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 take my vitals, I ask her “how much longer until I have my surgery?” She told me as the CNA she doesn’t know that kind of stuff but would grab the nurse. So she grabs the nurse, and the nurse then tells me, we have to run some more tests, but that I won’t be getting the gallbladder surgery for a while.

This news that I wasn’t going to have surgery right away had me shook for a minute.

She went on to tell me that my symptoms were more complicated than a gallbladder full of stones. I had a stone stuck in my bile duct which caused a blockage to my pancreas. My pancreas was so mad about it that it got acute pancreatitis and started spewing “angry fluids” everywhere. Those were the nurse’s words, by the way, not mine.

She said they had me scheduled for an ERCP sometime the next day. ERCP stands for Endoscopic Retrograde Cholangio-Pancreatography. Basically what they were going to do was send a lighted tube that has a camera attached to it down my throat and works its way to my bile duct. Once there, they would be able to break up the stone, and it could pass through, then it should only take the pancreas 5-7 days to calm down, and then bam! Surgery, minor recovery, go home… Sounds easy enough.

Because of this procedure, I wasn’t allowed to eat or drink anything, which was fine, honestly, because I didn’t want to eat anything. I didn’t have an appetite and I was scared to try to eat something again.

October 7, 2018 (SUNDAY): First Full Day In The Hospital

I woke up in a good mood. I wanted to weigh myself because I knew that the scales they would have would be extremely accurate. This is the first time I’m going to put my weight on the internet, and I’m actually kind of nervous about it. My weight has been a struggle of mine since childhood. I have always been obese, and it feels like I have yo-yo dieted my entire life. However, my weight is very important to this story.

This morning, I weighed 267 lbs; Which is a lot, and I am aware of this. However, I started my at my highest, before I moved to Oregon, at 319 pounds. So technically this is a 52-pound weight loss. This weight wasn’t shocking to me, as I’ve been stagnant at this amount (give or take 5 pounds of fluctuation) for the last year or so. I haven’t been trying to lose weight though, because I’ve really been focused on my mental health and spirituality.

Anyways, besides getting my weight recorded today (which in retrospect I am extremely happy I did.) I was going to have my ERCP today. I was really nervous about getting this procedure done. Besides general maintenance, like pap smears and getting blood drawn, I was a virgin to medical procedures. It was the first time I was going to be put under and that had its own fear factor attached to it.

When going down to the procedure room, it was exactly as I imagined it would be, and I found myself thinking I was in an episode of Grey’s Anatomy. I made little jokes about it as they were trying to explain what was going to happen. They didn’t find it nearly as funny as I did.

They put the breathing tube over my face and told me it wasn’t the anesthesia. I know that was a lie when I woke up later and they said it was over. I was with a new nurse now and she was telling me she was going to give me fentanyl. Because of my street knowledge about fentanyl, I actually freaked out when she told me this. It was literally killing my friends of friends back home and one of the many reasons I wanted to leave.

She had to calmly explain to me that I wasn’t going to die, and that when used properly, it is a very strong painkiller, and that the dose is so small that I wouldn’t overdose on it. That was my first experience with a strong narcotic. After 15 minutes or so, she was able to send me back up to my room.

An hour or so later, I was in the worst pain I’ve ever been in. The pain was so intense I was screaming and crying, and this was only the start of my stay here at the Riverbend Suites.

October 8, 2018 (MONDAY): The First Day Of Pain and Narcotics

Throughout the night, I was screaming and waking up everyone on the floor. I didn’t understand why the pain had gotten so bad after I had the procedure was done that was supposed to make things better. I had a button that would call the nurse in, and I don’t know how many times I pressed that button, but I do know that they were getting sick of me very quickly.

They were giving me the amount of pain meds allowed by the doctor, but nothing they were giving me was actually helping the pain. Morphine, Oxycodone, Dilaudid, Fentanyl patch… nothing was actually helping me. I was just screaming and crying throughout the night. I feel bad now thinking back on it because of how rude I was to my nurses and the CNAs there that night. It’s not their fault they weren’t allowed to give me a higher dose than what the doctor prescribed. I was just so confused and upset that the pain was a million times worse than it was before I got the procedure done.

