So my trip to the hospital – I forgot to share my tripping drug experience!

As I may have mentioned earlier, the pain I had experienced was annoying but I didn’t think it was dibilitating.  I deal with some level of pain most days.  However, then the ER offered to give me narcotics for the pain, I was like “sure!”.  I figured I should get the most service for my co-pay, you know?  So my ER RN Christy warned me that the drug would probably make me feel a little loopy.  I was like, whatever – I figured she was just being dramatic.  She started pushing the drug into the IV in my right arm and I was like, “bring it”.

I don’t remember the name of the drug, but as it moved up my arm I felt a warmth.  And suddenly my head started feeling different.  The best way I can describe it was layers of velvet were being placed over the layer of my brain.  As the room changed shape (even as I laid there with my eyes closed), I pictured the red velvet layers get thicker, making it harder for signals to escape to my mouth, to my limbs, etc.  However, my thoughts were very lucid.  It was totally trippy.

This experienced lasted about 3-4 minutes – the strangest period of my life – and then I tried to articulate them to Deana, who had been watching me “trip out”.   She now says that I was a bit druggy when I tried to explain it.  But also another huge thing happened – once the pain in my gut was gone, I realized how very badly it had hurt before!  I have said I have always had a high tolerance for pain and thought, “well, how do you really know that, Gina?”  Now I KNOW I do because, well, it was bad!  But I also have to admit that now that I have had drugs, I also seem to have less tolerance when things start hurting again.  Ah, the irony.

Most of my early days in the hospital, I had an IV in each arm.  I can’t really say how that happened, something about they couldn’t get blood out of my right arm so tried my left, and then used it for an IV later.  I DO know that every time a new nurse or tech would come in, they’d say, “you have IVs in both arms?”  I love rhetorical questions.  Anyway, this is very bothersome, if you didn’t know.  When you have an IV, you can’t bend your arms – for me, it was because the IV alarm would go off and the only way to turn it off would be by the nurse.  Further, it hurts like hell!  Secondly, you have these tubes running from both arms and they get all tangled and pull and that hurts too.  Finally, it makes it very difficult to give blood when both arms are taken, so the techs were forced to get creative.  They often used my hands until the bruises made it impossible – we’re talking 10+ times on each hand.  Never mind going to the restroom – DRAMA!  Do I sense a hint of complaint?

One very cool thing about medicine is how, well, amazing it is.  When I had my CT scan, I received an iodine IV right before.  I don’t know how, but the iodine went to my abdomen and the heat was weird.  How did it know to go there?  Amazing.

Okay, I am going to go again.  You get the drift.  More later.

So instead of having yucky hospital food delivered three times a day, maybe right before a procedure or when you’re sleeping or whatever, Baylor does things differently.  They have “room service”; you call them when you’re hungry, order off a menu, and they deliver your food when you order!  They also have specials for family, too – $10 an order, order whatever you want.  Want yogurt?  $10.  What two hamburgers?  $10.

Now, at first I could only have clear liquids, and then ANY liquids including cream of wheat, ice cream, and the like.  Let me tell you, Cream of Wheat never tasted so good!  Sunday late morning I was allowed all food and that rocked, too.

The other thing I thought was cool was the handhelds the techs used.  Each time they came for blood (which was every three hours – I have bruises all over!) they would use the handheld to scan my bracelet.  It was very high tech and I loved it.

I was a little disappointed at how low tech the non-blood tech’s equipment was, however.  Old fashioned thermometers that go under your tongue, even if digital?  Seriously!  At CareNow they have these wands that go across your forehead!  But it was still okay.

One thing I DID NOT understand was on Friday and Saturday, housekeeping came in after 9pm to empty the trash and sweep the floors.  HELLO!  Sick people need sleep!  Especially when they take your blood every three hours!  And then today (Sunday) housekeeping comes in about an hour before I am released and totally mops the floors, etc.  HELLO!  I know they have to clean it again after I leave, so why do it when I am trying to get my paperwork done and the nurses have to disconnect my IVs and such?  That was poor planning.  But the staff was nice.

The nurses at Baylor rocked, though.  When I would be with my Mom or other family members in the hospitals, the nurses really seemed put out if you needed something.  Not so at Baylor.  Instead, they truly seemed like they loved what they did.  While some RNs were better than others, all were pleasant and cheerful.  All were responsive.  And as someone who doesn’t like being at the mercy of IVs or people, I really appreciated that.

That’s all for now.  I have moments where my mind races and I start writing, then I get sleepy again!  And now I am back to sleepy!

Gina OUT.

So today is Sunday, May 16th and I just had a very different weekend!  Let me go back to Friday:

Friday, May 14th, started like any other day.  I woke up to my phone going off at 5:09 am, I hit snooze a couple times, and then I finally got up to go to the bathroom.  I noticed some sharp pains in my abdomen, but I shrugged them away as I often have such pain.  However, I soon realized these were not normal pains, so much so that I decided to call my doctor.  Of course, it was too early to talk to him, but I did get hold of his service and they suggested I go to emergency to get things checked out.  But, in case you don’t know, I am accountant by trade, and I quickly surmised that I would have a lower co-pay if I instead went to an urgent care facility.**  And, to justify this decision, I LOVED CareNow out here and figured it made more sense anyway.  Because, with CareNow, you can check in online and they call you when they are ready for you.  So I did that, knowing they opened at 8am, and relaxed.

