The Pin Cushion still lives. This visit in the hospital is right up there with most pokes and stabs and misses visit in the hospital. I lost count somewhere after 10. I will get back to the high-lights in a bit.
For the people that don’t like reading lengthy entries to sum it up:
=== Start of speed reader summary ===
I have now been discharged(thursday) and am once again at home waiting for the transplant. I have just slightly more energy then I had going into the hospital but I still sleep a lot. And when I haven’t been sleeping I am getting ready to go to sleep a lot. The docs say there is nothing growing in my big uncomfortable belly at the moment that will cause problems for the next transplant if it happens soon.
=== End of speed reader summary ===
My pin cushion experience started out in the normal way. Micah tells the nurse that I am hard stick. My veins look easy when they show there face but don’t be fooled the roll and move and colapse anything they can do to not get poked and since I haven’t eaten much and everything goes straight through they will be even harder to keep still. Oh and you can’t use this one this one or this one :-) because of previous IV attempts and failures, have a nice day.
Like most hospital stays they want to start with an IV. And I guess something I said to the nurse decided she didn’t want to attempt me, She said I am going to go find someone better then me to give you your IV. A few minutes later 3 of the crew from life flight come into my room, to start an IV on me. I felt privileged it takes away some of the fear knowing that these guys poke people in is some of the worst places and conditions Utah terrain can offer and they save lives. It is funny working with TV you see the “Talent” as normal people not so much star struck. Well having Life Flight working on me I have to admit I was star struck. I know they are just normal people but still... Not many people can say that their IV was started by life flight and I wasn’t in a stupid accident that left me all mangled so I wouldn’t remember what happen.
So they go looking for a vein and looking, and looking... Ok will try this one, ready poke... It collapsed on us before we got all the way in... Lets try this one on the other arm, ready, poke... Deep breaths, ok we got it your all done. My veins are still a challenge even for the crew of Life Flight, I don’t know if that should make me happy or sad...
Next they took me for a bed ride back to one of my most frequented places in the hospital radiology... And my favorite department Ultrasound they wanted to TAP me. Stick a needle in my bloated belly and let it just drain. Ultra sound looks around and wow you have quite a lot of fluid in there. So lets start with lytocain ow sting woo pressure then in goes a needle ugh ick ick ow. And then they hook up a bottle and we wait for the bottle to get full and then on to the next. So while we wait for things to drain I got to have a really good talk with the ultrasound tech. Not to get to gross out or offend my friends that like to drink, but as it was filling the bottle it came out the color of a light beer complete with foam on top. So it was pretty cool to see the effects of my belly getting smaller. They took 6.5 liters out or at leas that was when I started to go dry on that TAP, had they stabbed the other side they could have probably gotten about that much more. But the body reacts funny when it sudenly looses a lot of fluid. And I was no different, as we got ready to go back upstairs I threw up. I freaked out the nurses cause they thought it looked like blood. But I assured them it was vegitable beef soup from lunch the last thing I had eaten. It tasted a lot better the first time.
When I got back to the room the vampires were waiting for me. We need blood for this, this,and this test. We need blood cultures (2 different sites so 2 pokes). Next day this is your early morning wake up we need to take more blood, for these daily tests.
Some of the blood test taken were watching my hematican(???) levels. All I know is something about the blood level in my body. They like to see it around 40, I was at 18. Since it was so low the solution is a blood transfusion. So another poke for type matching and then another IV because the one lifeflight put in was to small. But after having something to eat my veins tend to be a little happier. I have never had to have a blood transfusion before. You would think that I would when my gut is cut open for the liver transplant or something dramatic like that would be a cause for it. No I need one after laying in bed, and sleeping. The doctors were scared that I had some internal bleeding or something. But all there tests came back negative.
They say that what I am experiencing is just later stages of liver failure. And I am in need of a transplant to fix it. We all thought it would have been great to get it when I was in the hospital right now, go from one room to OR - ICU - another room. All the paperwork was already done for admitting and stuff. It is a fine line with how long they want to keep you in the hospital. There are all the germ bugs floating around making it very unsanitary. Plus the hospital was at capacity right now so they were having to send people to other places because there was no room for them.
The rest of the pokes all just run together so I have lost track of numbers. Now I am back home. One of the many good reasons is I don’t have vampires and doctors coming in to wake me at crazy hours in the morning :-) I can sleep in.
