kapachino

Category: health

  • on a quick hospital trip

    I had a fun, random Friday post set to go for yesterday, but the day didn’t go as I expected.

    When I woke up on Thursday I began having a sharp pain in my right side that didn’t feel like the normal backaches that I’ve been getting. I didn’t worry too much, though, because I had been coughing a lot and I figured I pulled a muscle. By the time I went to work it had gone away.

    A few hours later while I was at work the pain returned. It was quite sharp, made me nauseous, and I couldn’t ignore it. My coworkers encouraged me to call my doctor, and although I didn’t think anything was seriously wrong, I called because I’m now responsible for the life of another person and I don’t want to take any chances.

    Thankfully my doctor’s office is connected to the building I work in, so I was able to go see her quickly. By the time I got there the pain had gone again. After being examined and talking with her we were both pretty sure that the pain was a result of my coughing and possibly gas, so she gave me a prescription for a muscle relaxer, told me to take an Epsom salt bath, and if the pain came back I needed to call her again. The thing she was most worried about was that I might have appendicitis. She said if I wasn’t a nurse she would probably be sending me to get scanned right then.

    I returned to work, but within an hour the pain had returned and I was concerned. I went back to my doctor and she decided to admit me to the hospital for observation. I was bummed, but I was a good patient and checked myself in.

    It was pretty interesting being a patient in the hospital where I work. My nurse just handed me the computer and let me fill out my own admission profile. They started an IV with fluids because I wasn’t allowed to eat or drink, drew blood, and had me leave a urine sample. A surgeon came to see me per protocol, although she said she wasn’t too worried about me.

    Although the pain wasn’t near as bad by this point, I was still uncomfortable and had a cough that was turning into a legitimate sickness. There was a lot of time that I was left alone, and I began to feel really stupid for being there, and quite lonely. Finally my husband came and I was so happy to see him. My spirits were raised and he was able to stay with me while I got a complete ultrasound of the abdomen and kidneys. They were focusing on my organs, but we did get to see Meredith a little bit, and we were assured that she’s still a girl!

    By the time the scan was finished it was quite late so David went home to take care of the dogs and I attempted to sleep. It wasn’t easy, and when they woke me up at 5 a.m. to draw blood I stayed awake. I was dreaming of a huge breakfast, and I figured that a doctor would be in to see me soon and let me eat and go home. But everything moved so slowly, and I ended up staying there until the afternoon with only clear liquids to eat and drink. I was so disappointed!

    First the surgery resident came to see me, but he didn’t have much authority. A little later my OB came by, and although she was no longer very worried about appendicitis (they couldn’t even find my appendix on the ultrasound) she did mention a few other things. I had bacteria in my urine, so she prescribed me antibiotics, and she noticed that all my blood counts were lower than she expected them to be. I’ve been on iron supplements for months now and my body hasn’t responded at all. So in a few weeks, once I’m recovered from whatever virus I have that is causing my cough and congestion, she’s going to do some more specific blood tests.

    Even after she came I still had to wait for the surgeon to release me, which took another couple of hours. I was so bored. I couldn’t focus or relax enough to read and I had no one to keep me company except my little girl. The best parts were when they came to check the fetal heart tones, and I got to listen to her heartbeat and hear her moving around.

    Everything took a long time. Finally I was able to leave, and my parents picked me up. As soon as I got in the car, the original pain came back, but by this time I was 99% sure that it was just gas or something – apparently pregnancy changes the way everything feels. Still, that didn’t stop me from consuming an entire Grand Slam breakfast from Denny’s. I came home, took a muscle relaxer, went to sleep around 6 p.m. and didn’t wake up until late this morning.

    Now I still feel sick, but it’s a normal cold-type sickness combined with a groggy hangover feeling from the muscle relaxer (I’m somewhat sensitive to those things). I plan to spend the rest of the weekend doing a whole lot of nothing, since I really need to be at work on Monday for a big audit we’ve been preparing for all year.