At 8:02 am I received the call, and Deana and I headed over.  I didn’t wait at all once I arrived and the doctor saw me immediately.  And the thing was, he quickly told me I was bleeding internally.  He said he was going to take some blood to see how anemic I was, and said either he was going to get me into see an internist or that I was going to emergency.  He came back a few minutes later and told me that I needed to go to emergency and that he even wanted to call an ambulance.  My face and stuttering of “but I have someone in the waiting room!” swayed him, although he did make me decide what hospital to go to and told me he was going to call and confirm I went there directly.  (And, by the way, he did……..)  Keep in mind I wasn’t feeling THAT bad, just being cautious and all.  In the scheme of things, this was not the worst day of my life and I have felt worse in recent days.

So Deana drove me to Baylor Regional Medical Center directly, arriving at about 9:30am.  She dropped me off at emergency, I walked in with the paperwork CareNow had given me, prepared to sit down and waste the afternoon on tests, but knowing I’d be okay by day’s end.  I walked to the registry window, handed the paperwork and explained I had been told I had internal bleeding, and began filling out the sign in paperwork.  Let me just say, Baylor has this REALLY COOL scanning machine for IDs and insurance cards!  No photocopies or anything!

Anyway, while the registration was still going on, I suddenly heard my name!  I looked, and there was a nurse calling me.  I look back at the woman registering me, and she says she needs to do two more things.  The nurse, however, starts raising her voice, telling me I need to come in where she was.  The registration lady finally says, “well let me get a bracelet on you and I will take care of the paperwork later.”  I go with the nurse, who immediately begins taking info.  While doing that, she mentions that CareNow had called to advise them that I was on my way.  About three minutes later, just as Deana was arriving after parking the car, they were walking me to a private emergency room!  Try THAT in California!

I will spare you all the dirty details, but Friday amounted to a CT scan of my gut and about four thousand blood tests.  I was admitted to the hospital with what doctors believed to be bleeding in my upper GI.  I arrived into my room at approximately 2:30pm.

Just a reference point – I had only had sips of coffee by this point, and due to the problems at hand, I couldn’t have anything else……even water!  And do you know, when someone tells you that you can’t have any water, how instantly you become parched????

So, the private room I was taken to was amazingly nice – better than most hotel rooms I’ve stayed in recently.  Comfortable bed, sofa sleeper, reclining chair, TV, safe for valuables, etc.  But even more impressive was my nurse, Nan.  An older woman, she made me feel right at home.  She had to ask me a bunch of medical questions, and through the course of that I mentioned I had never been admitted to the hospital before.  In fact, the closest I came was in the emergency after my motorcycle accident.  Well, wouldn’t you know it, but Nan is part of the Christian Motorcycle Association!  She gave me all sorts of info.  But better than that, she PRAYED for me before the end of her shift!  I bet THAT doesn’t happen in California!

Just so you aren’t feeling sorry for me, at about 7:00pm I was allowed to have chicken broth and ice water.  🙂

So jumping ahead again, Saturday morning at about 8:00am I had a scope put down my esophagus, stomach, and upper intestines.  The doc found a 5mm bleeding ulcer at the very end of my stomach.  That was the culprit, probably due to the fact that I live off of Advil most days.  Advil and stomachs are not friends.  And the thousands of dollars I will eventually pay for this trip will remind me that for some time……..

I am tired now, I had many more exciting things to write about.  But more later.  Ultimately, I stayed in the hospital until Sunday afternoon as they made sure the bleeding had stopped and my blood levels returned.  One key piece of info, they knew I have never been a smoker because of my high oxygen levels.  Ding.  And my liver is very healthy.  And my electrolytes are perfect.  But yeah, I have an ulcer.

Now, I have 5 prescriptions to take and one that makes me a little drowzy.  So Gina is saying bye bye for now.

** See how Gina’s plan to save money worked out?  I had to pay THAT co-pay of $50 and will also have the emergency/hospital co-pay!  Go figure!

Some of my 2.78 readers may be suprised to find out that Deana’s beloved Canon Rebel died a week or so ago.  She probably had over 200,000 pictures on that baby!  From Denali Park, Alaska to Venice, Italy to Moscow, Russia……she covered the silly faces to the spanning landscapes to the blooming flowers and every other shot that I can’t even in all good confidence describe to you.  Over the years she has inherited the name “Papparazzi” from those of us who were “attacked” by the Rebel that always seemed to be chained around her neck.  However, even after all the complaints, she would be the first we would go to begging for a pic for Facebook or some other project.  It has been a love-hate thing.  🙂

But that’s just it – hearing that her beloved Rebel was dead was like saying Space Mountain was demolished at Disneyland.  Or Ben was no longer friends with Jerry.  Or Justin Timberlake without me.  You get the drift.  It was tragic.

Even saying that, I didn’t really appreciate the devastating facts until, well, how do I say this?  Oh heck, I’ll go ahead and be trite – you don’t know what you have until it’s gone.  Because, for the first time in a long time, I began to see all the beautiful things that Deana used to photograph all around me!  And, ironically, the prints that are still reflecting on the back of my mind’s eye didn’t make it to the digitally-safe world that Deana has ruled over for the past 4 or so years.

The flowers…….

The blue blue sky here in Texas……

The kids’ smiling faces as they played near fountains, or dashed on the field, or what seemed to be thousands of other activities.

How is it that I had somehow lost this sight when I knew Deana would save it forever?  Why was it that, now that we could not record the momentous occasions, images were jumping out at me from all angles?  And how can I even describe the beauty that I witnessed?  My words are so FLAT in comparison to the beautiful images that have been flashed into my memory.  And that is where the rub really is.

I will miss you Canon Rebel.  You were a good friend.

However, through circumstances that are very cool, she now has a Canon Rebel XTi.  Newer.  Lighter.  Faster.  Not the newest, not the best, but it rocks just the same.  And this person will try to still notice the beauty that surrounds me instead of relying on Deana’s photographic talent.  But I’m relieved that some of the pressure has been taken away!

Gina is OUT