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Hopefully this post won't be too confusing although these last couple of days have been at least somewhat exciting. Well I had been out getting exercise (riding my bike and walking) and even getting some sunshine in hopes of healing. Each time involved taking Miss Blue Belle out for a walk or a romp with her best friend "Tess" the Yorkie.
I had also been forcing myself to eat as much as I can (smoking pot to gain some appetite on a very, very nauseated system). I was also experiencing some painful bowel blockages (which had started on Monday) but nothing some little suppositories or a Sitz bath couldn't solve. I was able to relieve myself but the food just seemed to be staying in my stomach much longer or at least it seemed. For some reason my stomach would get very, very full after just eating only a few bites. It would get downright painful and feel as if it were going to burst; so I would smoke some pot to get rid of that horrible pain; it worked like a charm each time.
Well Wednesday, I did write my doctor and then an email bounce back that he is out of town until the 19th(I didn't get the email until the next day) so I email two other doctors; my primary doctor and the GI doctor on Thursday. I didn't get an email from either of them until later in the evening. The GI doctor suggested that I go to ER and then my Primary Doctor of course agreed with him. I just didn't feel quite that bad; I just wanted to see a doctor first prior to going through all of that.
On Thursday, I made it my mission to try and gain some weight (I've been trying to for weeks). I wanted so bad to get on that scale and see that I weighed at least 117lbs. I have to admit that I smoked pot most of the day (before and after a meal) and also munched out all day long until around 7pm. I was so proud of my feat and that I ate more than I normally eat!) I was happy until the pain started.
All that food had not moved past my stomach and I was burping most of the day (nasty tasting burps) and these burps would normally have made me loose my appetite completely. Smoking pot just made me hungry and more able to stomach most foods. I just wanted to munch!)
OK back to 7pm; I started getting sick and very nauseated. The puking started at around 9pm and it was very thick heavy vomit; in fact as I was leaning over the toilet; the vomit was so thick and heavy that it bounced out of the toilet and right into my eye!( Ewwwwwwwww; I have puke in my eye to deal with and it burned too!( How horribly disgusting that was! It was an eye opener for sure! God I have to deal with so many disgusting issues with this disease!
Anyway I puked most of the night on Thursday; all that hard work of trying to gain weight and now my poor tummy was cramping in the worst way. I was in severe pain! I had to take some strong pain medications that my doctor had given me for times like these. I was thankful to have those strong pain medications on hand because we may have rushed right to the emergency room for some morphine. It was that painful; but we delt with it. It was such a miserable night; but I did eventually get to sleep for a few hours anyway. I also decided to stop taking those chemo pills because I felt those might be making the tumors bigger and causing me some major GI problems. Thursday was my first night without taking those chemo pills.
On Friday morning I called the Advice Nurse and made an appointment to see my Primary Doctor at 3pm. No more playing around; food is not going through my system for a reason and this could kill me. I also weighed in at 107lbs and that completely frightened me; but despite all of that I did get to go have a nice romantic lunch with my husband at noon and we also got to stroll through an air conditioned mall window shopping and just holding hands and enjoying the time spent together. I did warn him of my pending doctor appointment and the possibility that might have to go the ER. He didn't like this, but what else can we do? He's still there for me always and that's more than I could ever ask for!)
After I dropped him off at his job, I then drove myself straight home and took a nap just prior to going to my doctor appointment. I didn't have to wait for too long in that busy waiting room. The doctor was able to at least examine me and he was very surprised at how loud my intestines were churning, and then I also showed him the horrid looking bumps (tumors) on top of my rib cage, and after hearing all that has been going on (puking); he decided that my very best option was for me to just go straight to ER. I was pretty bummed. There wasn't really anything he could do with out an x-ray or a CAT scan.
After our meeting I walked straight over to the ER and went through the entire 9 hour process of waiting and moving from one waiting room back to the other and then back to another until I got a room. Friday night in the Emergency Room; it was quite busy and so many people sick and coughing and I was so worried that I was going to catch that Swine Flu.
I ended up sitting right across from this really sad old woman. She just stared right into my eyes and I could see and be so familiar with her pain; I've been there but there was no way of her knowing that. To her; I looked quite healthy. She was sitting in one of those uncomfortable temp wheel chairs and wearing one of those ugly hospital gowns; she had an NG tube and a pee bag. I just knew that I just might end up in her shoes during this hospital stay. I prayed "Please NO NG tube!". It was definitely a possibility for relieving much of the pressure inside my abdomen. I sure felt for this old woman; I smiled at her but her face was motionless.
