Hospital Stay #3 - vampire misfire(s)

well, well, well. here we are team beansaver. i haven't had a painful yet twistedly humorous story to share with everyone in a while, so someone decided it was time and that i, once again, was to play the lead character in the story for ya. here goes...

with all the twilight hype going on right now i have to drink a glass of hater-ade for the bloodsuckers during this story(and i love vampires and werewolves and all that jazz).

ok, here goes for real....
sunday after New Years i started not feeling so hot. really achy and tired and cold and splitting headache. i kept drinking a lot of gatorade and water, but nothing seemed to help. i stopped taking sutent in case i was coming down with something. i got up monday morning and was feeling worse so i migrated to another area of the house for a change of scenery and took some tylenol and continued to try and drink. i called my dad and he came over for the afternoon with soup and new thermometers to keep a check on my temp. it was 101ish but went down to 99ish during the course of the day. when dad left i was feeling ok. had dinner and tried for over an hour to keep it down, but it ended up down the toilet. i drank some more fluids and then went to bed, hoping to feel better in the morning. during the night, i continued to get hotter and hotter. i was burning up. finally, the next morning i got up and repeated the routine of the previous morning, but this time, my temp was 103. time to call the dr.

so, i called my dad and stepmom and they called the dr's office and of course they told me to come right in. i get there with puke bucket in tow and they take me right back to the room. at this point my head is pounding, i am burning up with a temp and i am slightly disoriented. they lay me down on the examining table to start to try to relax me. they managed to get a free drip IV in me right in the office to start fluids because i was so dehydrated. after about an hour, i was wheeled to the hospital and admitted. fever still up around 102.7, head aching so bad it felt like daggers being stabbed in and out of my temples and eyes and body aches like i haven't had in a long time. i had also been nauseous all day.
the first call of action once i am in the hospital is......yup, you guessed it....to call in the blood sucking freakin' vampires. AKA the blood people. the ones who come to get blood samples for various tests. they wasted no time..i was barely in bed before she was coming at me, fangs bared and ready to strike. too bad she sucked(no pun intended) and had to poke me twice. well, actually three times cuz she had to take my blood for all sorts of tests. some tests could play nice and share tubes and others could not. well, so far i had 4 holes in me...1 for the IV, 1 for the general labs, 1 for the blood cultures and 1 for the vampire misfire.

on we go, the night is terrible because i have absolutely no relief until i am finally given some tylenol to help with the fever. i have on 5 blankets and my fever is still 102. i wake up about 3 am pouring sweat..apparently having finally broken my fever. my IV that was put in at the drs office is holding up pretty well, but its in an awkward spot and every time i bend my arm, the IV alarm starts going off. so, i had woken up to a soaked, sweaty bed and beeping in my ear. i call the nurse and ask for new gowns and for my bed to be changed and for the other nurse to come and check my IV because it is beeping. (two nurses do that variety of things).

so, im back in bed still feeling fluish, but a little better and all snug and fresh and ready to go back to sleep when someone comes a knockin'. GRRR. "hello, good morning! how are you?" freaking vampire #2 'oh, hell' goes through my head. good morning?, good morning??!! its freaking 4 am...that in my book is not a good morning...it is a very good late night maybe, but NEVER is 4 am a good morning. i was hoping that this bloodsucker was more skilled....unfortunately my hopes fell short as the concerned, concentrated, frowning look formed on her face while looking at my free arm (without the IV) as if she didn't have a juicy place to bite. "here we go" i thought. she finally went for a spot in my elbow-pit that most good bloodsuckers can nail every time. she didn't. then she goes for my hand which EVERY bloodsucker has ALWAYS gotten....she didn't. she tried another spot on my hand and got it, finally. as usual when she is done and on her way out i say "thanks" and "you too" in response to her "have a good day". meanwhile i am remembering ways to kill a vampire in the back of my head. back to sleep...as much as i can get between the "knock knock - time for meds, knock knock - vitals, knock knock - taking your trash, knock knock - im leaving for my shift in an hour, knock knock - shift change, knock knock - morning dad!"

the next day i actually felt slightly better. my temp had gone down to 98.5 or so which is still a little high or me, but not technically running a fever..YAY! i still had a headache but it was greatly dulled by the tylenol and i was on a regular dose of it. i was also getting calcium, magnesium, antibiotics and potassium along with my regular meds. i was resting and talking with my dad after a fruit plate breakfast and for once, rather that having to run to the potty, i just had some gas....so i farted. im the patient. im allowed! we giggled like kids and then i farted again. a few minutes go by and i fart again....only this time, a look of horror spreads across my face as i felt a warm puddle form at my butt. OH NO! I SHARTED! DAD, DAD, HELP, HELP! i have to get to the bathroom, i trusted a fart and i shouldn't have HELP! my dad, usually as sympathetic as a nun, was laughing his ass off. what i haven't mentioned yet is that my bed had been made again because i sweated out more of my fever the rest of the night after the first change, so the sheets i sharted on were only about an hour old. the guy that came back to change the sheets while i was in the bathroom changing my shorts said "i just changed these!" ha! sorry dude. shit happens...literally. the food was, well, hospital food, there is no need to completely gross you out all in one post. my dr. ordered x-rays of my lungs and they looked clear. unfortunately i was left down at x-ray for 45min after i was done and became very, very cold. i managed to avoid the bloodsuckers the rest of the day....cuz they mostly come out at night....mostly.

