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elfsThe story so far:
When last you left our hero, namely me, I had been discharged from Broward Regional Medical after being “observed” for three days following a diagnosis of Covid-induced spontaneous retroperiteneal hematoma. Omaha consulted with Alaska Airlines and I met their criteria (not mine) for flying, and I religiously kept my mask on the whole flight home because by all the unholy gods in the aligning stars’ sky I did not want to give this horror to anyone else.
I got home on September 25th and recovered fully from the ’Rona. I worked a full week. I had ordinary meals, performed The Ritual of Coffee consistently, cooked my own breakfasts, that sort of thing.
I made a comment to the nurse that on the 4th I had tried 5mg of cannabis for the first time since leaving for Florida on September 8th, and wondered if this was the infamous cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome. “No way,” she said. “Five mil? No way. The people who get that do a lot of pot. Like, tons, every day. They don’t have jobs.”
On October 5th, I thought I had a bout of food poisoning. I began to throw up, badly. It got worse, and on the 6th, I went to the ER at St. Anne’s, formely Highline Medical Center. Burien’s population has grown by 60.5% since Omaha and moved here in 2020 to start our family, but St. Anne’s still has the same sized ER it had in 2000. (We should know; Omaha’s epilepsy brought us there many times over the years.) I waited eight hours to be seen. The guy who saw me ordered a blood draw, saw I had a pancreatic lipase number over 100 (normal is less than 70, “bad is over 1000,” he said. “I’ve seen a few.”), diagnosed me with pancreatitis, and sent me home with an anti-nausea medication and told me to adopt a liquid diet– clear broth, black tea, apple juice, jello.
The pain and vomiting got worse. It established a very distinct pattern, two hours of cycling up to purge, followed by a few hours of relief. We went back the next day, and were told the wait was 9 hours. We bailed, and I made an emergency call to my GP. They immediately scheduled me for the next day.
Dr. Hsu saved my life. My gods, she was furious. “They did no imaging? They can’t just diagnose you with pancreatitis! You had a hematoma, what if this is pancreatic hematoma? That number makes no sense. Go back to the ER! Go now! Go to a different ER, a bigger ER.” I suggested UW Valley View. “Valley? Very good. I will call ahead to make sure they see you, but go! Go now! Go! GO!”
The stomach’s outlet is called the pyloric valve. Just below that is the start of the small intestine, including the bile ducts that transfer bile from the liver to the intestine to aid in digestion. Just below that is the start of the intestine proper, the duodenum. The blood mass of the hematoma had shifted and was pressing against the duodenum, blocking it and causing the bile to back up into my stomach. My vomiting was bile reflux disease. The liver produces as much as two liters of bile a day. Gross, huh?
I was immediately put on a stomach pump, which is one of the most traumatic and disgusting medical procedures that has to be done conscious. It’s unnatural to shove something up your nose and then past your gag reflex. It hurt, and the tube rubs against the gag reflex constantly, causing pain and irritation. I’m allowed menthol lozenges and “icewater swabs” to reduce the pain.
My collapse from dehydration was almost comical. They couldn’t find a wheelchair on the floor, so they used an office chair to transport me back to my room. It was humiliating.
I was then wheeled into endoscopic surgery, where a second tube, a feeding tube, was inserted (thankfully while I was unconscious) through the constriction into the “still functional” part of my small intestine. And for the past six days, I have eaten or drunk nothing at all. It’s all been pap and water forced down that tube. Oh, and extra water put intravenously, because… I don’t know why. They won’t explain why they won’t give me enough water. But I feel dehydrated constantly, and I’m getting weaker by the day. On Tuesday I did a few knee push-ups and four laps around the building; on Wednesday I just did four laps; on Thursday I did half a lap before almost passing out from dehydration.
Nothing else is being done. I’m being “observed.”
