I'm ba-ack
Sep. 14th, 2003 03:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ciroccoj... and feeling much better now.
Thanks, everybody, for all your good wishes.
It's been an interesting couple of days.
As Chris said, I felt like absolute crap yesterday. Was attached to a heart monitor, IV, catheter, and sphygnomanometer (pulse-taker) and... blah. It sucked. Got saline and hormones and blood pumped in until I felt like I should've been popping, but didn't because I'd had so little fluid to begin with that they could barely fill the void. It was weird thinking of how few stubborn little red blood cells I still had, swimming around in my salineflow. And having people coming in at all hours to check my input and output was great too. People discussing exactly how much blood I was losing or had lost, how much hemoglobin I had, how much nausea I was feeling... feeling like my back was melding to the bed, but needing to lie flat for hours because the slightest movement up caused severe nausea. It wasn't as much fun as the brochures promised.
The good thing was, Chris was able to spend most of the time there with me and talk me through the nausea and weepiness. He was actually on call on Friday at CHEO (Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario) when I went into Emerg at the General right next door, and he managed to stay with me until 4:30 am when I was finally transferred up to the Gyne floor. Then he went back to CHEO to finish the night. He was also supposed to be on call on Saturday, but asked to be let off around noon. I was a complete mess - tachycardic, anemic, sleep-deprived, nauseated, dehydrated, and hormonal. So Chris' boss let him off call :) And my mom, god bless her, was able to stay overnight at my house, then take the kids for the entire day on Saturday.
Felt about 100% better in the afternoon after finally getting about 1hr sleep, to add to the 30 min I'd had overnight. Chris woke up from a nap of his own, took one look at me and said, "Oh, my god you look good. Not that you looked like hell before, or anything - but you looked like hell. You look so much better!"
I felt a heck of a lot better too. Being able to sit up and being disconnected from the heart monitor and catheter helped a lot :) I was also able to eat a small soup and keep it down (I hadn't had anything in about 20 hours).
Then, this morning the resident walked in, took one look at me, and sent me home. I was prescribed yet another round of hormones, disconnected from the IV, and off I went.
So now I'm back, not feeling totally up to par but at least able to walk around without getting dizzy. Still get a little breathless and tachycardic when I go up the stairs, and I won't be running marathons any time soon, but it's a vast improvement over yesterday. And in terms of my hemoglobin, I'm actually better off than I have been in months. My brain probably has no idea what to do with all this extra nutrition and oxygen.
Unfortunately, Chris woke up this morning with a severe migraine, so instead of "easing" back into child care, I was "on" from the time I came home until a few hours later when Chris was finally able to be vertical. We suck.
We're also both madly scarfing back soup and gatorade and other combinations of liquids and minerals that our bodies are sorely lacking. It feels like every cell is sort of screaming FEED ME!! WATER ME!!! NOW!!!
I'll see if I can take a picture of the rather impressive bruise on my arm from where they stuck the IV the first day. It's about 2" in diameter, and very, very dark. I'm sure glad nobody took any pictures of me in the hospital though. They'd probably scare the children. They were upset enough just seeing me last night, after I'd vastly improved.
So. I'm back!
Thanks, everybody, for all your good wishes.
It's been an interesting couple of days.
As Chris said, I felt like absolute crap yesterday. Was attached to a heart monitor, IV, catheter, and sphygnomanometer (pulse-taker) and... blah. It sucked. Got saline and hormones and blood pumped in until I felt like I should've been popping, but didn't because I'd had so little fluid to begin with that they could barely fill the void. It was weird thinking of how few stubborn little red blood cells I still had, swimming around in my salineflow. And having people coming in at all hours to check my input and output was great too. People discussing exactly how much blood I was losing or had lost, how much hemoglobin I had, how much nausea I was feeling... feeling like my back was melding to the bed, but needing to lie flat for hours because the slightest movement up caused severe nausea. It wasn't as much fun as the brochures promised.
The good thing was, Chris was able to spend most of the time there with me and talk me through the nausea and weepiness. He was actually on call on Friday at CHEO (Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario) when I went into Emerg at the General right next door, and he managed to stay with me until 4:30 am when I was finally transferred up to the Gyne floor. Then he went back to CHEO to finish the night. He was also supposed to be on call on Saturday, but asked to be let off around noon. I was a complete mess - tachycardic, anemic, sleep-deprived, nauseated, dehydrated, and hormonal. So Chris' boss let him off call :) And my mom, god bless her, was able to stay overnight at my house, then take the kids for the entire day on Saturday.
Felt about 100% better in the afternoon after finally getting about 1hr sleep, to add to the 30 min I'd had overnight. Chris woke up from a nap of his own, took one look at me and said, "Oh, my god you look good. Not that you looked like hell before, or anything - but you looked like hell. You look so much better!"
I felt a heck of a lot better too. Being able to sit up and being disconnected from the heart monitor and catheter helped a lot :) I was also able to eat a small soup and keep it down (I hadn't had anything in about 20 hours).
Then, this morning the resident walked in, took one look at me, and sent me home. I was prescribed yet another round of hormones, disconnected from the IV, and off I went.
So now I'm back, not feeling totally up to par but at least able to walk around without getting dizzy. Still get a little breathless and tachycardic when I go up the stairs, and I won't be running marathons any time soon, but it's a vast improvement over yesterday. And in terms of my hemoglobin, I'm actually better off than I have been in months. My brain probably has no idea what to do with all this extra nutrition and oxygen.
Unfortunately, Chris woke up this morning with a severe migraine, so instead of "easing" back into child care, I was "on" from the time I came home until a few hours later when Chris was finally able to be vertical. We suck.
We're also both madly scarfing back soup and gatorade and other combinations of liquids and minerals that our bodies are sorely lacking. It feels like every cell is sort of screaming FEED ME!! WATER ME!!! NOW!!!
I'll see if I can take a picture of the rather impressive bruise on my arm from where they stuck the IV the first day. It's about 2" in diameter, and very, very dark. I'm sure glad nobody took any pictures of me in the hospital though. They'd probably scare the children. They were upset enough just seeing me last night, after I'd vastly improved.
So. I'm back!
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no subject
Date: 2003-09-14 12:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-09-14 12:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-09-14 01:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-09-14 05:44 pm (UTC)Welcome home. Welcome back. I'm so glad you're doing better. Sounds as though you really were more of a mess than you'd suspected. So I'm very happy that they fixed you up. Best wishes, lots of hugs :-)
Yay
Date: 2003-09-14 07:01 pm (UTC)