Surgery Posting, Part 4

Surgery Posting, Part 1
Surgery Posting, Part 2
Surgery Posting, Part 3
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Saturday
Morning came a little too early, but, that is just the way things go sometimes. I am still on clear liquids at this point, so I continue drinking, or rather sipping. I get my next heparin shot and then the resident comes by to check on me and rates me good enough to move to other liquids. Orders go out, and my first glass of milk appears along with thinned cream of chicken soup. Guess what kind of milk it is? Skim(aka colored water). I don’t drink skim and according to the handbook, we can have skim or 1%. 1% is what I drink at home, so hurray! Well, try getting that order to be fixed! The nurse was able to find me some 1% milk finally. I was still on a two ounce per hour intake, so I had two ounces of soup and put the milk on ice and drank it during the following hour.
So the day progresses, my grandparents come by one last time on their way to their house, which by this time, its been over two weeks since they have been home as they came to my house directly from one of their monthly Indiana treks. They promise to come back Monday or Tuesday to pick me up, depending on when I got discharged.
So, later that day, the nurse asks me if I want to shower? Now, I showered the night BEFORE surgery, knowing I probably wouldn’t be up for or get one for a day or two. At this point, I still have my catheter in, am still on continuous oxygen and I have a drainage tube hanging out of my abdomen in addition to my IV. I looked at her and said, “seriously?”. I said, you get the tubes out of me, I’ll take a shower. Well, needless to say, the tubes did not come out that day. They had to make sure I was peeing enough before they could pull my catheter. Let’s think about this for a moment. If you drink two ounces of fluid an hour for 12 hours, how much do you suppose comes back out? Well, in a normal person, probably most of it, but in a dehydrated person, very little. Remember, the only fluids I had in me was saline up until 7pm the night before. The catheter remained the rest of that day and into the next.
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By the afternoon, my IV had failed. Go figure! So, they call in a vampire tech to put in a new one. At this point, I am running out of places to stick, so this girl decides in the bend of my wrist(bend towards you) is a good spot. I told her right away that it wasn’t a good idea, it is my wiping hand, my dominant hand, and it’ll come out. Did she listen? NOPE! Three sticks later, it is in my wrist. So I am sitting up in my chair watching TV when I feel the urge to go to the bathroom. Can you guess where this is heading? Yep, my IV failed! So, again, I need a vampire to come by and place another one. I was thinking at this point that if it’s that same lady, I am going to punch her. Nope, different girl. First thing I tell her is, if she doesn’t think she can get it on the first try, she better turn around. I have just about had it with being poked to death. I am just like all the rest of the women in my family that I know and if my veins even get a whiff of a needle coming, they run for their lives! So, she is like, I think I can. Well, she thought wrong! Three sticks later and I still don’t have an IV in my arm. I have now been without my IV for over an hour, thus meaning no pain medication on board. I am in tears at this point because the first stick she tried felt like she was stripping my veins, not just trying to place a needle in it. I am basically having a breakdown because I am so tired of the incompetence. I mean seriously, this is what they do for a living! I asked for a flight nurse and they looked at my like I was out of my mind. I said the flight nurses know how to put in an IV while flying in a vibrating machine; I am pretty sure they can handle a patient in a bed and get it THE FIRST TIME. They can’t do that they say. So I am balling my eyes out, sick to death of being a human pin cushion. A different vampire tech walks in and tries to calm me down. I asked for a warm blanket to be placed on my arm. This is supposed to help the veins pop up and do their thing. They bring one for each arm. So I sat there for about five minutes, soaking up the warmth, hoping to God this would do the trick. The vampire comes by again and feels my veins and she is pretty sure she has one. Well, two sticks later, she did, but it must have been the smallest vein in my arm, it hurt like mad having the needle shoved in there. Finally, the drugs start flowing back into my system. I drift off into a two hour nap from the trauma of the whole afternoon. Rebekah was still with me when I woke up and left around dinner. She was awesome about everything the whole time she was there. She wore my pajamas because it wasn’t planned for her to stay with me, her kind soul volunteered when I was having such a bad day on Friday. She slept on a combination of a chair and ottoman pushed together with a couple of pillows and think hospital blankets. Not sure how well she slept, but I appreciated her being there very much. So because I was feeling a little more “normal”, Rebekah left that afternoon and I was on my own.