Every hour, new orders were going into the doctor for higher doses and more pain management. It was a complete mess and I am pretty sure no one on floor 8 of Riverbend hospital got any sleep this night.

Sometime during the day when I was conscious and not screaming, I had a psychiatrist come in and talk to me. I had mentioned at some point during my time here that I had tried to sign up for Trillium so that I could get psychiatric help. Even so, I didn’t know that they would send someone to me while I was here, but they did. I don’t know if it was the best time since I was so out of it, but he asked me some general questions and I explained to him why I wanted the help and what I thought my diagnosis was.

He told me that in the small amount of time we talked he does agree with me and recommended they start medications immediately. I was started on Topamax for a mood stabilizer, Ativan for my anxiety and an antidepressant that I actually refused. If you know me at all, I have been trying to avoid medications and go an all-natural route with my healing, using things like essential oils, meditation, and yoga. (Let’s be honest though, I haven’t been very good at keeping up a regular schedule of these things.)

I was already so drugged up at the time that I just agreed to the mood stabilizer and the anxiety meds because I truly believed I needed them at this point.

After the psychiatrist left, a nurse came in and they explained to me that when they were doing the ERCP procedure, the stone they had originally gone in for had already passed on its own. They said the reason why I was feeling so much pain was because the procedure upset my pancreatitis more. It had released even more angry fluids everywhere which increased the inflammation and that was the pain I was feeling all over my abdomen.

Thinking back, the doctor who performed the procedure did mention this as a possible side effect, but I was so busy cracking jokes about Grey’s Anatomy and trying to lighten the mood that I didn’t really pay attention as I should have. Oops.

The rest of the night was dedicated to finding a dose that would actually take the pain away from my ever-aching abdomen. Nothing was working. I thought I was going to be stuck in this pain forever and I started freaking out. Completely had a full-on meltdown; Hyperventaling, screaming, crying, shaking, rocking back and forth. I’m sure from the outside I looked like I belonged on the Psych floor, but the pain was surreal.

October 9, 2018 (TUESDAY): Introduction To A PCA Pump

I made it through another night, though it wasn’t easy. I didn’t sleep again, and I’m sure none of my neighbors did either. Sometime early in the morning, they told me I was going to get a PCA pump. Now, I’ve never heard of this before, so I was scared at first. I hear the word pump and immediately think I’m going to have some sort of pump put into my body.

They explain to me that a PCA pump (a computerized pump called the patient-controlled analgesia pump, which contains a syringe of pain medication as prescribed by a doctor, is connected directly to a patient’s intravenous (IV) line. –https://www.webmd.com/pain-management/guide/pca ) is going to be a pump of pain meds that has a button that I will be in control of.

I would have the ability to press this button every 10 minutes for more pain meds if I needed.

The nurse who was setting it up told me she hadn’t seen or used one in two years and said it was very rare that they allowed it to be used. She said my case was very extreme and one of the worst cases of pancreatitis that she’s seen.

They started by putting morphine in it. Unfortunately, I don’t remember their “scientific” reason as to why the morphine wasn’t working. Something about the enzymes being spewed by my pancreas, or something, not allowing the morphine to do its job. I don’t really remember, but they switched it to Dilaudid.

If you aren’t aware, Dilaudid is a very strong narcotic and very addictive and after having this pump, I can see why.

They had tried Dilaudid before, but the doses they were giving me weren’t working. The average dose for someone is 0.25 or 0.5 MG and that amount is usually plenty for someone in pain. They had tried before up to a 2mg dose, and even that wasn’t bringing me above the pain.

To start my PCA pump, the administered a 4 MG dose of Dilaudid. This is extremely high and extremely rare to give to someone. However, this was the first time since the pain started that I actually felt the pain leave my body. It was a weird feeling. I felt it in my neck first, a little tense and warm, but then it was like a blanket of numbness went through my whole body. It only took 30 seconds to a minute to feel it kick in. I believe I told my nurse I loved her and that she was an angel.

I was allowed to press the button every 10 minutes and that would administer another 0.8 MG of Dilaudid into my system.

