Back in the Hospital

Hi Everyone,

Well, I'm back in the hospital today. Saw my gyno today and she ordered at CT and the Ct showed....a lovely abcess behind my uterus. Joy. The usual course of action would be to stick a needle in me and drain it, but since I tend to bleed and get infections whenever I have any type of surgery, no matter how minor, we're trying antibiotics first. So, I'll be in the hospital for a couple days and then the CT will be repeated.

The first round of antibiotics is in me now with no horrible reactions, so that's good.

Now we just have to decorate my room again!

Becca

The Notebook(s)

Has anyone noticed that the Chinese have taken over YouTube? I guess it's just another place for them to download pirated television shows.

This is my rat Francis (it's spelled like a boys name, but she's a girl) and she's standing on the afghan Rayne crocheted for me.

Sorry it's kind of blurry, and I guess you can't see much of the afghan. I'll get better pics later.

These are the notebooks Rayne got me. I decorated the covers.
Rayne wrote a note inside each one.

Here's one of the games. Rayne wrote "Peas" and I wrote the other things. Obviously, it's not done yet.

Drug Dilemma

The last 4 days have been pretty painful ones. I've been trying to cut down on the narcotics without the using Tylenol as a crutch because, frankly, Tylenol does nothing for me. I may as well be taking sugar pills for all I can tell. Plus, one less drug in my body is always a-ok with me. I am requiring the same amount of pain meds now as I was when I was taken out of the hospital. There has been no improvement pain-wise except for a couple good mornings (which invariably turned into bad afternoons). However, the narcotics are slowing down things in my bowels and we need to get that stuff going. We especially don't want there to be another obstruction. So the doctors are hoping that, if they lower my amount of narcotics then things start moving in my tummy and then I start to feel better. Granted, I should be trying to eat some normal food during this time and get a little exercise to help things along.

So, being the good patient that I am, I've been cutting down on the narcotics. Unfortunately things have been really painful lately. I feel like I just had surgery or something. So my way of coping with the pain now is to lie dow in the recliner or bed and not move. And maybe use my heating pad sometimes. The pain also ensures that my meager appetite is swept away. So much for diet and exercise...

As for sleep...well, without the copious amount of narcotics in my system that ensure I can sleep whenever I want to, I've been forced to start using my Ambien again.

I'm also on this new antibiotic for my UTI. It makes me very, very nauseous so now I'm basically eating nothing. I mean, even when I was in the hospital I could at least finish a can of Boost. Not anymore. I have half a can of that stuff nowadays and I feel like I just came out of an all-you-can-eat buffet. So, now I'm turning to my heavy duty nausea medication.

So, as you can see we have something of a dilemma here. And after spending half of last night on the toilet I've come to the conclusion that my bowel obstruction may have come back. My doctor had offered to do another CT scan last time I saw her, but at the time we didn't really feel it was necessary. Now I want the CT scan. My mom is going to call some doctors today because we really need to get some medication routine that works going on here. I just hope I don't have to go back to the hospital and/or have more surgery.

In other news, the rats and cats are doing a very good job of taking care of me. Velvet has learned very well that she is now allowed to touch or walk on my stomach. I also successfully saved my computer from a horrible, horrible virus yesterday. All I can say is thank You God for System Restore and the fact that I back up everything. Okay, okay, my dad helped me conquer the evil virus a little.

Becca

A Real Blog

Hi everyone,

I think I'm finally back in the blogging groove. I was feeling too sick to do any blogging before and then, even though I was still sick, I had no interest. Now, I'm still sick, but I'm inspired. I thought I'd start out with a few pics from my hospital visits. My mom made all sorts of cool paper crafts and decorated my rooms beautifully, but sadly I never got any pictures of all that. I got lots and lots of balloons. One of my favorites is a clear balloon with seaweed painted on it and inside is another balloon of some fishes. One of my friends even got me some fake ivy to put on my IV pole (get it? Ivy on the IV).

I also wish I had gotten a picture of the beautiful shower rooms at the local hospital, Bryan East. They were about at big as my room (about 12 ft x 12 ft) and were beautifully decorated with cushy chairs and bath products. The shower was just some walls around the floor so you didn't have to step over anything to get in. The shower head was one of those cool ones that comes off and is like a sprayer. Needless to say, I took advantage of these facilities.