I finally got a temp room at around 9pm where I sat for another couple of hours to talk with doctors. I was able to get an x-ray just prior to getting that temp room where I was seated in a gurney in the hallway just waiting for a room. The young man that wheeled me over to x-ray was himself a testicular cancer survivor. He was very lucky and had found his lump early and it was fluke that he even found it. He was successfully treated with only 3 chemo treatments. Two years later his scans are still clean; more power to him!)
When we got back I had 4 nurses try desperately to find a vein for my IV and to get lots of blood samples (it looked to me like lots of little bottles to fill). I must have gotten poked and prodded about 10 times before one finally found a vein close to my elbow. Who would have known? It sure was painful and I cried when they were poking around on the veins with lots of scar tissue. It was downright painful. I was so thankful the nurse found that vein but she wasn't able to get any blood drawn so they had to call up for a real Phlebotomist from the Lab. He was good and was able to fill up most of those vials. Oh god I hate needles!
I also had to have tons of sticky little things all over my body for an EKG? My heart is actually in great shape considering. See I do have a good heart!) But I got so much sticky crap all over me and lots and lots of wires hanging off of me; along with those snaps and stuff.
My honey had arrived shortly at 9:30pm and I told him to take his time; I didn't feel we should both be in complete misery waiting around and waiting around. He needed to eat his dinner and take the dog out and get other things done prior to hanging out with me in the emergency room. He tried to lie down on the gurney with me but I had so many wires hanging out of my ugly hospital gown. I had never seen myself like this before. It must be new that they check my heart rate and all the stuff. We did get to take a little nap together as we waited to hear from a doctor.
The doctor did finally come up to see me just after 10pm and he showed us the x-ray and where the block was. He said there were some pockets of gas and fecal matter; and despite only eating at noon; my stomach was surprisingly very full; in all a block is not so good for me. He actually gave me a choice of if I wanted the NG now or later. I said later and I was thrilled to have that painful thing in my nostril. After we talked with this doctor my honey did leave around 11:30pm and I told him I would text him with the room number. I didn't have any service inside this particular temp. room.
I finally got to see an OBGYN doctor at around 12:30pm and she decided formally that I should be admitted so that we could watch to see if the block can resolve on it's own. She felt I didn't need the NG tube unless I started vomiting out of control and I was thrilled. I got to take pain medication rather than that stupid NG I was really hoping that I would get to go home but 10 times out of 10 I get admitted. There is just no way around it. I did finally get to go to my room finally at around 2:30am. I was given pain medications and Benadryl and slept about as good as could with nurses coming in at all hours to take blood, take vitals, and so on. It does suck to be waken up at 4am to get stuck with a needle on my left arm since the IV was in my right. It took her a few times to try to find a vein and I was so thankful when she did. Getting a needle stuck in left arm is not at all fun. There's just no working veins in that arm at all. That 1st round of chemo just destroyed them all!
I got to sleep most of the day and of course I am still blocked and dealing with some nausea. We are working on the block by NPO (no food or drink), just fluids via IV and suppositories. I did have a very, very painful spasm episode this morning and I thank GOD that I didn't puke. I almost did, but thankfully I did not. I've been getting Dilaudid for pain intravenously and it's working great for the pain but hopefully this little block will work it's way out and I can go home soon.
My honey did stop by with Blue Belle and of course my beloved computer. My poor iPhone was nearly dead as I had to use it heavily. I talked with both my parents most of the morning just letting them know that I'm OK and working on healing. I did try to post a comment on my last post from my iPhone just to let you all know that I'm OK and I'm in the hospital. I kept getting that warning that my phone is out of juice and I did feel guilty still having to use it despite that; but its a good little phone to not have died completely as many of my other phones have done to me. I thought that was amazing.
I'm making the most of being stuck here and hopefully I will heal this week and I hope I will be able to return to work a week from Monday. I'm looking forward to it. I still need to gain quite a bit of weight but there is still that chance I won't be able to return this soon. I can't believe it is 4 months later and I'm still not healed. It still puzzles me but I am going to do all that I can this week so that I can return to work. I have a feeling my doctor is going to have to extend my disability because of this little hospital stint. We will see.. I sure hope I heal much sooner! Here's to a miracle!)
I had also been forcing myself to eat as much as I can (smoking pot to gain some appetite on a very, very nauseated system). I was also experiencing some painful bowel blockages (which had started on Monday) but nothing some little suppositories or a Sitz bath couldn't solve. I was able to relieve myself but the food just seemed to be staying in my stomach much longer or at least it seemed. For some reason my stomach would get very, very full after just eating only a few bites. It would get downright painful and feel as if it were going to burst; so I would smoke some pot to get rid of that horrible pain; it worked like a charm each time.
