Hello everyone! I wanted to continue with the last post as soon as possible because there is a lot of details to tell you about. They are almost unbelievable!
I left off the last post telling you that the ER doctor had just told me he thought that I would need emergency surgery. He also told me that they needed to transport me to another hospital because their hospital wasn’t equiped for that (it’s a small hospital). They were just waiting to hear back from them at that time. I waited and waited, still in the ER. Sometime during the night, the doctors/nurses came in to tell me that the hospital, that is my home hospital that I had most of my surgeries at, turned me down saying that I was too complicated of a case. The doctors should get a hold of Mayo. So the doctors there at this small hospital called Mayo and Mayo wouldn’t except me saying that they were confident the other hospital could do it. So now I felt like I was a hopeless case and nobody wanted me. The other hospital in St. Louis refused again so Mayo agreed to take me then. Let’s put it this way, if I was supposed to have emergency surgery, these hospitals weren’t getting in a hurry! I spent the night in the ER.
Mark is at the hospital at 9:00am the next day to see what is going on. I had texted him in the middle of the night letting him know that they are taking me to The Mayo Clinic now, the St. Louis hospital wouldn’t accept me. The doctors at this hospital told me that they didn’t want me to ride in an ambulance for 8 hours so they were going to try and helicopter me out. At this time, the hurricane was coming through our area so we had to watch the weather to find a time to get the helicopter going (my luck). About 2:00 that afternoon, they told my husband that he could go ahead and leave for Mayo and I will be there shortly after him. I was supposed to fly out around 4:00pm. He took off and during this time, there is an update to the weather and I couldn’t fly out until 8:00pm now. My husband called to let me know he arrived in Rochester around 9:30pm, I told him I was still waiting and they told me it would be around midnight now.
Believe it or not, I was still there at 8:00am the next day! This is day 3 in the ER now. My husband was in Rochester waiting on me and the nurse came in to ask me if I thought another St. Louis hospital could look at me. I told him that my husband is waiting on me and Mayo does know me and my complications so I’d rather just go there. They understood and I was finally helicoptered out around 2:00 that afternoon. I was helicoptered from the hospital to Lambert airport in St. Louis, then placed into a Lear jet at Lambert and flown to Rochester, MN. From there, I was placed in an ambulance and traveled to The Mayo Clinic. What a day! I arrived around 4:30pm. with my husband waiting on me. While I was in the ambulance, I threw up because somewhere down the line, I developed a migraine. The nurse was pumping zofran in one arm as I was puking. When I got to the hospital, I puked again and the nurse there gave me compazine in my PICC line during then.
In case you didn’t know, both Zofran and Compazine are anti-nausea medications that make you drowsy. I had received both of them in my PICC line about an hour apart. They kicked my butt! I was dozing off every minute I could. The nurse was asking me all these questions and I don’t know what I told her, if anything! I do know they wanted to do another CT scan with contrast while I was there that night. That meant I had to drink 2 glasses of the contrast before going into the scan. I was knocked out! I would wake up, take a drink, pass back out and Mark would yell at me to wake up and drink more! I managed to get my scan over with (not sure how) and slept for the rest of the night, kinda. The nurse tried her best to wake me up to get my vitals 3 times in the middle of the night and it was like wrestling with a sloth! I could here her yelling at me, but couldn’t figure out how to get my arm where she needed it. That continued until about 10:00 the next morning. I am not like that at all, the least little noise, I’m up and looking for what it was. I had been drugged!
Friday morning came about and the doctors came in to visit. They said the CT scan showed the loop and abcess, however, with the contrast, they could see that there wasn’t a hole in my intestine. The intestinal lining was thinning at that place, however they couldn’t do anything for it at the time. So I guess I’ll just wait until it gets thin enough to develop a hole…I’m not sure I like that either. They’re plan of attack was to just give me copious amount of antibiotics and let it run it’s course. They also told me finally that I could eat. I hadn’t been able to eat or drink anything the whole week leading up to this moment. I ordered that biggest breakfast I could and ate every bit of it! The doctors did mention that I should be able to leave the hospital the next day, that made my day also! That night rolled around and I had a new nurse. She changed out my antibiotics and such and then I thought I heard her ask me if I wanted a back massage!! I said, “Hell yeah” but then I knew that I couldn’t have heard her correctly and was panicking just thinking about what I agreed to! She was looking all over the room for something and when I asked her, she told me she was looking for the lotion, then I really panicked, LOL! After the 5 minute awkward back massage, I texted my husband, friend and daughter and told them that never I have ever received a back massage at any hospital! Of course they laughed with me!
Saturday morning rolled around and the head of the Gastroenterology department came in to talk to me to see how it was going. She was really nice and gave me some information and told me that I could go home! About noonish I was all packed, dressed and ready to go! Mark and I was on our way and ready for that 8 hour drive back home! We rested that night and the next day, we went to see our new grandson that was born the week all this was happening.
What a week! I was so ready to settle down get back to normal. I’m not a fan of the hospitals because I always end up staying and feel as if I have so much other stuff to do. It feels like a big interruption of my life and I have to play catch-up when I get home. I really should learn to relax a bit and I’m trying. Let me know if any of you have had a similiar experience or would like tell me something that happened out of the ordinary within a hospital setting. Every experience is unique – never the same! Just remember to take one day at a time with this disease and we’ll get through it together!
Chow for now,
Kelly