Okay, on to pictures (click photos to see them on Flickr):

This is a balloon my mom got me that says Peas Get Well Soon. I love it because 1) it's cute and 2) I love peas!

My friends got me this balloon since I was in the women's post partum wing of the hospital. I actually had a couple nurses who thought it was real (even though they'd read my chart).



At the hospital in Omaha, my mom drew a couple of ratties on my white board. When Rayne and her family came to visit Katy drew her own rattie for me (Katy's is the furthest to the left).

People brought me all sorts of awesome presents like cool air fresheners, evian skin spray, flowers, a plastic frog that turns into a prince when you put him in the water, stickers, art supplies, paper products and a Hello Kitty coloring book that says, "Activivity Book". Thank you, Japan.

Rayne brought me the beautiful afgahn she made me and it now goes with me pretty much everywhere. I must take a a picture of it to share. She also gave me two notebooks: one is for aimless rants and doodles and the other she and her daughters filled with simple, colorful games (like connect the dots, but with no numbers and doctor voodoo). And of course there were markers and cool, twist-up colored pencils to go with it.

I got a chance to write in my aimless, immature rants book right away. I've mentioned before how I had a horrible roommate in Omaha and I'd like to tell you a little more about her. I wrote the following essay for your reading pleasure:

Andrea
Redneck extraordinaire
By Becca

When my bed was wheeled into my new room at UNMC (University of Nebraska Medical Center) I was drugged, half-asleep and all I could really see was the ceiling. Still, it was obvious that this was a two-bed hospital room and I was indeed sharing it with someone.

Once I was settled in my bed I could hear voices coming from the other side of the curtain that divided the two beds. It sounded like some minor procedure was going on, like a port replacement or something like that. My mom asked to speak with the doctor (a young woman who looked to be about 5 years older than me) and told her that, because I’m immune suppressed, I’m supposed to have a private room in a low traffic area. The doctor’s response to this was that they only gave private rooms to people who were immune compromised. So, apparently immune suppressed is different? You would think that putting an immune suppressed person through two surgeries within 48 hours would make them count as an immune compromised person, but I guess this doctor wasn’t thinking. In fact, I don’t think that doctor really thought about anything the whole time we were there. Anyway, my mom complained about it on the phone to a couple family members, but the fact remained that I was stuck living with whoever was behind that curtain. And for a couple days after that, every time the roommate talked to one of her family or friends she would whisper for awhile about the “immune suppressed girl” sharing the room with her.

The Roommate:
Name: Andrea
Home: Farm outside of Beatrice, Nebraska
Gender: Female
Age: 50-ish
Body Type: Very obese
Family: Married, has 1, maybe 2 children. Endless relatives and redneck friends.
Health Issues: Liver tumors, diabetes.
Hobbies: Raising pigs, showing pigs in the county fair, slaughtering pigs, eating like a redneck, belching like a redneck, complaining, calling every single person she knows at least once a day, worrying about her vacuum cleaner.
Favorite TV Shows: If there were a redneck network, she’d watch it. Instead, she’s forced to flip through TV channels to find the following shows:
-Wheel of Fortune (oh goodness did she watch a lot of that show)
-Soap Operas
-Army Wives (She complained to no less than 4 people on the phone that the hospital didn’t have the Lifetime network.)
-She watched at least one episode of Dr. Phil that was about a guy with a sex ego who slept with around 6 different women on a “good night”.
Favorite Books: All I ever saw were tabloids.
Current Status (from when I was writing some of this down at the hospital): She’s moaning, farting and burping in pain with the TV volume up to the max. She was watching Wheel of Fortune, but now it sounds as if she’s switched it to a cop show. Does she like having the TV on so loud while she’s having a pain episode?

The above information is a testament to Andrea’s loud and forward nature because never once did we have a conversation with her (only polite remarks here and there where proper etiquette required it) and I only ever caught a few glimpses of her.

