needed another nurse to have my port accessed. I told her that I’d been up all night. The night nurse—I wish I could remember her name, she was a cutie—confirmed my story. She told Nurse Lisa that every time she came in to check on me my eyes were open!

Dr. M—the new pulmonary guy, it was his third day there—came in later, talked with me, and said he’d order some Ambien for me for later in the morning. It never came!

So Day 2, Thursday, consisted of getting a chest X-ray looking for the source of my cough.

It was fun talking to the volunteers taking me to the X-ray department. I told them that I was the only member of the world’s smallest minority. That got them interested! So I explained that, as an individual I was the only one exactly like me. Then they laughed when I explained that they too were the only members of the world’s smallest minority of people exactly like them. I had them laughing, nodding, and agreeing with me in short order. It was fun! Made my sleepless day go easier.

Not much else happened that day that I remember. I kept the lights low and tried to sleep, but sleep never came. It was only when I was playing my music down low and attempting to sleep that I noticed that I might, just might, have dozed for a minute or two. Never for very long, I just missed hearing the entire song a couple of times.

Night came and I got my sleeping pill. Blissful sleep! I had them close the door so the hall noise wouldn’t disturb me, but it wasn’t necessary. I slept until they awakened me to do vitals and I went right back to sleep.

I had been awake, or almost so, for 39 hours!!!!!! The nurses were amazed that I was still functioning, and functioning as well as I was! 39 freakin’ hours because they didn’t pay attention to my personal meds.

Did I mention that I didn’t get all of my blood pressure meds? They were driving me nuts, not giving my meds on time, not giving me the meds I would have been taking at home—they gave me Prilosec instead of Protonix, so why do I need the more expensive med at home?—and not giving me my supplements, obviously!

Let me take a moment to describe how they had me trussed up. I had had my port accessed and fluids going in there. I had a large bore IV stuck in my left ante-cubital vein at the elbow joint. They had used it for the CTPA and had just left it there. I had monitoring telemetry leads stuck all over my chest. AND, I had a nasal canula piping oxygen into my nostrils going at two liters a minute! I was all set.

Considering I had heard a Code Blue on third floor ICU and an “intervention” in the room next to me, I was glad they were so worried about me!

Day 3, Friday--I slept in until they came in to take my vitals. Now, I don’t remember if it was this particular AM, but one of the night nurses did my lung sounds. She had me sit up and put the stethoscope to my back. But the first thing I noticed was that she wasn’t listening in the normal areas; she was way outside those. She didn’t have me take any deep breaths. I just sat there waiting for the command to “Take a deep breath” and it never came. She then proceeded to listen to my heart sounds. At least she got those right!

They came in early Friday to do an echocardiogram. I later found out that my heart is in good shape although I do have some very slight leakage from one of the valves. Considering I had at least one blood clot go through my heart, it could be just a chunk that got hung up and will eventually go way. Time will tell.

I had Respiratory Therapy (RT) come in and do a treatment where I breathe a mist deep into my lungs. It’s supposed to open up the passageways, or something. The only thing it did was make me lose control of my fine muscle motor skills. I tried typing into my HP iPAQ and couldn’t even hit the letters. It did make me cough more, as well!

Later Dr M. told me that a cough was a symptom of a PE. So why were they doing RT? Especially since later the RT folks came back with an Advair inhaler and got me started on that. I think that they were trying to sell me everything they could since I was there!

I had asked Ben to bring in a telephone cable since there was a data port on the side of the phone. I could use a dial-up connection to my ISP and be able to access my accounts with considerably more confidence than by using their WiFi setup. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my account info with me so that didn’t happen. Sorry!

Day 4 was Saturday. I slept well again last night with the sleeping meds. They got me ready to go home but forgot to send my Advair inhaler with me. Checking later, it’s not even listed on the list of meds that they had for me at the hospital. They had a new med listed, the cough med that they had me on, but they never put it on the list of Discharge Prescriptions. But I wasn’t feeling well; I had had a “stomach issue” over breakfast similar to my March 16 trip to the ER and it affected my whole day apparently. I had been eating just fine until then. I was even complaining about th elack of taste! But my lack of IP-6 due to being in the hospital might have had something to do with it. Don’t know.

Anyway, I wasn’t mentally up to the challenge of keeping the doctors and nurses in line.

Ben and I stopped on the way home to pick up the one tablet of antibiotic that I needed for the next day, and the sleeping pills that they had me on. I didn’t notice at that time that the cough med wasn’t on the list.

We got home and I laid down for a nap, which I hardly ever do, and surprise, surprise, I slept until 5:00PM

I called back Saturday afternoon to find out about the cough med and was rewarded by a return call from a rather snippy Dr. M. He said that he would send the prescriptions to the pharmacy. Since I needed to update my blood pressure meds, I waited for a while and then went on line to let the pharmacy know about my needed refills. A refill for the Adair was there, but the cough med wasn’t. I waited until Monday and called my PCP.

When I went I today to pick up my meds, I refused the Advair prescription. I also found out that the cough med wasn’t a prescription med. Was that why it wasn’t on the list of Discharge Prescriptions? I have had OTC meds put on a script before. Why was this different? Or was it just one of those things a patient with chemobrain was supposed to know?

I had tried calling my son using the hospital room phone because cell phones don’t work very well in that building. I could never get him or his machine; the phone would just continue to ring. I had tried dialing just one number and listening for a recorded message; nothing. On my last day there, I found out that I had to dial for an outside line to call my son. There had been no instructions when I got there; there was no indication on the phone at all. How the heck was I supposed to know I needed an outside access number to call out?

That’s enough bitching.

Basically, I had three issues. I was anemic. I expected that, that’s what the IP-6 does to deny the cancer cells the necessary iron to live.

I had at least one blood clot that the VLCC hadn’t looked for or caught that needed to be addressed.

And I had a cough, that can be a symptom of the PE or it cold be the result of an infection. Currently it looks like it’s not an infection, letting Mike and Amy off the hook! :-D

Now, I’m just trying to catch up with the rest of my life while sleeping in due to the meds. I have Radiation Therapy backed off until Thursday and I don’t know when my next chemo will start. BTW, I saw ANOTHER oncologist; Dr. P. is on vacation. I did ask him about the Maruyama vaccine. He said that he hadn’t heard about it but that he’d look it up!

Let me know if I missed anything that you wanted to know. And if someone can get me the name of that nurse….