    Happy weekend everyone!

  • Current Obsessions: Sick Edition

    I started feeling sick on Monday, and by Wednesday afternoon I had thrown in the towel. This cold, or whatever it is, has hit me hard. I won’t get into all my ailments, old lady style, but trust me when I say that they are numerous.

    The only times that I have ever called in sick to work are when I had gastroenteritis and ended up in the ER, and when I had my miscarriage. But since I’m not allowed to take hardly any medication at the moment I haven’t been able to stay on top of this one. (Plus, since nearly all of my patients are immunocompromised and our routine discharge instructions involve telling them to stay away from sick people, being at work like this would kind of make me feel like a hypocrite.)

    The end result is that I’ve been home for the past two days and I don’t think I’ve taken off my robe for 48 hours straight. Here’s what’s been helping me survive in the absence of Mucinex or Sudafed.

    1. Halls Breezers, cool berry flavor. These are my favorite cough drops. They taste like candy, not like medicine at all! And of course, are completely soothing.

    2. Water. Lots and lots of it.

    3. Chicken bouillon. Nothing better than a warm cup of broth when you’re sick. I’ve probably had about 32 ounces of it in the past two days.

    4. Humidifier. This is a lifesaver for nighttime. Since I can’t breathe out of my nose very well, it helps me not to wake up with cracked lips and eases my raging sore throat.

    5. Tylenol and Benadryl. These are the only two medicines that I’ve taken, and they help somewhat, although the Benadryl makes me sleep so I only take it at night.

    6. HGTV and Netflix streaming. There are so many things I would have loved to do these past two days, starting with the dishes, but I have barely had the energy to feed myself and I’m pretty proud of the fact that I showered. Instead, I’ve been watching nonstop HGTV interspersed with episodes of Veronica Mars on Netflix instant streaming and, of course, naps.

    7. A super sweet husband. He’s babied me, brought me food and water and supplies, taken care of the dogs, forced me to rest, and given me two of the sweetest cards. See one for yourself:

    The fact that I’m writing this I think means that I’m over the worst of it, and I hope I didn’t just jinx myself by saying that. What are your sickness survival techniques?

  • My Happiness Project: January

    As I mentioned in my resolutions post, one of the things I’m doing this year is reading Gretchen Rubin’s book The Happiness Project and creating my own based on her method. For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, there is a chapter for each month of the year and each month is about a different area of life. Then you  make resolutions for the month based on that area, and it is all supposed to work toward a happier life.

    January’s focus is vitality, or boosting energy. To summarize Gretchen, when you have energy everything is better and easier so it makes sense to start with this. I realize that I should have read the chapter before January 1st so I could start on my resolutions right away, but that didn’t happen. So I’m a little behind this month, but that’s okay. It’s a work in progress.

    My January resolutions:

    1. Walk at least one of our dogs twice a week (more if possible)
    2. Start exercising (yoga or swimming) at least once a week
    3. Seriously purge and declutter
    4. Create a command central binder
    5. Accomplish three nagging tasks

    As you can see, my resolutions relate to physical and mental energy. Everyone’s needs are different; notice that I didn’t include anything about getting more sleep, because I already get a lot and that’s something that I’m really good at. I’m especially excited about the organizing & decluttering, but I better get working!

    I’m so excited about this project. Have any of you read the book or created happiness projects of your own?

  • doing my best

    I went to the therapist today, by myself. Usually David and I go together. He saw the therapist on his own before we got married and then we started going together. Our visits are billed to his insurance because my mine is extremely restrictive and almost everything is out of network.

    So today, since I was by myself, she billed my visit with a special code called “family without patient,” even though I’ve become the patient. Funny.

    I didn’t make a follow-up appointment, at least not yet. I don’t know what else to say to her right now. I know what my problem is. We’ve had an extremely difficult year, David and I, with too much going on. So I’ve been dealing with those things.

