the terrible, no good, very bad stay

On Saturday July 6th, we had a family party that afternoon (as blogged about in my previous post). Right before lunch was scheduled to begin, I began having monster stomach cramps. I thought they were associated with a medical problem that I've been having for 2 months, so I tried to ignore them. They were happening about every 15-20 minutes and they were excruciating! All day long, as people were here, and the kids were playing, and the adults were eating and visiting, I continued to have the terrible awful cramps.

 

That evening, Josh and I and the boys went to the annual, much-anticipated Demolition Derby. It was exciting for the boys, and Kanyon enjoyed it better with his new large earmuffs (loud sounds hurt his ears). But I was having a hard time enjoying it. I took two Tylenol, because that's what was in my purse, and they didn't seem to help my cramping at all. Our neighbors had 3 cars in the derby this year, and Brian placed in the top 3 overall! It was a good Derby competition year.

 

That night, after we got home, I took two Ibuprofen. Then we had our own little firework show in Ed & Kathy's yard to celebrate July 4th. It was disappointing that the city of Salmon didn't have their annual big firework show this year, but we created our own. I was given the duty of buying the fireworks for the first time ever, and I didn't know really what I was doing, but I somehow managed to purchase some great ones with the help of the firework stand clerk. Josh and Malachi put on a fun show that night, with some very exciting moments of fireworks blowing up where they shouldn't, and some very beautiful fireworks exploding where they should in the sky! Even during the fun firework show, I continued to not feel good, despite the medicine I had taken.

 

After the firework show, I watched a movie with my friends, and my cramps were getting worse--they were now about every 10 minutes, and were becoming even more painful. Again, I tried to ignore them the best I could because I was sure that they would just go away. After the movie ended, and my friends left, I went to bed but couldn't sleep; I was in too much pain. So, at 2am, I took a Hydrocodone, and finally fell asleep for exactly 4 hours. At 6am, I got up expecting the pain to be gone, but instead it was even worse. Now I was having cramps about every 5 minutes, and in addition to the cramping, I had constant severe pain every time I breathed or moved. I went out to the couch and laid down, so that I wouldn't wake up Josh. For about an hour, I laid there crying and in intense pain. I didn't know what to do--I had 1 Hydrocodone left; should I take it and try to go to church? Or should I wait until that night to take it so that I could sleep again and then go to the Dr.'s office the next day? When Josh got up at 7:00 and came out to the living room, he saw the pain that I was in, and made the executive decision to take me to the E.R. I told him that I couldn't--I had a singing practice that morning, and had to play piano in primary, and had a friend BBQ to attend after church. But the truth was, he was right. I was being delusional if I thought I could do any of those things when I couldn't even move or breathe without being in pain. So, he made all the necessary arrangement calls while I took a shower, and then we headed into the E.R.

 

Because it was a holiday weekend (right after all the July 4th partying), Salmon hospital's small E.R. was full. We had to wait 20 minutes before anyone would even recognize that we were there. Then we had to wait for a bed. Then we had to wait to see a nurse. Then we had to wait for tests to be run. For two hours, we kept waiting and waiting for various things as we could hear even more people being checked into the E.R. Finally, after having a CT scan, (and then waiting for the results) the Dr. saw that my appendix was very swollen and he decided to call in the general surgeon in to operate and remove it.

 

So, they put a catheter in, and two IV's, and then we waited for the anesthesiologist and the surgeon to arrive. I went to the E.R. around 8:00 that morning, and they finally moved me to the hospital around 1:00. It had been a very long, very painful morning. They didn't give me anything for the pain the whole time I was waiting. I was very relieved, and also very scared, to be wheeled up to the operating room. I was out of surgery and recovery by 3:00. I came out of it puking (like I normally react to anesthetics). And I was so groggy and my speech was slurred.

I'd told the Dr. about my cramps prior to the surgery--but I didn't know if they were related to the appendicitis or my previous medical problem. When the surgery was over, the Dr. told Josh, who'd been waiting for me, that my appendix was really swollen, but that it  thankfully hadn't burst yet. While he was in there with his scope, he looked around at the area surrounding my appendix, and said that my uterus was also swollen and that it looked like I'd had an ovarian cyst that had burst because there was lots of liquid surrounding the cavity. So he put me on a strong antibiotic for any possible infection through my I.V. All of my cramping ended after the surgery, so the cramping (as well as the constant pain I'd experienced that morning) WAS a result of the appendicitis!