Well Wednesday, I did write my doctor and then an email bounce back that he is out of town until the 19th(I didn't get the email until the next day) so I email two other doctors; my primary doctor and the GI doctor on Thursday. I didn't get an email from either of them until later in the evening. The GI doctor suggested that I go to ER and then my Primary Doctor of course agreed with him. I just didn't feel quite that bad; I just wanted to see a doctor first prior to going through all of that.
On Thursday, I made it my mission to try and gain some weight (I've been trying to for weeks). I wanted so bad to get on that scale and see that I weighed at least 117lbs. I have to admit that I smoked pot most of the day (before and after a meal) and also munched out all day long until around 7pm. I was so proud of my feat and that I ate more than I normally eat!) I was happy until the pain started.
All that food had not moved past my stomach and I was burping most of the day (nasty tasting burps) and these burps would normally have made me loose my appetite completely. Smoking pot just made me hungry and more able to stomach most foods. I just wanted to munch!)
OK back to 7pm; I started getting sick and very nauseated. The puking started at around 9pm and it was very thick heavy vomit; in fact as I was leaning over the toilet; the vomit was so thick and heavy that it bounced out of the toilet and right into my eye!( Ewwwwwwwww; I have puke in my eye to deal with and it burned too!( How horribly disgusting that was! It was an eye opener for sure! God I have to deal with so many disgusting issues with this disease!
Anyway I puked most of the night on Thursday; all that hard work of trying to gain weight and now my poor tummy was cramping in the worst way. I was in severe pain! I had to take some strong pain medications that my doctor had given me for times like these. I was thankful to have those strong pain medications on hand because we may have rushed right to the emergency room for some morphine. It was that painful; but we delt with it. It was such a miserable night; but I did eventually get to sleep for a few hours anyway. I also decided to stop taking those chemo pills because I felt those might be making the tumors bigger and causing me some major GI problems. Thursday was my first night without taking those chemo pills.
On Friday morning I called the Advice Nurse and made an appointment to see my Primary Doctor at 3pm. No more playing around; food is not going through my system for a reason and this could kill me. I also weighed in at 107lbs and that completely frightened me; but despite all of that I did get to go have a nice romantic lunch with my husband at noon and we also got to stroll through an air conditioned mall window shopping and just holding hands and enjoying the time spent together. I did warn him of my pending doctor appointment and the possibility that might have to go the ER. He didn't like this, but what else can we do? He's still there for me always and that's more than I could ever ask for!)
After I dropped him off at his job, I then drove myself straight home and took a nap just prior to going to my doctor appointment. I didn't have to wait for too long in that busy waiting room. The doctor was able to at least examine me and he was very surprised at how loud my intestines were churning, and then I also showed him the horrid looking bumps (tumors) on top of my rib cage, and after hearing all that has been going on (puking); he decided that my very best option was for me to just go straight to ER. I was pretty bummed. There wasn't really anything he could do with out an x-ray or a CAT scan.
After our meeting I walked straight over to the ER and went through the entire 9 hour process of waiting and moving from one waiting room back to the other and then back to another until I got a room. Friday night in the Emergency Room; it was quite busy and so many people sick and coughing and I was so worried that I was going to catch that Swine Flu.
I ended up sitting right across from this really sad old woman. She just stared right into my eyes and I could see and be so familiar with her pain; I've been there but there was no way of her knowing that. To her; I looked quite healthy. She was sitting in one of those uncomfortable temp wheel chairs and wearing one of those ugly hospital gowns; she had an NG tube and a pee bag. I just knew that I just might end up in her shoes during this hospital stay. I prayed "Please NO NG tube!". It was definitely a possibility for relieving much of the pressure inside my abdomen. I sure felt for this old woman; I smiled at her but her face was motionless.
I finally got a temp room at around 9pm where I sat for another couple of hours to talk with doctors. I was able to get an x-ray just prior to getting that temp room where I was seated in a gurney in the hallway just waiting for a room. The young man that wheeled me over to x-ray was himself a testicular cancer survivor. He was very lucky and had found his lump early and it was fluke that he even found it. He was successfully treated with only 3 chemo treatments. Two years later his scans are still clean; more power to him!)
