I'm going to try a different approach for a bit and see if it sticks: split posts between how today is going along with hospital stories. Sound good? Good. Let's see where this takes us.
Today wasn't so bad in terms of how I was feeling. Pain was controllable and I had a good bit of strength. Walked to the transportation center to take the bus and meet Kelley at work so I could go to her tattoo appointment with her which took a bit out of me but it was bearable. It's good to push myself while I get my strength back. This recent bit of pain/weakness comes from a two-week stint at Lahey again. I initially went in to the ER at Wentworth-Douglas with abdominal pain/aftercare for staph infection, was CT scanned and saw I developed a fistula in my left flank to my groin. Basically that means a pocket of fluid that shouldn't be there. One of the things about pancreatitis is my pancreas secretes necrotic enzymes into my abdomen which can and does cause all sorts of problems. Generally the fluid is confined to abscesses and doesn't spread too much but it still needs to be drained. Upon discovery of this fistula the folks at W-D shipped me back to Lahey (they did my surgery, they tend to take care of the specific pancreas issues) where I was taken care of for eleven days and released. I was home for about fifteen hours then went back to the W-D ER due to extreme vomiting and abdominal pain and the folks at W-D, after stabilizing me, sent me back to Lahey where I was treated for a few more days and then I was released this past Sunday. Did I just come home with my lovely self? Of course not. I am the proud bearer, once again, of two Jackson-Pratt drains to take care of the fluid situation as well as an antibiotic treatment to help clean me out. What are Jackson-Pratt drains, you may ask? They're tubes that are running from my insides to these suction bulbs that pull out the fluid from my abscesses. I think I have some pictures. They aren't too big of a deal except kind of irritating to wear clothes over, can and do cause a bit of pain and discomfort, and emptying the bulbs can be gross especially when the fluid is infected and can smell...off.
That was now, this is then:
My December turned from pretty lackluster and normal to me experiencing hospital life for the first time. I had spent some time in ER's before this but I had never really had to deal with being in a hospital before. It was a bit jarring, to say the least especially when I didn't really comprehend what was going on. The nurses and doctors were trying to treat me as best they could and I thought they were doing a pretty decent job. Remember, I wasn't exactly myself at this point so my memories can be a bit fuzzy. I did manage to have a few firsts around this time, though they weren't terribly pleasant. For instance, I had my first MRI around this time, and it freaked me out. They wanted/needed me to be in the machine for twenty minutes. I lasted sixteen. They tried to make it more pleasant by giving me music to listen to (I chose The Used) but I freaked the hell out at sixteen minutes. Before this/a reason for this MRI was they wanted to see fluid movement or something in my abdomen and groin. See, before this MRI had another first: first catheter. Now, if you've never had the discomfort of a catheter consider yourself very, very lucky. Granted, it's convenient to be able to pee whenever the urge strikes but the process of having a tube inserted into your penis and left to hang out there for awhile is a bit jarring and entirely unpleasant. This would unfortunately prove to be my first of other experiences with said catheter.
This was also around the time of my first time in ICU but I'll leave that story for tomorrow.
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