 

The first nurse I had was awful. I will refer to her as "Nurse Dodo". When I was coming to, instead of asking me about my comfort or pain, she was digging through my personal belongings bag and pulling items out and asking me about where my wallet was and my cell phone and how much cash I had on me. It was so bizarre. After I answered all her questions, I asked her "what are you doing with my stuff?" She replied that she was just going through my pockets to make sure that nothing was in them and that she was folding my clothes so they wouldn't be all wrinkly when I left the hospital. She told Josh to take my purse home with him when he left so that it wouldn't be stolen. I was irritated that I'd been given a nurse that I couldn't even trust to take care of me.

 

I had several visitors that afternoon--and some came bearing gifts. It was sweet that people from our ward cared about me. These were all the floral arrangements I received during my hospital stay:

Whenever people would come to visit, my nurse would come in and chat with them. Which was fine--because I was too out of it to really converse with people. But then when they left, so would she. Weird.

That night, before Josh left, I had to use the bathroom something fierce. All the fluids from the IV were filling up my bladder, and the pressure of having to go came on very quickly and caused me pain around my incision. The nurse took her time unplugging me from all my machines, and I thought I was going to pee my gown. When I got up, I was very lightheaded, as it was the first time I'd been up after the surgery. With help from both of them and a walker, I managed to make it to the bathroom to empty my bladder into the toilet. When I was done in there, my nurse told me I needed to walk the hallway right then if I wanted to get out of the hospital any faster. I told her in no way was that possible--I couldn't even stand up straight and I was in a lot of pain and wanted to go to sleep. So they got me all situated in bed, hooked me up to all the machines, and she gave me some pain meds in my IV. Josh decided it was time for him to go, so he took my purse with him, and put my cell phone and TV remote and glasses right next to my bed so that I could find them if needed.

When he left, of course so did my nurse, after she turned off the lights. I got about two hours of sleep, and then my bladder became full and I had to use the restroom again. I couldn't find the nurse call button anywhere. I panicked, and try to call out for help, but because my stomach had been operated on, I had no volume when I spoke. I could barely get out two words without needing to take a deep breath. I cried as loud as I could for help several times, but nobody ever came. So I  yanked all the cords out of their machines, and slowly (and painfully) got up and out of bed and walked to the bathroom very carefully (my nurse had put the walker on the opposite side of the room and it was even further away than the bathroom so that didn't help either). I literally thought I was going to die as I was attempting to get to the toilet. But, surprisingly, I made it. Then I waited several minutes before making the return trek to the bed. I assumed she would notice me and come to my aid eventually--what with all the unplugged cords and the sheets off of me when she was making her rounds. But 3 hours later, when I woke up and had to use the bathroom again, I was in the exact same state as when I had previously returned to my bed. I turned and slowly got out of bed again, and this time I was more confident that I could make it so I didn't even call out for help.

At 1:00 that morning, over 5 hours after she left my room following my husband, she came to get my vitals. I told her she needed to empty the container in the toilet because I'd used it twice and it was going to overflow. She was shocked: "You used it TWICE! Why didn't you call me?!" I told her I couldn't find the nurse call button. She said "That's because your husband rearranged everything before he left." Actually, he NEVER touched the call button, stupid woman. She had never even once showed me where SHE had put it because she was so concerned with going through my pockets and chatting with my visitors! She pulled it out from the top of my bed behind my pillow--I couldn't have  even reached it up there!!! Ugh. I was so happy when her shift ended. The next morning, I told the charge nurse what my night nurse had done, and requested not to have her again.

The next day went really well, and I was beginning to feel a little better. I was breathing better, and walking better, and was more awake and coherent, and my pain was lessening. I walked the halls that afternoon with Josh, hoping that I would get released that day. But, since I'd had a prior infection before the appendicitis, the Dr. came in and said that he wanted me to stay one more night to pump more antibiotics into my blood stream.

