MutteringfoolDotCom: Two months...

MutteringfoolDotCom

by Suzy Smith since 2000.

Friday, October 30, 2009

Two months...

Since August 31st, 2009, I spent a lot of September and October in the hospital dealing with recurrent cellulitis in my lower abdomen surrounding my navel. This is the cellulitis that happened last year that pointed us to my kidney tumor. The cellulitis that saved my life then has done its best to try and do the opposite.

From the 31st of August until September 24th, I was on high dose antibiotics, very harsh antibiotics that started to make my kidney function go awry. Then we had to back off of them, to some others. But, the infection seemed to go away.

Then in early October, the infection came back with a vengeance. It was worse than it had been before and even more painful. I was shipped back to the hospital, a new PICC line put in, more harsh antibiotics, then set up for home care, antibiotics by my PICC line with a nurse coming in twice a week. We would do the antibiotics.

We left on Friday evening, and as I was getting into my van, my PICC line fell out. Literally, just gone. Tony noticed it on the ground, asked me if I needed that and we flew back up into the hospital where they set it up for me to get a new line the next morning.

Saturday came, we went back in, the doctor doing the line that day was an ass. He was bitchy about doing it, shoving things around so it hurt. I've had multiple PICC lines by this point, none of them have ever hurt. Obviously he didn't want to be doing the line, he did a half ass job, and we found that out Saturday evening that it wasn't even half assed, it was no assed as the damn thing didn't work, at all. The nurse tried to get it to work, nothing. Back to the ER, they moved it around, got me some antibiotics and some pain relief.

On back home, tried to do my antibiotics on Sunday, very little went through. The pain in my stomach was getting worse, the red was growing up higher, I called the infectious disease doctor and they told me to come back to the hospital.

I sat in the ER, with the chills, in pain, with a doctor wanting me readmitted until early the next morning due to a triage nurse that seemed to be pissed that I told her my doctor (who is a hospital doctor) told me to come to be readmitted. Finally readmitted, back to the same floor, back to the same nurses, who by this point, know me on site, and recognize my "woobie."

Oh, yes, I have a woobie. It is a large fleece tie-dyed blanket that I hand tied last year. My woobie comes to the ER with me. It stays in the hospital with me, on my bed, going from test to test. It is the main connection to home for me.

My woobie is what gets me through the hours and hours and hours of time without my husband. When I am without Tony I am without more than half of myself. After the last admission, I was in there for quite some time, until Tuesday of this week. Now, I am home, we are getting ready for Halloween. I have 3 little pumpkins carved, 1 big one carved, and multiple others with lids cut and guts removed.

I just finished dyeing my hair back to the bright shade of pink I love. It had faded a barely pink mess during my hospital stays. Now, only now that I have the house smelling of pumpkin guts and hair bright as can be do I feel like I am home, I am recovering, I am back to me.

posted by Suzy @ 12:31 AM

1 Comments:

At November 02, 2009 2:17 PM, Anonymous said…

I hope you feel better soon and don't have to go through anything like this again. What a nightmare. I'm glad you are home, Suzy.

Janice