=======================

The Television

Despite the fact that the hospital beds have a personal stereo system so you can keep the volume from bothering others, Andrea turns the volume up to the max. If a medical professional walks in to talk to her, or someone calls her on the phone, she does nothing different about the volume. I’ve had the pleasure numerous times of having my ear drums blown out by her simultaneous phone conversations and TV viewing.
When one of my friends was visiting me she heard an exchange between Andrea and the nurse that I somehow missed (I was pretty drugged). It isn’t hard to know what’s going on on the other side of the curtain because Andrea’s vocal volume is about the same as her TV’s. Anyway, apparently the nurse came in and Andrea demanded, “Where’s the TV button?”
“It’s right there on your bed,” replied the nurse.
“Where? I don’t see it.”
“It’s the button with a picture of a TV on it,” said the nurse, obviously surprised at the incompetence of this woman.
“Well I can’t see it; I don’t have my glasses on!”
I was in the same kind of hospital bed and the button would have been 3 inches away from her face. The nurse, seeming rather exasperated, went and pointed out the button to Andrea, who pressed it. She then turned down the volume incredibly low and asked the nurse, “Do you think this is too loud? Will it disturb the girl next to me?”
The nurse assured her it was fine. The minute the nurse left the room Andrea cranked up the volume to the max.
I like quiet, especially when I’m healing. I think most people do. If there is any kind of loud noise it just makes me hurt all over and possibly want to throw up. It just doesn’t work for me. Also, sleeping is a big challenge for me if there is any kind of noise besides rats making nests. And I hate TV. We don’t have TV at home, and while I like some shows, I don’t understand the draw of the whole TV thing. Needless to say, Andrea’s constant and loud TV viewing was hard on me. We tried ear plugs, but the sound still came through.
I did bring a movie with me to the hospital and the TV we had on our half of the room had a DVD and VHS player with it, but did I ever get the chance to watch that movie? No. Did I ever get a chance to watch a TV show if I wanted? No. One day I watched the clock and Andrea had had the TV on for eleven hours straight. Not only that, but she would keep it on until past eleven at night sometimes. Apparently they don’t teach rednecks etiquette.
Sometimes, when the TV was off, mom and I would get a chance to actually talk to each other (I couldn’t talk very loud at all, sometimes barely above a whisper, because of all the fluid in my lungs). We always talked a little softer than usual because it’s good manners when you’re sharing a room with someone else. Usually, in the middle of these conversations, Andrea would turn on the TV and drown us out so that mom and I couldn’t talk anymore. I don’t know about you, but if you were sharing a hospital room with someone and they’re having a conversation, don’t you sort of automatically adjust whatever you’re doing so you don’t disturb them?
I got a few visitors when I was in the hospital. One day, when I had a lot of people coming, Andrea happened to have her daughter with her and they were both watching a soap opera very loudly. They did not adjust the volume so that I could talk to my visitors. We ended up having to practically shout at each other. And all my visitors witnessed the horror that was Andrea. I told them you get used to the juicy belches and the farting after a while.

Visitors

Andrea also got large groups of visitors, all of whom were loud rednecks who cussed and talked about the vilest things. Not to mention they all talked at once. These people usually stayed for over an hour. I usually ended up pushing my morphine button a lot.
On one of these occasions when there was a large group of visitors, Andrea was explaining that she had to kept on oxygen all the time because otherwise her oxygen saturation would drop below normal. One woman asked, “So how everyone is the world doesn’t have to wear an oxygen thing? Where do we get our oxygen?”
“Oh, that’s cuz there’s oxygen in the air,” Andrea sagely explained.
“Oooh.”
Any suspicions my mom and I had that these people were rednecks was confirmed for us right then.

Talking

I think I’ve pretty well established that Andrea was loud. Too make things worse, though, she was also chatty. At 3 AM when we got our blood drawn she would talk in her loudest voice and chat away with the phlebotomist forever. Even though my blood had already been drawn and I was free to go back to sleep, I usually had to wait a good fifteen minutes to a half an hour for her to be quiet. And then it started all over again at whatever hour her doctors chose to come in.
Then there was the cell phone conversations. As mentioned before, Andrea called, what seemed like, everyone she know at least once a day. She usually called her husband two or three times a day. During these conversations she would loudly explain in great detail every facet of her bodily functions and any other medical information, regardless of how relevant it was. The special part of this was that we got to hear her recount this information to a very lot of people every single day.