For the people that don’t like reading lengthy entries to sum it up:
=== Start of speed reader summary ===
I have now been discharged(thursday) and am once again at home waiting for the transplant. I have just slightly more energy then I had going into the hospital but I still sleep a lot. And when I haven’t been sleeping I am getting ready to go to sleep a lot. The docs say there is nothing growing in my big uncomfortable belly at the moment that will cause problems for the next transplant if it happens soon.
=== End of speed reader summary ===
My pin cushion experience started out in the normal way. Micah tells the nurse that I am hard stick. My veins look easy when they show there face but don’t be fooled the roll and move and colapse anything they can do to not get poked and since I haven’t eaten much and everything goes straight through they will be even harder to keep still. Oh and you can’t use this one this one or this one :-) because of previous IV attempts and failures, have a nice day.
Like most hospital stays they want to start with an IV. And I guess something I said to the nurse decided she didn’t want to attempt me, She said I am going to go find someone better then me to give you your IV. A few minutes later 3 of the crew from life flight come into my room, to start an IV on me. I felt privileged it takes away some of the fear knowing that these guys poke people in is some of the worst places and conditions Utah terrain can offer and they save lives. It is funny working with TV you see the “Talent” as normal people not so much star struck. Well having Life Flight working on me I have to admit I was star struck. I know they are just normal people but still... Not many people can say that their IV was started by life flight and I wasn’t in a stupid accident that left me all mangled so I wouldn’t remember what happen.
So they go looking for a vein and looking, and looking... Ok will try this one, ready poke... It collapsed on us before we got all the way in... Lets try this one on the other arm, ready, poke... Deep breaths, ok we got it your all done. My veins are still a challenge even for the crew of Life Flight, I don’t know if that should make me happy or sad...
Next they took me for a bed ride back to one of my most frequented places in the hospital radiology... And my favorite department Ultrasound they wanted to TAP me. Stick a needle in my bloated belly and let it just drain. Ultra sound looks around and wow you have quite a lot of fluid in there. So lets start with lytocain ow sting woo pressure then in goes a needle ugh ick ick ow. And then they hook up a bottle and we wait for the bottle to get full and then on to the next. So while we wait for things to drain I got to have a really good talk with the ultrasound tech. Not to get to gross out or offend my friends that like to drink, but as it was filling the bottle it came out the color of a light beer complete with foam on top. So it was pretty cool to see the effects of my belly getting smaller. They took 6.5 liters out or at leas that was when I started to go dry on that TAP, had they stabbed the other side they could have probably gotten about that much more. But the body reacts funny when it sudenly looses a lot of fluid. And I was no different, as we got ready to go back upstairs I threw up. I freaked out the nurses cause they thought it looked like blood. But I assured them it was vegitable beef soup from lunch the last thing I had eaten. It tasted a lot better the first time.
When I got back to the room the vampires were waiting for me. We need blood for this, this,and this test. We need blood cultures (2 different sites so 2 pokes). Next day this is your early morning wake up we need to take more blood, for these daily tests.
Some of the blood test taken were watching my hematican(???) levels. All I know is something about the blood level in my body. They like to see it around 40, I was at 18. Since it was so low the solution is a blood transfusion. So another poke for type matching and then another IV because the one lifeflight put in was to small. But after having something to eat my veins tend to be a little happier. I have never had to have a blood transfusion before. You would think that I would when my gut is cut open for the liver transplant or something dramatic like that would be a cause for it. No I need one after laying in bed, and sleeping. The doctors were scared that I had some internal bleeding or something. But all there tests came back negative.
They say that what I am experiencing is just later stages of liver failure. And I am in need of a transplant to fix it. We all thought it would have been great to get it when I was in the hospital right now, go from one room to OR - ICU - another room. All the paperwork was already done for admitting and stuff. It is a fine line with how long they want to keep you in the hospital. There are all the germ bugs floating around making it very unsanitary. Plus the hospital was at capacity right now so they were having to send people to other places because there was no room for them.
The rest of the pokes all just run together so I have lost track of numbers. Now I am back home. One of the many good reasons is I don’t have vampires and doctors coming in to wake me at crazy hours in the morning :-) I can sleep in.
2 comments:
Happy to hear that you are back home again. I can only imagine what it is like to try to rest in a nosy hospital with nurses and doctors bugging you at the most inopertune times. I pray your transplant comes soon, so you can put this all behind you and move on with your life. May God bless you and keep you strong. Love ya Eleisha
Micah we are praying for you. The first thing I do when I wake up in the morning is pray for you and two other men who have cancer. Both are missionaries on at home (servesin Africa) the other is just finished up his Chemo and radiation and is headed back to Panama will celebrate his 80th birthday there in November. LOve your humor. Clarence
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