When we got back I had 4 nurses try desperately to find a vein for my IV and to get lots of blood samples (it looked to me like lots of little bottles to fill). I must have gotten poked and prodded about 10 times before one finally found a vein close to my elbow. Who would have known? It sure was painful and I cried when they were poking around on the veins with lots of scar tissue. It was downright painful. I was so thankful the nurse found that vein but she wasn't able to get any blood drawn so they had to call up for a real Phlebotomist from the Lab. He was good and was able to fill up most of those vials. Oh god I hate needles!
I also had to have tons of sticky little things all over my body for an EKG? My heart is actually in great shape considering. See I do have a good heart!) But I got so much sticky crap all over me and lots and lots of wires hanging off of me; along with those snaps and stuff.
My honey had arrived shortly at 9:30pm and I told him to take his time; I didn't feel we should both be in complete misery waiting around and waiting around. He needed to eat his dinner and take the dog out and get other things done prior to hanging out with me in the emergency room. He tried to lie down on the gurney with me but I had so many wires hanging out of my ugly hospital gown. I had never seen myself like this before. It must be new that they check my heart rate and all the stuff. We did get to take a little nap together as we waited to hear from a doctor.
The doctor did finally come up to see me just after 10pm and he showed us the x-ray and where the block was. He said there were some pockets of gas and fecal matter; and despite only eating at noon; my stomach was surprisingly very full; in all a block is not so good for me. He actually gave me a choice of if I wanted the NG now or later. I said later and I was thrilled to have that painful thing in my nostril. After we talked with this doctor my honey did leave around 11:30pm and I told him I would text him with the room number. I didn't have any service inside this particular temp. room.
I finally got to see an OBGYN doctor at around 12:30pm and she decided formally that I should be admitted so that we could watch to see if the block can resolve on it's own. She felt I didn't need the NG tube unless I started vomiting out of control and I was thrilled. I got to take pain medication rather than that stupid NG I was really hoping that I would get to go home but 10 times out of 10 I get admitted. There is just no way around it. I did finally get to go to my room finally at around 2:30am. I was given pain medications and Benadryl and slept about as good as could with nurses coming in at all hours to take blood, take vitals, and so on. It does suck to be waken up at 4am to get stuck with a needle on my left arm since the IV was in my right. It took her a few times to try to find a vein and I was so thankful when she did. Getting a needle stuck in left arm is not at all fun. There's just no working veins in that arm at all. That 1st round of chemo just destroyed them all!
I got to sleep most of the day and of course I am still blocked and dealing with some nausea. We are working on the block by NPO (no food or drink), just fluids via IV and suppositories. I did have a very, very painful spasm episode this morning and I thank GOD that I didn't puke. I almost did, but thankfully I did not. I've been getting Dilaudid for pain intravenously and it's working great for the pain but hopefully this little block will work it's way out and I can go home soon.
My honey did stop by with Blue Belle and of course my beloved computer. My poor iPhone was nearly dead as I had to use it heavily. I talked with both my parents most of the morning just letting them know that I'm OK and working on healing. I did try to post a comment on my last post from my iPhone just to let you all know that I'm OK and I'm in the hospital. I kept getting that warning that my phone is out of juice and I did feel guilty still having to use it despite that; but its a good little phone to not have died completely as many of my other phones have done to me. I thought that was amazing.I'm making the most of being stuck here and hopefully I will heal this week and I hope I will be able to return to work a week from Monday. I'm looking forward to it. I still need to gain quite a bit of weight but there is still that chance I won't be able to return this soon. I can't believe it is 4 months later and I'm still not healed. It still puzzles me but I am going to do all that I can this week so that I can return to work. I have a feeling my doctor is going to have to extend my disability because of this little hospital stint. We will see.. I sure hope I heal much sooner! Here's to a miracle!)
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4 comments:
So sorry you find yourself back in the hospital :( I'm so glad that Blue Belle can visit you though!
Hang in there CJ
Hi CJ,
Sorry to hear you are in the hospital again! I am just wondering why you don't have a Power Port? I hate needles too and my Power Port has been such a blessing. They are able to take blood easily and my chemo goes through it too. No more pokes from those nasty needles. You remain in my thoughts and prayers. - Mindi
Thank you all for all of the blessings and positive thoughts for my healing. Well as for having a port; this may be coming soon but I'm not on intravenous chemo just yet. For now my veins just have to tolerate more abuse and hopefully not for too long (no more stints in the hospital!)
I'm so, so sorry your back in the hospital. I'm glad they're relieving your pain for you though - there's nothing worse than being stuck in pain. I hope that blockage moves it's way out soon so you can get home to your honey where you belong :)
I'll be praying that you can avoid that NG tube at all costs - I got threatened with one last time I had a blockage - they don't sound very nice at all..
Rest up..
((HUGS))
Becky
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