Thursday morning, I had a minor emergency: the stomach pump tube had come loose in the early morning and I woke up soaked in my own bile. I was helped into the bathroom to take a shower, rigging up the “child’s height” showerhead so I could sit on the floor and wash my hair and body while the staff changed the linen and cleaned the bed. While I was there, another nurse came in and found me on the floor of the shower and was this close to triggering the “patient fallen” alarm when the first team returned with the clean linen and explained that I had sat down deliberately. “He wanted to sit that way instead of a chair. He says he can’t fall off the floor.” That incident used up all my spoons that day. When Omaha and Julian came to visit, I fell asleep, and they waited three hours for me to wake up.
Oddly, when I did wake up, we played a round of Boggle and my words are still all there; I scored the highest of all three, although both of them were close.
My friends and family have been visiting regularly. My daughter gave me her lip balm, “the dial has been chewed a bit by my pet rat,” but it’s wonderful, it’s the only thing that keeps my lips from falling off since I’m now a requisite mouth-breather. Both Julian (my son) and Omaha have brought me my gear– my laptop, books, headphones, and the charger for my phone, plus USB cables to recharge everything else. They’ve been so understanding and wonderful, and I have come to realize how much I’m loved, both by the real people in my life, and by my alters, so I guess that means in the final analysis I a like myself too, although as always, I could do more.
The nurses are awesome and patient, but they say I’m not a very difficult patient. I’m trying not to be. But I’m so tired of this. Today is the sixth day without eating or drinking, and last night all I could dream of is food and cool, clear water.
When last you left our hero, namely me, I had been discharged from Broward Regional Medical after being “observed” for three days following a diagnosis of Covid-induced spontaneous retroperiteneal hematoma. Omaha consulted with Alaska Airlines and I met their criteria (not mine) for flying, and I religiously kept my mask on the whole flight home because by all the unholy gods in the aligning stars’ sky I did not want to give this horror to anyone else.
I got home on September 25th and recovered fully from the ’Rona. I worked a full week. I had ordinary meals, performed The Ritual of Coffee consistently, cooked my own breakfasts, that sort of thing.
I made a comment to the nurse that on the 4th I had tried 5mg of cannabis for the first time since leaving for Florida on September 8th, and wondered if this was the infamous cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome. “No way,” she said. “Five mil? No way. The people who get that do a lot of pot. Like, tons, every day. They don’t have jobs.”
On October 5th, I thought I had a bout of food poisoning. I began to throw up, badly. It got worse, and on the 6th, I went to the ER at St. Anne’s, formely Highline Medical Center. Burien’s population has grown by 60.5% since Omaha and moved here in 2020 to start our family, but St. Anne’s still has the same sized ER it had in 2000. (We should know; Omaha’s epilepsy brought us there many times over the years.) I waited eight hours to be seen. The guy who saw me ordered a blood draw, saw I had a pancreatic lipase number over 100 (normal is less than 70, “bad is over 1000,” he said. “I’ve seen a few.”), diagnosed me with pancreatitis, and sent me home with an anti-nausea medication and told me to adopt a liquid diet– clear broth, black tea, apple juice, jello.
The pain and vomiting got worse. It established a very distinct pattern, two hours of cycling up to purge, followed by a few hours of relief. We went back the next day, and were told the wait was 9 hours. We bailed, and I made an emergency call to my GP. They immediately scheduled me for the next day.
Dr. Hsu saved my life. My gods, she was furious. “They did no imaging? They can’t just diagnose you with pancreatitis! You had a hematoma, what if this is pancreatic hematoma? That number makes no sense. Go back to the ER! Go now! Go to a different ER, a bigger ER.” I suggested UW Valley View. “Valley? Very good. I will call ahead to make sure they see you, but go! Go now! Go! GO!”
In 2021, despite being the most vaccinated town in Washington State, our population contracted by 1.3% for the first time. Part of that was Burien has a lot of nursing homes, and COVID was brutal before vaccines became available.
