Hospitals and Long Term Treatment: Chronic illness thread

Munkus Beaver

I am dealing with an unconscionable amount of pain today, Jesus Christ.

cabsy

MadEddy wrote: »

Barf on their shoes.

I managed not to barf because they showed down the injection rate, and instead just felt really nauseous for like an hour and a half after, I think I may prefer the puking and getting it over with

Munkus Beaver wrote: »

I am dealing with an unconscionable amount of pain today, Jesus Christ.

sad bro fist, when are you headed to Mayo

Munkus Beaver

A week from today.

cabsy

Had that CT the other day to get a better image of what they're going into for surgery... I do have a proper hernia, and the hole in my abdomen wall is 17.5cm wide, woo. Currently contains some loops of intestines and colon including the repair site from my emergency colon resection, even while lying flat on my back for several minutes. I'm sure waiting another 6-8 months totally would have been fine! What a fucking asshat my first surgeon was.

Munkus Beaver

I leave for Minnesota tomorrow. Appointments start on Monday.

My fistulas in the perianal area have been giving me a LOT more pain this past week and have been producing a LOT of fluid and pus.

And I've been having to urinate a lot more than normal. Feeling like I need to pee and being unable to...having to get up and pee multiple times over the course of a short period (we're talking about like...an hour). That might be indicative of a fistula draining into an abscess that is putting pressure on somewhere, creating the urge to urinate.

cabsy

I hope they manage to make life less shitty for you. I just realized I have no reserve of well wishes for shit you know will never actually be totally fixed.

bowen

I hope both of you get the care you need.

You certainly deserve it through that hell.

MadEddy

I see the surgeon Monday to find out if and when they're operating on my hip. I'm tired of using a cane and being in pain, so I hope the answers are yes and ASAP.

knitdan

I am pissed and tired and discouraged

Came in to get my access de-clotted, but since I hadn't been able to dialyze, my potassium was too high.

What should have been a simple couple of hours and then me going home translated into "ok we'lljust put a temporary catheter in your goddamn neck and dialysis you with that a couple times and then maybe send you home and you can try again on Monday"

So I spent last night not sleeping in the hospital just surfing the web and wishing I was at home where at least I have a fan or can open a window and I don't have a farting old man snoring 6 feet away.

And then on top of that I have no idea if anyone has called my ride home, which hey we live 90 minutes away it might be a good fucking idea to get him on the road sometime this year

Everything moves so slowly here except when it doesn't

You can better believe when they decide it's time for me to go they'll rush me out so they can fill the bed

Oh and one of the dialysis nurses this morning was wearing an absolutely unprofessional amount of perfume so now I have a headache.

Assuming they get a look at the access on Monday that'll be 5 days of nothing getting done on it so at this point I'm not super optimistic.

And they didn't even seem to make much of a dent on my potassium so they're sending me home with something to make me crap my guts out

What a waste of a couple days

Munkus Beaver

I survived the plane trip up here, so now I am in the land of a thousand lakes, the Canadian Honker, and Whistle Binkies.

knitdan

Which one is a sex move, which one is a collectible knickknack

MadEddy

All of the above.

Munkus Beaver

If you had money on "Munkus body rotting from the inside out exacerbating existing symptoms" you get a bingo.

Metalbourne

Munkus Beaver wrote: »

If you had money on "Munkus body rotting from the inside out exacerbating existing symptoms" you get a bingo.

I'd imagine that I'm pretty kinky on the grand scale of things but even I haven't heard of that one

knitdan

De-clot successful woo hoo yay me

cabsy

fuck, I was down for "Munkus was Stale's satan possums this whole time" for the truly long con

bowen

cabsy wrote: »

fuck, I was down for "Munkus was Stale's satan possums this whole time" for the truly long con

Do synonyms not count?

knitdan

I wish someone would invent a better way to measure blood pressure.

I've got micro bruises on my arm where they had the cuff.

bowen

knitdan wrote: »

I wish someone would invent a better way to measure blood pressure.

I've got micro bruises on my arm where they had the cuff.

Some people hyperinflate them too, like yo dawg, it's great some people run a 200+ systolic there, but how about we start at 140 and work our way up if you think that's me. Not just immediately jump to fucking 200. They used to inflate to what the average systolic was, then pump up if they didn't hear anything by the time it got to 120ish. Now it's just "hey let's start you at fucking 200 and see where we're at". Even for hypertensives 200 is fucking rare jesus christ.

NightDragon

Okay so that's not just me?? Because every time I've had my blood pressure taken, I'm pretty sure they're completely cutting off circulation for a second or two there.

bowen

Yeah there's a really fucking apparent difference between the doctor I go to now-a-days and the one I used to go to as a kid/teen/20-year-old.

Phoenix-D

cabsy wrote: »

Last time I had a CT I mentioned I vomit every time I have contrast, they said oh that's not good we'll put that down as an allergy

I get here for my CT today and the nurse is like that's not a REAL allergy, you'll be fine. Ok well as long as you know to send me to the machine with a puke bucket, carry on

it doesn't help that I still have some kind of food poisoning or stomach virus or something so I'm at a constant low grade nausea level and at random my digestive system decides everything must go. 0/10 do not recommend

Having to file all bad reactions under "allergies" annoys me so much. You'd think the medical field would want to make the distinction clear but whoops, no.

