Catching Up (Part 1)-March 4-7, 2009

Here's the first of my catch-up posts!

Wednesday, March 4: Things I forgot to mention...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEBI!! You are the best friend a girl could have! Thank you for putting up with all my rants and always being there when I need to talk.

I forgot to tell you something about our stitch-in at Borders Books tonight: Kasey was laying in the walkway behind my chair when I saw a man in a wheelchair approaching. I told Kay she would have to move and the gentleman said "Oh, don't make her get up." I laughed and told him that I'd been trying to get her to move onto the tiles of the cafe floor, and I didn't want him to have to go all the way around us to get to the next aisle. As soon as Kasey looked up and saw the wheelchair, she was stuck to his side like glue! Thankfully he was a dog lover himself, but she kept walking beside him as he went past us. I had to call her to back to me because she went into the aisle with him. I think Kasey thinks it is her job to make everyone she meets smile. She is so happy when she sees someone in a wheelchair, and I guess that comes from the times she was in the rehabilitation center with me. She truly enjoys being a therapy dog, too!

Thursday, March 5:

I don't know if you've had surgery before, but I'm a pro. I've had more than 80 so I have the pre-surgery instructions memorized. I'm pretty sure they're burned into my brain, even. So when I received the call yesterday to let me know when to be at the hospital and to give me all my instructions, my brain started goin'. First, when they tell me "don't eat after midnight" that only applies if the surgery is before 8am. Because I don't have a large intestine, I can't fast for more than eight hours without dehydrating. Surgery was at 5:00pm. That means that I can't eat and drink after 7am.

I knew I was too tired to stay up until 7:00, so I went to sleep at 2am, woke up at 5am, and got on the computer to chat with my early bird friends. I drank iced tea up until 7:00 and then put the jug back into the refrigerator. I wanted to go back to sleep right away because it's hard to be awake when you're not allowed to eat or drink. I stayed up for a while chatting in IM's and finally got back to sleep around 9:00. My neighbor, Miss Peggy, dropped me off at the hospital and the fun began.

I have three bruises on my left arm from IV/blood draw sticks. Like I said, I dehydrate when I can't eat or drink for long periods. That means my veins shrink. It's a vicious cycle! Gina was able to get a good stick, drew most of my bloodwork and then it just stopped; she couldn't get any more for the last tube. It flushed with saline, so we knew it wasn't blown. That was a relief! Then Glenda had to come back in and draw blood from the inside of my wrist to fill another tube. What they originally got just wasn't enough. Fine. I'm used to it.

Everything is on schedule, I'm listening to classical music on my iPod and reading my book. I meet the anesthesiologist and my vascular surgeon's partner, Dr S. I get the sedation and don't remember anything else. I was out before they turned off the gurney's brakes to wheel me into the O.R. I love when the anesthesiologists do that!

The nurse wakes me up in Recovery and tells me "it's 7:10, Beth, you need to wake up." I look, bleary-eyed, at the clock on the other side of the room. The next time my eyes open, it's 7:20pm and I'm thinking to myself, "I have to wake up so I can go home."

So I'm up, I'm talking to the nurse, I'm drinking apple juice and I eat two packs of crackers. My blood pressure is 85 over 50. The nurse thinks it's great, I'm happy with it, but the anesthesiologist tells her he won't let her release me from Recovery until my bp is over 90. My normal bp isn't even 90! I keep telling the nurse that I've walked in to dialysis with alot lower bp's.

She calls the doc back and tells him that my chart indicates I have low bp. He insists on not releasing me from recovery until it's over 90. He says, "She was 96/67 when she got here, so she needs to be over 90 before she's sent to Short Stay." By this time my nurse is ticked off, it's after 8pm and she wants to go home! So do I! I've never been "held hostage" in Recovery like this, not in 15 years!

I told her that my uncle was my only way to get home, and he has to be awake between 4:00 and 5:00am, so I really needed to get going. I also let her know that the only way to get my bp up is to let me walk. That is NOT something they like you to do in Recovery. Lucky for me, I'm a "usual" and they know I can do it. So I walked to the bathroom and back, sat on my gurney and she took my bp. 111/66! "I'll take it!" says my nurse. She ignored the fact that my bp dropped to 83 after I got back on the gurney.

But the Short Stay Unit only had two nurses, who were bogged down and couldn't get me. The only way I was going to get to SSU was if someone from Recovery took me. They were all busy, too. Two patients were totally disoriented and one of them was getting out of hand. My nurse changed my status in the computer to get my time in SSU "started." By the time I was finally released, it was 9:00pm. I couldn't believe it! I was so mad! I've gone in at 5:30 for a 7:30am surgery and been home by 9:30am.

What nearly sent me through the roof was that my surgeon called Uncle Wes to tell him everything went fine and said, "she'll be ready in about 30 minutes." So he went to the hospital and parked in the 30-minute pickup spot but had to wait almost two HOURS! It was the anesthesiologist who kept me in Recovery. Needless to say, Wessy went straight to bed when we got home!

Lucky him, because I couldn't sleep! I have to thank Debi and Pammy for keeping me company online til the wee hours. The painkillers kept me awake until exhaustion just took over.

Friday & Saturday, March 6 & 7:

I have to admit that my mind kept going back to last June and August. Both times I had a clot removed from my graft only to go to dialysis for my next treatment and hear that it clotted again. I was waiting for it but almost cheered in victory when there was bloodflow. I guess it's the "expect the worst; you'll never be disappointed" mentality I have towards my health. Dialysis went off without a hitch, but I was in pain when I got home.

For the first time in years, the painkillers I was prescribed left me fuzzy-headed and groggy. But awake. I know it makes no sense, but that's what they did. I felt like my eyes couldn't stay open on their own, but I wasn't really tired. Add to that the fact that I was unable to stitch and you have one ticked off Bethy. The only thing I could do was read (which I did alot of) and watch television.

I get frustrated when I can't stitch. I know I can read books or watch shows and movies off my DVR, but the fact that I'm not producing something frustrates me. The longer I can't stitch, the more I think about it. But I still can't stitch, so the cycle continues. At this point, I'm still taking painkillers because there are shooting, sharp pains going through my elbow. I thought I'd be fine by Saturday but that wasn't the case this time.

Even more frustrating was the fact that is was GORGEOUS outside Friday & Saturday! Unfortunately the ground was still saturated from the melted snow. We went from having 8" of snow on Monday to 70-degree highs on Friday and Saturday. I wanted to sit in the yard in my zero-gravity lounger with a drink and my book! No dice, though!