The night after my surgery I didn’t get much sleep. Nate slept next to me all night, which I was so grateful for. The nurse or tech would wake me up to get my vitals or to give me a medication, and he would be up there helping me get comfortable after they came. At midnight, our neighbors got a visitor of some-sort, and they were talking at the top of their voices. They had no regard to the two people also trying to sleep in the room. I was so annoyed and pissed off. I shushed them a few times after they wouldn’t shut up, and they finally quieted down.
But I still didn’t get a lot of sleep at all. Finally after my 2am check, the nurse told me she was going to let me sleep for a few hours, and she’d wake me up to walk around 4:30 or 5 to walk. As soon as I got to sleep though, my IV machine kept going off. There were bubbles in my IV and this loud alarm would sound. I would have to call the nurse to fix it every time. It happened probably a dozen times an hour. When she would, I would get this surge of medication and saline though my IV that made it burn and it was really painful. My IV was still in my hand at this point, and even though I continued to tell her it was bothering me, no one did anything about it. This went on until 4am, so I decided to just get up and walk.
After I slept a little while longer, Nate had to go to work. I was still in a lot of pain, and I was not ready for him to leave. I couldn’t breath very well still and it was hard for me to get out of bed. I was starting to feel sick so they started given me additional pain meds and anti-nausea meds as well. I went for a walk in the morning, then was told I had to go have an upper GI that morning to make sure there were no leaks. The nurse helping me get there wasn’t very nice to me, and didn’t have any sympathy for me whatsoever to the fact that I was in a lot of pain.
This upper GI was a little different then the one I had before. I only had to stand to get the x-ray done, which is good that I didn’t have to move a lot. But the whole time the nurse kept yelling at me to breath. My oxygen levels were low and my heart rate was high, and she was trying to help ,but the way she was going about it was too harsh and rude for me to handle. I finally broke and yelled at her, crying as well, that I was in a lot of pain, that I knew my oxygen level was low but yelling at me wasn’t going to do anything about it. That shut her up.
So before when I had to get my upper GI, it was very thick and chalky, and it was more of the consistency that bothered me, rather than the taste. This one was so much worse. It tasted like cough syrup and dish soap mixed. I thought I was going to throw up all over the x-ray tech. Since I couldn’t drink very much, it took a long time for it to get to where they needed it to be to get the x-ray they needed. Keep in mind, I haven’t had ANYTHING to drink at all since two days before. The only thing I get were little sponges of water to suck on. So I hand to stand at the x-ray machine for a long time. It was very hot in that room, and I was fading pretty quickly. I was relieved when they told me I was done and could go back to my room.
The day didn’t seem to wind down there. After my upper GI fiasco, I had several people in an out of my room. I finally got my IV changed, my catheter out, and some more medication. My tech helped me clean up in the bathroom, because there is something about hospitals that make you smell. So I was clean, feeling good, and sitting upright in my chair. I was sore from all the activity, but was finally able to drink water! HALLELUJAH!!! The clouds parted and the angels sang when they told me that. I was finally able to take a nice nap in the sleep chair for a while.
My parents came later in the afternoon, and Nate after that. I was actually expecting my parents to be there earlier that day, and really could have used them. But they had a nice relaxing morning and I couldn’t fault them for wanting that, after all they spent their day in the hospital the day before.
They stayed a few hours, and were able to be there to see me start other liquids. I was able to eat a little Italian ice, but everything else they gave me was gross, including the broth. So I mostly stuck with water. My parents had to get going to meet my in-laws for dinner. Nate stayed pretty late, and I was exhausted even with the nap I had earlier that day. I finally convinced Nate to go home and get a good night sleep, and I went to sleep early.
More later
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