So every time mom is admitted I spend 10 minutes saying "no she's not allergic to that no don't give it to her it doesn't go well"

MadEddy

I list gabapentin as an allergy but really it just tanks my blood pressure so I faint. Fuck gabapentin, though.

cabsy

Phoenix-D wrote: »

cabsy wrote: »

Last time I had a CT I mentioned I vomit every time I have contrast, they said oh that's not good we'll put that down as an allergy

I get here for my CT today and the nurse is like that's not a REAL allergy, you'll be fine. Ok well as long as you know to send me to the machine with a puke bucket, carry on

it doesn't help that I still have some kind of food poisoning or stomach virus or something so I'm at a constant low grade nausea level and at random my digestive system decides everything must go. 0/10 do not recommend

Having to file all bad reactions under "allergies" annoys me so much. You'd think the medical field would want to make the distinction clear but whoops, no.

So every time mom is admitted I spend 10 minutes saying "no she's not allergic to that no don't give it to her it doesn't go well"

yup. I don't go into anaphylaxis but azithromycin is listed under my allergies because like... no, I'm not gonna turn blue and die. but the last times I've taken it, I've had a progressively worse pain response to the point where my last attempt ended in me crying on the floor on the phone with the ER nurse. so we're just gonna say that's an allergy bc you don't give me anywhere else to list that

bowen

They can be labeled as 'adverse reactions' depending on the software, they're usually kept with the medication section still.

Angelina

bowen wrote: »

knitdan wrote: »

I wish someone would invent a better way to measure blood pressure.

I've got micro bruises on my arm where they had the cuff.

Some people hyperinflate them too, like yo dawg, it's great some people run a 200+ systolic there, but how about we start at 140 and work our way up if you think that's me. Not just immediately jump to fucking 200. They used to inflate to what the average systolic was, then pump up if they didn't hear anything by the time it got to 120ish. Now it's just "hey let's start you at fucking 200 and see where we're at". Even for hypertensives 200 is fucking rare jesus christ.

If they're doing it manually there's a method to get a rough idea of what the systolic is before taking the blood pressure properly. Sorry that a lot of medical people don't bother with that step.

osceskills.com/e-learning/subjects/blood-pressure-measurement/ Step 6. I don't really see that actually happening outside of uni though.

Sorce

Munkus Beaver wrote: »

If you had money on "Munkus body rotting from the inside out exacerbating existing symptoms" you get a bingo.

Wait, what?

knitdan

Yeah, they weren't doing manual blood pressures. Some machine was doing it, but at least during the procedure they had me on that twilight sedation so I didn't really notice the squeezing at the time.

I just recall bits and pieces...the coldness of the soap they covered my arm with, the balloon inflating inside my arm, the roto-rooter buzzing in there afterwards to break up the blockages.

I just happened to look at my arm later and saw these weird lines of burst blood vessels where the cuff had been squeezing me.

bowen

Angelina wrote: »

bowen wrote: »

knitdan wrote: »

I wish someone would invent a better way to measure blood pressure.

I've got micro bruises on my arm where they had the cuff.

Some people hyperinflate them too, like yo dawg, it's great some people run a 200+ systolic there, but how about we start at 140 and work our way up if you think that's me. Not just immediately jump to fucking 200. They used to inflate to what the average systolic was, then pump up if they didn't hear anything by the time it got to 120ish. Now it's just "hey let's start you at fucking 200 and see where we're at". Even for hypertensives 200 is fucking rare jesus christ.

If they're doing it manually there's a method to get a rough idea of what the systolic is before taking the blood pressure properly. Sorry that a lot of medical people don't bother with that step.

osceskills.com/e-learning/subjects/blood-pressure-measurement/ Step 6. I don't really see that actually happening outside of uni though.

Yeah, the other option is to just check the history of bps on the patient and use that as a guide.

Someone who has a history of 110 probably isn't running 180. But if they are you can always, you know, try again without defaulting to squeezing their arm off.

MadEddy

Surgery is scheduled for the 14th of next month. Also, they have to reshape my hip socket because it's the wrong shape and probably contributed to the labral tear.

I have the worst skeleton. (Cervical ribs, missing part of my S1 vertebrae, apparently shitty hip sockets, and who knows what else.)

knitdan

Yikes. Here's hoping it goes well.

(I read that as labial tear at first so that was a double yikes)

bowen

labial tear ranks up there with testicular torsion

Munkus Beaver

I am out of surgery. They finally fixed that fucking hernia. They cleaned out th gigantic fistula tract but cannot close it out at the moment because if they do they risk trapping infections in there and causing an abscess to form. I currently have a bag of blood draining out my side

knitdan

Glad you're out of surgery, glad they fixed the hernia

Munkus Beaver

Today a teenage nurse thought I looked 23.

TheStig

There is no such thing as a teenaged nurse (in the US)

bowen

LPNs and MAs can be 18 I think.

TheStig

forgot about LPNs because we don't really use them here in CA, except in skilled nursing facilities under the supervision of a registered nurse. MAs are like, the level of an EMT. Still not sure how you'd complete LPN by 18 though, since it's a 2 year program, though the prerequisites don't take nearly as long.

Ketar

TheStig wrote: »

forgot about LPNs because we don't really use them here in CA, except in skilled nursing facilities under the supervision of a registered nurse. MAs are like, the level of an EMT. Still not sure how you'd complete LPN by 18 though, since it's a 2 year program, though the prerequisites don't take nearly as long.

LPNs can get done in 18 months, and 19 years old is still a teenager.

CNAs get done even faster. Yes, I know they aren't actual nurses. I do know of at least one facility that gave their CNAs the title of Nurse Tech, though, which definitely gave some people the impression that they were nurses.

bowen

They offer LPN courses to high school seniors too, where I'm from, so they can start at 17 if they want.

Our hospital even has an accelerated RN program that they can take at the same time as the LPN course and hit RN by the time they're 19ish.

MAs and CNAs are "nurses" in the colloquial sense though. Everyone calls them a nurse.