    Some of them are resolving on their own. For example, David is up and around and again, so I no longer have to do all the housework and errands and dog-caring myself. And with him working a lot of the anxiety I had over finances has dissipated.

    Some things I had to change to make myself happy. The biggest thing I did was interview for and accept a new job. Starting November 8th I’ll be transferring to my hospital’s outpatient cancer center, where I’ll be giving chemotherapy, blood transfusions, and the like. This is the sort of job that I get to graduate to since I put in my dues with inpatient. I’ll get every weekend and every holiday off, and hopefully my days will be less hectic and will involve less death and dying.

    (I do want to mention, though, that I have loved the unit that I work on, am grateful for all the experience it gave me, and will miss a lot of people there. But it’s just crazy.)

    I’ve also learned to change a lot of behavior, or at least I’m working on it. I’ve realized that it’s okay to cut myself some slack when it comes to the house being perfectly clean or with exercising every free day I get. And although I’m trying hard to follow my nutritionist’s advice and eat gluten- and dairy-free, I decided that there’s some things I’m just not willing to give up. I’ll just do my best.

    The one thing that I still deal with every single day is infertility. It blows my mind that if I hadn’t have miscarried I’d be a mother now. But I’m not, and I don’t know when I will be. These days, when I experience moments of overwhelming sadness it’s usually related to this.

    But at least it’s an improvement over being sad all the time for no discernible reason at all.

  • Workin On It

    Well, I’m feeling a bit better.

    I can’t say that I’m back to my usual self yet. I still get overwhelmed by small stresses that shouldn’t faze me. I still don’t have the energy I’m used to, and I haven’t recovered all the joy I lost for things like reading, being active, and participating in this lovely online community. Honestly, right now I’m barely participating in my real life community. I still notice physical discomfort more than I should.

    But I’m getting better, and I’ve been working really hard to keep going that direction.

    First, I needed cut back on some responsibilities and give myself a break, so I turned over the reigns of the church youth group to David and his brother Scott. I still want to be involved with these kids, but right now I can’t be the one in charge. I also put a halt on any projects around the house, and just did what I had to do to keep things tidy-ish. (I still had to keep doing chores because at a certain point the state of the house would just add to my insanity.) A little over a week ago David said a willing goodbye to his walker, and since then he’s been helping me with errands which is such a relief.

    Something else that has been stressing me out is our finances, since David was off work for an extended period of time. So we began attending Financial Peace University, and although it’s a difficult program, the hope it offers to pay off debt and build wealth is unmatched. David went back to work this week, so we will have a little breathing room in our budget again soon.

    I’ve been exercising. I haven’t felt like it most of the time, but I know the power of endorphins. I play soccer every other weekend (which practically kills me) and then I’m running the Couch to 5k program on my days off, and I’m on week 5. I don’t even try to run on days I work right now. I think my fitness is improving.

    David and I decided to go back to see our counselor again. It took a couple weeks to get an appointment, but our first session is today. Our marriage is wonderful – we celebrated two years on Sunday – but this has been a difficult time for both of us so we want to talk it out together. Even though David has been physically hindered for the past few months, emotionally he has been holding me up. I’m so grateful for him.

    One of the biggest decisions I made was to see a nutritionist. Since I recently stopped eating meat for the most part, and for over a month I hadn’t really been feeling well, I decided I needed professional advice. I talked to her about everything from my physical symptoms to my depression to my infertility. She was wonderfully hopeful and put me on supplements for energy and to regulate my cycle. She also recommended that I try a gluten and dairy free diet. Gluten, because it has probably either caused or at least exacerbated my polycystic ovarian syndrome. Dairy, because many people are intolerant of it and they just don’t realize it. She thinks she can get me pregnant without medical intervention, so I’m willing to give it a shot. The diet, though, is hard. I’m still getting used to it.

    So that’s my update. I miss this space, and I miss being in touch. I know I’m not doing very well at reaching out, but every time someone sends me an email or a message or a note in the mail, I get a little bit happier. It’s nice to know I’m not alone.