Week from Hell Part 1: saved by a cup of coffee

Good Morning,

It's been awhile. Miss me? I certainly missed all of you. Unscheduled trip to the hospital for me. Ugh. I have enough material now for an 8 part series, but I'll condense it down to two. You'll thank me for it when I'm finished, I'm sure. :-) This is what I remember from the week from Hell:

On October 23rd at approximately 5:00 a.m., Peggy, the night nurse couldn't wake me up. This is, or was, the time for my morning meds and Morning coffee. I had donated my coffee pot to the nurses station I was assigned to. So, each morning they were sweet enough to bring me a cup from it. Leaded as opposed to the unleaded junk the kitchen serves up. I'm normally up well before this time so she found it odd that I was still in bed. She tried and tried to wake me up, but I was dead to the World. First thing I remember is looking up and seeing Peggy and Kristy, the Night Respiratory Terrorist as they were hitting me in the upper chest. I managed to position myself sitting on the edge of the bed. After approximately 1 hour of this it was obvious I wasn't responding too well so they called an ambulance and I was off to St. Claire ER. I don't recall too much of what transpired here other than them inserting something into my upper arm to receive meds. After approximately 2 hours, I was transferred to St. Vincent's in Indianapolis. For those of you who wasn't with me last time, this is the hospital of surgery #4, which I don't recall at all. I DO remember one of the Doctors though, aPulmonologist named Dr. Shapiro. He just happened to be my Doctor of record for this latest adventure Oh, lest I forget, one thing I did leave the ER with was a $4, 589.26 bar tab. Guess I bought several rounds for the house. Ouch!!! I slept through the rest of Friday and all of Saturday. Waking up only for meals and to use the bathroom. This brings me to my first complaint. A complaint I would register with the State if I knew which agency to contact. The crux of the complaint is NO KETCHUP/CATSUP ON MY MORNING EGGS!!!! I mean come on, get real....not even a Wendy's type ketchup/catsup packet. That's it, I shan't return to this establishment, not by choice anyway. I was awake Sunday watching the UNDEFEATED INDIANAPOLIS COLTS (that's for you, little sister) and then falling off to sleep again. Next complaint, staffing shortage and NO communication between Staff members. EVERYONE who came through the door, even Nurses working the same shift began talking to me as if I were a hearing person. Everyone was wearing masks so I wasn't even afforded the opportunity to TRY to read their lips. I finally tired of repeating myself and had a Nurse post a note on the door that basically said "Patient is Deaf." DUH!!!!! Monday night was a sleep study. Hooked up to all of these electrodes and wearing a mask. Then they have the audacity to tell me to get a good night sleep so they have a good study. This is NOT going over too well. Anyway, I survive the night and learn my O2 level dips into the 60's and 70's. Good era for music, bad area for O2 levels. So, Tuesday and Wednesday nights I am fighting with this stupid mask get up. Finally, Thursday night a bit of relief. They switched me to a nostril insert and I was able to discontinue use of the mask. MUCH better. Wednesday was a lung scope and Thursday was a chest X-ray. Results of the scope was less than ideal. I had a mucous plug and something else that caused the O2 level to plummet. I'm not sure what was done to combat this. Antibiotics I am guessing. Oh, first round of Antibiotics caused me to break out in a rash ALL OVER MY BODY. Quite itchy, so Benadryl to the rescue. Wednesday, Dr. Shapiro tells me I'll be able to leave either Thursday or Friday. Thursday comes around and he tells me discharge is slated for 1:00 p.m. Friday. COOL, back to the 'Burg. Oh wait, not so fast............

This concludes Part 1. See ya next week for the Jumping through hoops and standing on my head stacking bb's to get discharged