Bionic Woman

I'm home now. Well, I'm at my moms and have been since probably lunch time on Thursday but boy has this been a wild ride. Check in time was 6:30 AM. I am not a morning person. At all. Stayed with mom the night before and bathed with the hibiclense the night before and the morning of. Got to the hospital, checked in and waited in the cath lab waiting room with mom for probably 20 minutes when the nurse came and got me. She put the IV right above my thumb. They don't like putting it in the bends for comfort and they wanted to put it on the side with the device. They also had me pee in a cup to check for pregnancy. Then they put on numerous sticky patches that they used and some they didn't (ECG) in case one set/site fails, plus the defibrillator patches on my front and back. Once in the lab I scooted over onto the bed/table thing and they put the arm tables and then put arm restraints on me so I didn't move or grab the doctors or anything. Then they gave me versed and fentanyl for conscious sedation. That's the last thing I remember. Mom said I was awake when she got back to recovery but I don't remember anything.

The pain meds they gave me and the zofran barely took the edge off so I was getting morphine every 2 hours and as such I spent much of my hospital stay nauseated and asleep. For some reason pain meds make me ill. Either my sugar drops or my bp or I get super nauseated. It's no fun. I'd brought my phone and headphones with hulu, a word search, sudoku, everything. All I did was sleep. I had the TV on in the room but the volume all the way down. I have so many marks on me it isn't funny. The IV stopped working in my thumb so all in all I was poked 4 times with 2 IVs. My night nurse was super nice and handsome. Figures you see nice looking people when you look like a trash heap.

Anyway, when I got home I still slept for like 2 days off and on. Today is the first day I haven't slept for hours during the day too. Today is also the first day I woke up and felt half way human. I took the big main bandage off like they said, I wonder how long until the steristrips will take. The area between the bandages to my right shoulder is bruised, the IV sites are bruised. But I'm finally on the mend. I did however discover I've been having (or developed after the surgery) non sustained ventricular tachycardia. The nurse ran in and checked on me but said it was only 5 beats. I'm not sure what that means.

Then not last night but the night before I started running a low grade fever, chest pain and shortness of breath etc. I went to the ER because I feared infection or blood clot (familu history). My d-dimer was positive so I had to have a CT scan which was clear as well as the chest xray was normal. They said it was just musculoskeletal pain. Yesterday my back locked up and I spent the day on the couch but today I feel much better. I just wonder if and when its working and what it feels like.

MOOOORE Migraines

So for the second time in a month I wound up back at the ER for migraines. This time I went in when it had only been 24 hours. I usually only go as an absolute LAST resort, I don't want to be THAT person but I can't do it. The whole right side of my head felt like it was being squeezed in a vice. I'd barely drank, barely ate. Ibuprofen was barely dulling it. None of that "It goes away for a few hours then comes back" bull. I was dehydrated and dizzy. I needed fluid too. I figured it'd turn into another recurrent migraine that'd be blamed on me (rebound) so I went after 24 hours. Plus this time I've been on my migraine rx the WHOLE time. Last time I thought it was triggered because I use one of those day/week planners and forgot to call in the refill and went a few days without. I've been on it since then and I'm still getting them.
The doctor (was an actual doctor, not a NP) and asked what they'd done in the past. I told him the only two times I'd been they'd given me Stadol and Phenergan. He asked if I'd ever tried Reglan, Benadryl and Toradol. I've never tried the combo but I guess he was asking if I'd ever had the meds in general. I've had Reglan before to ill effect. I went to L&D once for severe GERD symptoms and a resident refused to listen to me and gave it to me. With GERD you need a PPI (or Proton Pump Inhibitor) or it does the opposite. It felt like my throat was burning. The nurse came in expecting me to be "Yup, all better" and ran back out of the room when I said "No! My throat is burning now!" (When she asked if I was feeling better) "What do you mean burning?" "I TOLD him I have GERD and couldn't have that." Anyway, back to the present. I thought maybe he'd replace the Reglan with a PPI like Protonix (what the nurse in L&D had to give me in the other instance) but he substituted it for a low dose of Phenergan. I thought between the low dose of Benadryl and Phenergan I'd be knocked out but surprisingly I wasn't. I was super tired though. I got to the ER at 9:30P, into a room at 11:30, seen by doctor at 12:30A and home around 2:30A. With Narcolepsy, even without those meds I'd be tired.
I'm glad I didn't sleep half a week like the other med combo BUT, I guess I was hoping for a headache reset button and both times I got headaches again quick. Although I guess the second was better for less severe, less longevity (since I didn't need the sleep to recuperate/let my head heal). I know it was stupid to expect a reset button by going to the ER. I know I have CHRONIC migraines. I guess when I'm in pain I don't think straight then when I get another I'm disappointed the pain relief didn't last. Can you blame be though? Very little physical pain can move me to tears. Labor before an epidural got some tears and childbirth after a failed epidural hurt pretty bad too. I have several tattoos, I refer to them as cathartic and even tell people a few nearly put me to sleep (though some I'd rather never repeat, ow). But seriously. Big Daddy had to exert some serious counter pressure just to allow me a modicum of piece and describing my pain to mom, "It felt like I wanted to cave my skull in." I can take pain in general. I can't take pain from the time I wake up until I fitfully fall asleep, all day every day for who knows how long or when dehydrated beyond what I normally am.
The nurse tried to put an IV in just below the crook of my arm but "it didn't take". Possibly from dehydration? I'm not sure how that works but it's bruised in a streak and the darkest part is furthest from the puncture. So then she moved to my inner wrist and diagonal. That was the most awkward area I've ever had an IV to date and I'm pretty sure the bottom of my thumb has played IV host before (though that was pretty awkward, it had a purpose). It's bruised too but not as bad, I'm guessing since it actually "took"? My arm looked MUCH worse all week (the two bruises were almost connected for sine reason!) but I was embarrassed by how BAD it looked so I didn't take any pictures until today when I decided to blog except the ones I took in the ER. I'd have taken more once the IV got set up, she put the green bandage stuff on me etc but she turned the light back off for me and my phone was dying and the whole photophobia thing. Ok, I think I got some pictures, with flash where you can kind of see how large the bruise was. It's faded a whole lot now but still noticeable. It was 10x worse before now. I'm getting a slight headache and it's a minute until midnight so I'm going to try to post and sleep. Hopefully it loads. Fingers crossed since I'm trying to add 2 pictures.
And now I'm having to edit for pic errors. >.>