The Vacuum Cleaner

One of the more pathetic stories we heard a lot about through Andrea’s phone calls was the vacuum cleaner. Apparently her daughter had offered to clean up Andrea’s house a little and then another relative went over later to find her vacuum cleaner missing. The daughter had taken it to her house to use for awhile. Andrea had to talk and talk and talk about this to many different people. She practically made the whole thing into its own soap opera.
“Well she can’t just throw it around. I mean, it’s made of plastic! She could break it!”
Ask my mom to do her impression of Andrea talking about her vacuum cleaner. It’s a hoot.

The Pigs

On our first day at the hospital we heard about the pigs. We had been there for maybe an hour or so when Andrea inevitably started talking on her cell phone. It soon became apparent that she was talking about some pigs that she and her family had raised and were showing in the county fair that day. She went on and on about these pigs in such a redneck manner that mom and I started looking at each other with weird expressions on our faces. It wasn’t long before we heard the word “slaughter”. I was already in a lot of pain, very drugged and very unhappy. To hear about pigs being raised, loved, named, shown in the fair and then killed just about threw me over the edge for the day.
In every single phone call Andrea ever made she talked about the pigs. My friend, who had the pleasure of listening to some of these conversations (she was so loud you couldn’t not listen) said it was hard to differentiate between when she stopped talking about family members and started talking about the pigs.

Food

As mentioned before, Andrea is a diabetic. But she’s also a redneck, so you can imagine how well those two things mix. On the same day we were each told we could return to a normal diet as much as possible. Meaning, we could eat whatever we wanted. I decided I’d try a Boost nutritional shake (you know, that stuff in a can) and see how that went down. Andrea called to order food and decided to start her tummy off gently as well. Not! She ordered turkey and country fried potatoes and this greasy gross stuff.
The next morning she ordered pancakes, bacon, hash browns and eggs with sugar-free syrup for the pancakes (you know, because she’s diabetic). And man, the smell of that greasy hospital food was enough to take away any tiny bit of an appetite I did have. Afterwards Andrea would sit and belch in the juiciest, most redneck way she knew how. Then she’d start moaning (she did this moaning routine quite often. We learned to live with it) and perhaps give a fart or two before calling for the nurse to whom she would complain of an upset stomach. I wonder if she ever saw the connection between her eating habits and her nausea…
Then came the day when she ordered the chicken tenders (and of course some sugar-free pie with a scoop of ice cream). After that day she couldn’t shut up about those chicken tenders. She’d ask the nurses, “Have you tried the chicken tenders here? They’re delicious!” The nurses seemed rather confused. Here was someone who was actually praising hospital food. Andrea would call up her friends and family, “They have the most amazing chicken tenders here.”
From then on she made sure to always order some of those chicken tenders, along with some fries, of course. As for me, I was still working on getting used to toast.

The Priest

It was a normal day. I was staring at the wall and pushing my morphine button and Andrea had the TV on ridiculously loud (you could seriously hear it from outside of the room and then some, I had found out). I heard a couple people enter the room. Two male voices greeted Andrea who greeted them back in a most distracted manner, as if she was very absorbed in whatever she was watching. Then I heard what sounded like a prayer and then the two men leaving the room. Now I could be wrong since I didn’t actually see any of this, but based on what I heard, I’d guess that Andrea didn’t take her eyes (or ears) off the TV the entire time this priest (or whoever it was) was praying for her.

IV Beeps

Andrea had many IV pumps and monitors, as did I, but hers seemed to beep quite more often. So, on top of her loud talking and loud TV, we also had her loud IVs and monitors. Now, I know IVs beep a lot, but hers went above and beyond. What really made it hard was that she always thought the beeping was coming from me, so she’s never press the nurse button. When someone would finally come in Andrea would say, “I think one of the machines over there is beeping.”
“No, that’s your IV,” the nurse would say.
“Oh. Really?”
It happened like this almost every time. You’d think she learn.

===================

Looking back on the whole Andrea situation, we really should have confronted her or told a nurse or doctor about what was going on. I would write my mom notes of sorrow about Andrea’s habits keeping me from sleep or rest of any kind. At the same time, she sure was a character and makes for some great storytelling. These anecdotes are really experienced best when we can tell them verbally, but I wanted to have a written record of it all in case I forgot. If I remember anymore Andrea stories or come across any of the notes I wrote about her, I’ll be sure to update this record and share them with all of you.

Health Update List

The update for today is

• I do indeed have a urinary tract infection for which I am now being treated.
  
• Now two of my incisions are infected and draining gross fluids of which I won't go into detail.
  
