Final Days In The Hospital (Pancreatitis Series #3)

This blog is the third part of my Pancreatitis Series. If you haven’t, you should read Part 1 and Part 2 first to get caught up. I have explained the start and the beginning to my time in the hospital. Now is all about the final days of my hospital stay and the confusing conclusion to my diagnosis. (Warning: This blog is a little longer than normal.) October 12, 2018 (FRIDAY cont.): Finally, Things Start Looking Up Today was full of surprises. My stay here so far has been absolutely horrible, painful and terrifying. I was lonely and scared. I moved to Oregon from Illinois with nothing but my dog and whatever would fit in my Saturn Ion at the time. When coming here, I knew that I was going to be alone, but I also have never been really sick before. I’ve never spent time in a hospital so I didn’t know the feeling of lonely you get from being there. When I found out my mom was blessed…

Transferred To The Hospital (Pancreatitis Series #2)

Chantelle
November 3, 2018
Healing / Healthy Living / Journaling / Mental Health

In my last blog, I explained the events that lead up to me being in the ER and being transferred to another hospital to get emergency gallbladder removal surgery. This is a continuation of that, so if you haven't read the first part yet, start HERE. October 6, 2018 (SATURDAY still): Officially At Hotel Riverbend I was getting settled into my new room around 7:30 pm. It was nice, and when I say nice, I mean it was nicer than a lot of hotels I’ve stayed in. I had my own bathroom and on-call room service. It was very nice. Not to mention, I was on the 8th floor of a building that looked over the Willamette River and the flowing hills of Springfield, OR. It was beautiful. Around 9 p.m. I was getting antsy. Why would they tell me I need emergency surgery around 2 p.m. and at 9 p.m. I’m still waiting, sitting around watching HGTV in a motorized bed? When the next CNA comes in to…

My First Trip To the Emergency Room (Pancreatitis Series #1)

Chantelle
October 28, 2018
Healthy Living / Journaling / Mental Health

The last few weeks have been such a blur and I have been trying really hard to piece together the fragments of memories I have of this time frame that I spent in the suite at Riverbend Peace Health. It all started with my trip to the Emergency Room. To clarify my absence, I was in the hospital with pancreatitis the last 2+ weeks. I have never felt pain like that before. In fact, one of my many nurses during my stay told me that the pain I was feeling at the time was comparable to a drug-free childbirth. She came to this conclusion by the amount of Dilaudid they had to give me to get ahead of the pain. Because my memory of what happened was so bad, during the final days there I went through text messages I had sent to family members and coworkers and sat down with nurses that were in my care, in order to get some sort of timeline together. I was on so…

Unexpected Life Lessons

Chantelle
October 5, 2018
Addiction / Healthy Living / Personal Development

Life has a funny way of teaching us lessons. It is almost never easy, and it is usually never how we think something is going to happen. I wanted to talk about a couple of my recent unexpected life lessons. I have always been a planner; Making lists for everything, and researching something down to the most insignificant details to be the most prepared for whatever the situation may be. I get it from my mom. This trait is a blessing and a curse. Those of you who carry this trait will understand what I’m talking about. I would get so caught up in planning for these grandeur dreams I have, and would create these unrealistic expectations of how smoothly my plan was going to go. This lead to utter disappointment when things kept going “wrong.” Some of you may know that I lost my job a few weeks ago. Luckily I was able to find a filler job quickly within a week, waitressing at a diner. This job isn’t…

Family Isn’t Always Blood

Chantelle
September 18, 2018
Gratitude / Law Of Attraction / Personal Development

Coming from someone who has had a small family their entire life, along with being an only child, I can safely say that “Family” isn’t always blood. Family is what you make it, and who you choose to be your family. This is especially true if the people you are blood-related to have no interest in you, don’t support you, or have been abusive* physically or emotionally. I have so many people in my life that I consider family that aren’t actually related to me, and I love each and every one of them like they are blood. Family is a feeling that comes from the heart. We all want to have that feeling that is advertised around Christmas with the family sitting around the tree; Everyone is smiling and engaging with one another. I feel like this isn’t true for the most of us though, right? Christmas is stressful! Most families argue around the holidays, and there’s a lot of financial/consumerist obligations if you have a large family. If…