The next night, I had a super sweet nurse. Her name was Kathy, and she was my favorite. She was kind, and considerate, and did everything I asked. AND she showed me where the nurse call button was!!! I wanted to get a good night's rest that night, as it was my final night and I'd had a bad time the night before, so I asked her for some more IV pain meds. She was unable to give them to me because she wasn't an RN yet, just an LPN. Her charge nurse was assisting in the E.R., so she said the only person available to give them to me was the nurse I'd had the night before. I was fine with that since I knew that Kathy would still take care of me all night and I only had to see nurse dodo for the pain meds once. So, nurse dodo came in and said she didn't want to give me the IV pain meds because I'd already taken some pain meds orally and that if I wanted to go home the next day, I wasn't allowed to have both. Which wasn't true--because Kathy said that I could. Thankfully, my friend Krissy was with me at the time, and she went to the nurse station and demanded that I received what I was requesting with the pain meds. So nurse dodo comes back in, and starts giving me the IV drugs. I'd had a hard time with the IV pain meds previously (remember I came out of surgery puking?!), so all my previous nurses had used upper portals from my hand to inject the drugs, and they had pushed the drug fluid in super slowly. Well, nurse dodo used the IV portal on my hand. She yanked my hand up, and started pushing the drugs in. It was hurting me, so I kept raising up my hand, so there wouldn't be so much pressure and pain, and she would just raise the injector. She didn't push the drugs in slowly, either. The speed of the drugs going in were making me sick! As soon as she was done, she said "You better not puke", she dropped my hand, and left the room. I was furious, but was in too much pain to do anything about it. I felt sick all over. Krissy asked me if I was alright, and I barely responded that I was okay, and she could go now. After she left, my leg-bloodclot-preventing machines kept ringing, and nurse Kathy came in and tried to fix them. Then they started ringing again, and I pushed the call button and she came back in again and unplugged them. Then my IV hand started hurting something fierce and I could feel wet, and I called her again, and she came in to see that my IV had burst, and she undid that, too. My whole plan was to sleep soundly that night, but I couldn't. With all the interruptions on my machine, and the pain in my hand from the broken IV, and the sickness in my body from the speed of the administered drugs, I couldn't sleep at all. On top of it, I couldn't get comfortable and I got the cold sweats for hours. Any kind of light hurt my eyes, and any sound made my ears ring and head hurt, and there was a lot of activity in the hall that night from people being submitted from the E.R. It was THE WORST night, even worse than the night before. And I blame it all on nurse dodo, and her attitude, and the way she administered the drugs. The next morning, I was a mess and had barely slept and so I was crying a lot. When I tried to talk to the charge nurse about nurse dodo again, she completely dismissed it, which was super frustrating to me. I couldn't wait to get out of that hospital. I was finally discharged about 11:00, and was glad to be going home!

My husband was so good to me during my hospital stay, and when I was released. I'm so grateful for him and his patience with me. I thought that within a few days, I would begin to feel better, but I continued to take my antibiotics that I was taking prior to my hospital visit, and they made me super sick after I was released. I didn't feel better until a WEEK after I'd gone into the E.R. It was the worst hospital visit ever, and the longest, most miserable week of summer. I'm so grateful for good friends and neighbors who brought in food for my family--we were so blessed that week to receive such plentiful, delicious meals! Like this one--which was so huge, it actually provided 3 meals in itself!!!

I left the hospital with emotional scars as well as lots of physical ones. There were 3 incisions on my stomach--with the biggest being a 2-inch one directly above my belly button. They swelled up that week and I was sure I'd had an infection, but then they went back to their normal size after a week, and I was so grateful. I'd also had 3 IV's put in me, and 1 failed attempt at an IV while I was in the hospital (one in my left arm, one in my left hand, one in my right arm that failed, and one in my right hand that burst), and all 3 of those sites bruised. I'd been poked for blood tests 4 times, and I bruised there as well. I came home an ugly mess!!

It was an awful experience--and one that I wish I didn't have to pay so much for after being treated so badly! But, I am blessed to have good insurance that covers a lot of the charges. And I am so grateful that the surgeon was in town that weekend or else I would've been life-flighted to another hospital to have the surgery. And I'm so thankful to have the best husband and good friends who checked in on me frequently both during the hospital stay and after I was released, and who cared for me while I was experiencing such misery!