Hello everyone, I hope you are doing well today!  I just have to write you to tell you my experience with the placement of my new Hohn catheter.  It is a doozy (of course I would have it no other way)!

So, remember the last post when I said I was a bit nervous because I was getting my old catheter replaced with a new one without putting me out?  Well, obviously I had a right to be, my sixth sense kicked in…I get to the hospital and they call my name.  I go back and put a gown on and lay on this bed.  They tell me what they are going to do, but I’m still a bit nervous.  This is one of the weird parts – they have me get up and walk to the surgery room and hop up on the table.  One of the doctors put a dressing over my head just enough to see the catheter opening. He then precedes to tell me he is going to deaden it a bit and I told him “How about a lot?”

After the area is deadened (it hurt a lot during this time), he preceded to take the old catheter out and place wires in to mark its place.  It was this time another very unsettling thing happened – the doctor stopped the procedure and looked at the nurse and asked her which petal he should use!  She paused for a moment and told him to try the right one.  Then she stopped him and said “Yeah, I believe it is the right petal.”  Okay, by this time I am freaking out because I am wide awake and can hear all this going on!  My little heart is going pitter patter very fast!  After all this was over, the other nurses congratulated the one nurse and she told them she hadn’t done this in a long time!  So, the one doctor leaves and another comes in to stitch me up.  By this time, the numbing medication was wearing off and I yell “Ouch!”  The doctor then numbs me up with more shots and he proceeds to finish up.  The nurses help me off the surgery table and walk me back to the recovery room bed (weird).  At the same time, as I got off the surgery table, I looked down and saw splatters of blood all over the floor – my blood! It’s over now, so I get dressed and leave – drove myself home.

So I get home and look at what was done.  By this time the numbness is wearing off and they didn’t give me any pain meds for this.  I forgot to ask because it was numb when I left.  I could definitely tell a male placed this catheter in because it went right under my bra strap.  I cannot have the strap over the catheter or it will eventually rub itself out.  So my next step was to call my Home Health nurse because the dressing was falling off me and I was in a lot of pain.  She looked at my catheter placement and by this time I was black and blue.  It had looked like someone beat me up!  She changed the dressing and couldn’t give me anything for the pain unfortunately.  For the next week, I was taking 3 Tylenol every 4 hours and was in a lot of pain.  The HH nurse called the hospital and told them about the pain and severe bruising.  They said the bruising was from all the shots they gave me to numb me.  Nothing they can do, just wait it out!

If I ever have to have this thing replaced again, I will definitely tell them they will have to knock me out first!  There is no way on earth I will go through all this pain and suffering just to have it replaced!  The first catheter didn’t cause half this pain nor did it ever bruise but of course they gave me pain meds for that one!  I also had to go to the mall and buy a couple of strapless bras so the strap wouldn’t rub the catheter out.  It will get some getting used to wearing strapless bras constantly but I guess that’s the price I have to pay in order to keep myself healthier!  I am taking one day at a time and it is getting better now but I still have a long way to go to get back to where I was with the old catheter.  I feel as if I took one step forward and two steps back!

Chow for now!