• My MELD score (where I am on the transplant list) is now a 17. It used to be a 13, so that means I'm higher on the list now.
  
• My constant nose bleeds are because of my blood's inability to clot (as witnessed before with my post-surgery internal bleeding that took three hours to stop). A new liver will fix this problem.
  
• I'm still having a lot of pain so I'm still taking a lot of painkillers. The painkillers may actually be making my pain worse (since they slow down stuff going through the intestines) so we're going to try to wean me off of them and onto Tylenol, despite the fact the Tylenol does nothing for me. I might as well take a sugar pill. I'm not looking forward to losing my pain meds, no matter how slowly.
  
• My appetite is getting a little better.
  

I plan to get back to blogging very soon here. I've just been copying and pasting my email health updates here so that ya'll have some background of what's going on with me. Right now I'm getting some more fun stuff ready to share about my hospital time. Stay tuned!

What's Been Going On At Home

August 5th, 2008

Hi,
Just wanted to let ya'll know that my time at home has gone relatively well. I've had some rough patches, but the three narcotics I can take simultaneously seem to be doing their job. I am going to see my gynecologist tomorrow because of some infection around one of the incision sites.
Basically, I've been sleeping all day with 2-4 hour waking times in between my long naps. It's so great to have the ratties and the cats here, though. And being in my own bed and room and recliner is great.
Thanks to everyone for your support and for all the cards I've been getting. I wish I could give you all a bazillion dollars!

Becca

August 6th, 2008

First of all, forgive me if this email has tons of typos or badly phrased sentences. I'm really super out of it today.
So the last couple of days my tummy has been feeling worse and then I had this drainage out of one of my incisions so we went to see the gynecologist today. She looked at the incision and said to try and antibiotic cream and to watch and make sure the redness didn't spread.
We talked about maybe doing some physical therapy down the line since I can't seem to stay awake long enough to do much exercising. We also talked about going to see a pain management specialist since right now the doctors are so limited in what they can give me (I can't have anything that contains aspirin, ibuprofen, or too much Tylenol).
I gave them a urine sample since there are some issues there and I also got a few blood tests done. We're going to be calling UNMC to see if we can see my liver doctor, Dr. Mukherjee, sooner rather than later and ask him about all these things and get his opinion. Also, since my clotting factor is so weird, I've been having around 7 nose bleeds a day and if my lip cracks and starts to bleed (which is does almost everyday) it take 3-4 hours for the bleeding to stop. This clotting factor thing could be related to the liver, but we're not sure. Anyway, we gotta get the opinions of a lot of different specialists because I'm such a complicated case.
Today, I'm just lying around, feeling so tired and immovable that it feels like I don't really exist. Public outings really take it out of me. The rats and Velvet are keeping me company, though and I'm trying to eat a little.

Becca

Home (again)

So yesterday I got to come home! :D I'd had a really good night. The day wasn't going so well, but it wasn't horrible or anything. About 2 hours after my sister arrived home from Colorado (visiting mour Dad) I also arrived home.

I slept for about three hours and had a nice reunion with all my animals before Gina came over to clean the rat cages. During this time my pain started getting really bad (like borderline ER visit). Mom stepped in, even though she'd already gone to bed, and figured out which pain meds I could take (this pain requires 3 types of narcotics simultaneously, and sometimes those don't even work). Mom got me all situated in a comfortable position with a heating pad and I was finally able to get some sleep. Meanwhile, Aprille had come over and was helping Gina put my bed back (it had been moved for the recliner) and rearrange some stuff so I could access my things from both my recliner and my bed. I woke up a lot during the night and during 4 AM I was doing very well pain-wise soI organized my tables a bit. Then I slept in until about noon.

Today I'm having my normal amount of pain, but hopefully the drugs will all start kicking into high gear soon.
I'm having fluctuating body temperatures, lots of cramping and bruising on my tummy. These are all signs that the body is starting to heal itself, so I'm happy for that (though not for the pain). So hopefully I'm on the road to recovery here...it's just going to be painful.

A big thank you to the many people who came and visited me in the hospital and brought me flowers and balloons and toys! I think the record was 7 visitors in one day. And another big thank you for all of your kind, thoughful emails and cards, prayers and positive thoughts. I appreciate that so much.

Becca