as i settled for bed i was beginning to become uncontrollably cold. shivering like crazy. i never completely warmed up from my trip down to x-ray where they left me like an unwanted child waiting...freezing my fever having ass off until the transit people decided to show back up.
i digress....so, im trying to get warm and settle down to sleep while hoping that the tylenol fairy will bring my dose early to help my splitting head. give up kids...there is no tylenol fairy, there is only frank the nurse and he won't bring it until it has been 8 hours damnit! temp had actually hit a low of 97.5 that day (my norm), but now it was on its way back up and made it up to 100.1 before i managed to get the next tylenol dose. i finally got to sleep through the shivering and broke my fever again around 3am. i called again for new sheets (this time i didnt shart in them...i promise). as im getting all tucked back into fresh dry sheets and a new dry gown...knock knock.....blood sucking vampire time. yes, the worst blood sucking experience i have had to date....and i mean ever, not just during this stay. she looked at my arm like the ones before and settled on the spot i told her was good for most of her fellow blood suckers if they were quick, my elbow pit. she tried, and missed...whined about the vein rolling and tried to chase it. this hurts like hell you know. i finally said "okay outta there!" then she tried the hand, which she claims she got, but said that nothing was coming out. so she got out of there. she himmed and hawwwed and finally said "i'll just drip it out of your finger tip". WHAT? are you kidding? no, she was not. so, she proceeded to prick my finger and squeeze and squeeze and squeeze and squeeze to drip and drip and drip and drip until finally she thought she might have enough. then she left. when she walked out i had bandages on my elbow pit, my hand and my finger, all on the same arm. then my IV started beeping and i had to call frank, my nurse, again. when he came to reset the pump he actually laughed and asked what happened to my arm. i told him that the blood sucking vampires sucked me dry and had to get drops out of my finger. he cracked up and started to help me take off all of the bandages. that was around 5am...i napped after that.

the next day when dr. doom came to see me he said i was improving, but now i was getting fluid on my belly from being pumped so full of IV fluids. he ordered an ultra sound to determine how much fluid needed come off and how much was edema buildup and scheduled me to be drained that day. he also told me that he was going to cut down my IV fluids from 150ml/hr to 75ml/hr. great. slow it down so i don't go home with 30 pounds of freaking edema like i did last year. he also said that i was going to be there another day and that i needed to start walking around the halls once i got the fluid off. so, time to move the IV that kept going off every time i bent my elbow....we waited 2 hours for the IV chick. when she finally came and moved it, it was the worst, most painful IV stick i have ever had. she had me in tears. finally when it was over, guess what....yup, another bloodsucker came in wanting her share. she must have smelled the fresh stick and came running since it was 2 in the afternoon!! at this point, she was having a hard time figuring out where to stick me because i had 3 holes in my elbow pit, 2 in my left hand, 1 on my left ring finger, one healing IV line in my right arm and 1 in my right hand. she decided to go for the place where 3 had gone before and none had made it back with any blood. i told her she had to be quick cuz my veins were rollers. she tried .... and .... YIPPIEEEEEEE!!!!!! she made it. finally, one of the bloodsuckers was able to get me without multiple pokes in ridiculous places.

only one major poke left for the day. to be drained. i went down to be drained shortly after that and that actually went just fine. they pulled 2 liters off, so 4.4lbs. then they sent me back upstairs and i rested. done...i was going home tomorrow....yeah!

i had a slightly restless night...weird dreams and restlessness so i decided to walk at 1 am. i walked around the halls and then settled into bed. i ended up sweating my bed out again just to be thorough i guess since i wasn't running a fever. called for the new sheets around 5 and had the usual interruptions until i was forced to get up. dr. doom came in around 8ish and told me that i needed another bag of IV magnesium and that i was probably going to be released, but that he would let me rest and be back later. by lunchtime he was back and i was told that this chicken was flying the coop! thank goodness! he didn't know why i came down with the fever, my lungs were fine, none of my blood cultures came back with anything, my white cells were down and my hemoglobin and platelets were down....typical with my sutent meds. he told me to not start back on my meds until i met with him again on the 14th. i asked about just the flu...if there was a flu test and he simply said that he didn't think that was it, but mostly just sluffed off the question. he's not the type to give the first easy answer so i think he wanted to pin it on something else so he can make sure it doesn't happen again. if it was the flu, he can't control that.

phewwww! sorry for such a long story guys, but i felt that one deserved to be told. i have a new nickname for a group of my caregivers....Blood Sucking Freaking Vampires. they take my blood, they always cause pain, and they mostly come at night......mostly.