We took a Lyft. I was early enough in the cycle I didn’t think I would throw up in his car, and fortunately I was right. I was admitted and scanned immediately.The stomach’s outlet is called the pyloric valve. Just below that is the start of the small intestine, including the bile ducts that transfer bile from the liver to the intestine to aid in digestion. Just below that is the start of the intestine proper, the duodenum. The blood mass of the hematoma had shifted and was pressing against the duodenum, blocking it and causing the bile to back up into my stomach. My vomiting was bile reflux disease. The liver produces as much as two liters of bile a day. Gross, huh?
I was immediately put on a stomach pump, which is one of the most traumatic and disgusting medical procedures that has to be done conscious. It’s unnatural to shove something up your nose and then past your gag reflex. It hurt, and the tube rubs against the gag reflex constantly, causing pain and irritation. I’m allowed menthol lozenges and “icewater swabs” to reduce the pain.
My collapse from dehydration was almost comical. They couldn’t find a wheelchair on the floor, so they used an office chair to transport me back to my room. It was humiliating.
I was then wheeled into endoscopic surgery, where a second tube, a feeding tube, was inserted (thankfully while I was unconscious) through the constriction into the “still functional” part of my small intestine. And for the past six days, I have eaten or drunk nothing at all. It’s all been pap and water forced down that tube. Oh, and extra water put intravenously, because… I don’t know why. They won’t explain why they won’t give me enough water. But I feel dehydrated constantly, and I’m getting weaker by the day. On Tuesday I did a few knee push-ups and four laps around the building; on Wednesday I just did four laps; on Thursday I did half a lap before almost passing out from dehydration.
Nothing else is being done. I’m being “observed.”
Thursday morning, I had a minor emergency: the stomach pump tube had come loose in the early morning and I woke up soaked in my own bile. I was helped into the bathroom to take a shower, rigging up the “child’s height” showerhead so I could sit on the floor and wash my hair and body while the staff changed the linen and cleaned the bed. While I was there, another nurse came in and found me on the floor of the shower and was this close to triggering the “patient fallen” alarm when the first team returned with the clean linen and explained that I had sat down deliberately. “He wanted to sit that way instead of a chair. He says he can’t fall off the floor.” That incident used up all my spoons that day. When Omaha and Julian came to visit, I fell asleep, and they waited three hours for me to wake up.
Oddly, when I did wake up, we played a round of Boggle and my words are still all there; I scored the highest of all three, although both of them were close.
My friends and family have been visiting regularly. My daughter gave me her lip balm, “the dial has been chewed a bit by my pet rat,” but it’s wonderful, it’s the only thing that keeps my lips from falling off since I’m now a requisite mouth-breather. Both Julian (my son) and Omaha have brought me my gear– my laptop, books, headphones, and the charger for my phone, plus USB cables to recharge everything else. They’ve been so understanding and wonderful, and I have come to realize how much I’m loved, both by the real people in my life, and by my alters, so I guess that means in the final analysis I a like myself too, although as always, I could do more.
The nurses are awesome and patient, but they say I’m not a very difficult patient. I’m trying not to be. But I’m so tired of this. Today is the sixth day without eating or drinking, and last night all I could dream of is food and cool, clear water.
no subject
Date: 2022-10-14 07:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-10-15 05:14 pm (UTC)What they were worried about was my developing swelling and edema in my legs from having too much fluid in my system, which is commonplace in "men your age." But I'm not a couch potato; I ride my bike for every errand I can excuse, I work out regularly, I walk to the coffee shop when the weather's nice. And my body is using up tons of fluid producing the bile they're removing from my guts.
I demanded a dehydration/hypovolemia lab, and they gave it, and they were suddenly like, "Whoa, you were right. Not only do you need much more than 140ccs of water every hour, but we need to pump 1500ccs into you right now at double speed." The 1500cc "bolus" was administered intravenously and was chilly as heck. It lowered my core temperature so much I felt nauseous and sleepy (your core temperature drops as you fall asleep to preserve metabolic resources, and artificially lowering your core temperature can trigger sleepiness), so I napped for three hours, but I've been doing much better ever since.
no subject
Date: 2022-10-15 07:58 pm (UTC)