October 10, 2018 (WEDNESDAY): Finally In Control Of The Pain

I finally was able to beat the pain, even though these days are a complete blur. The Dilaudid makes you high, as well as feels really good by eliminating any pain. I can easily see why it would be extremely addictive and they wouldn’t want to give a PCA pump to just anyone. I found myself not pressing the release button as many times as I thought I would need to.

Sometime during this day, this needed to administer a PICC line. Basically, because I was going to be here for a while longer, they couldn’t keep me on no food or water without giving me nutrients. So they set up a PICC line which basically is a tube that goes in the main artery from my arm, near my elbow, to almost my heart so they could have me set up on a TPN.

(TPN = Total parenteral nutrition: Intravenous feeding that provides patients with all the fluid and the essential nutrients they need when they are unable to feed themselves by mouth. – https://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=19344 )

The good news about this was they weren’t going to have to poke me multiple times throughout the day to draw blood and whatnot. My veins about had it at this point anyways and were collapsing all over the place. They still had to give me an oral dose of Ativan and morphine to calm me down enough to start the process. I was having an intense anxiety attack over it apparently.

The whole process of inserting the PICC line was actually pretty cool. They had a little monitor that allowed the PICC line expert to see all of my veins and arteries. So after the Ativan kicked in and I wasn’t hyperventilating anymore, it was super intriguing to watch.

Because the Dilaudid doses I was on were so high, I had to sleep with a heart monitor on. It was so uncomfortable because I now have tubes coming out of both sides of me. I can’t move and am forced to sleep on my back which I’ve never done in my life (to my knowledge). I have always slept in the same position on my stomach/side with one arm under my head and one leg hitched up. I’ve literally slept in this position for as long as I can remember.

I am on my back, in an almost 90-degree angle to keep my abdomen from stretching out, with both arms extended out because the tubes go to different machines and would stretch if I tried to move them at all. For some reason, this made me cry. I had a nurse in there trying to explain to me that in order to have the PCA pump I have to have the heart monitor because the amount of Dilaudid going into my system could stop my heart and yadda yadda. So I’m begging them to take it all away because I just wanted to sleep. It was a complete disaster and I was a mess.

My heart rate was a mess too.

In fact, I wasn’t worried about it stopping at all. I was more afraid that my heart would combust because ever since I had gotten the procedure my resting heart rate wouldn’t go below 115/120. Generally, someones resting heart rate is around 60-80 bpm. Mine was staying steady at around 120 bpm and I wasn’t going anywhere; Just stuck in bed. If I did have to get up, to go to the bathroom or whatever, it would skyrocket to 140/150. It got up to 165 once after going to the bathroom and coming back. It was insane.

I was also on my period during this time. I got it the second or third day I was in the hospital. Going to the bathroom was hard enough (seriously, it hurt so badly to lower myself and get back up off the toilet) and on top of that, having to remove and replace a tampon every few hours was wearing me down. (I am going to switch to a diva cup soon actually. I’ve been wanting to for a while for environmental reasons. Also, it’s better for your vagina. Blog post coming soon.)

October 11, 2018 (THURSDAY): Last Day I’m Allowed My Miracle Pump

Today is the third day with my PCA pump, which means it’s the last day I’m allowed to have it. I was a little worried that without it, I would just go back to being in extreme pain. At this point, all of my time is blurred together. I’m on so many different medications, for so many different things. I also haven’t been sleeping much so my mental health is suffering even more because of that. I remember just feeling like a blob at one point. Everything was just foggy, and painful.

Once they actually took me off of the PCA pump later that evening, I remember just feeling so anxious. When the pain started coming back, I pressed my nurse button. She told me I should put a warm heating pad on my lower back and try to get some rest. I no longer had to sleep with the heart monitor on, but sleeping on my side, or my stomach, was nearly impossible at this point because of how much pain I was in. I had to sleep on my back, almost sitting straight up and down.

Before going to bed, the nurse gave me a strong dose of Dilaudid and also a strong dose of Ativan also intravenously. I haven’t gotten an IV dose of Ativan before, nor have I been given it with Dilaudid. Whatever the case may be, I had the worst trip ever.

I’m not new to the tripping life. I started taking shrooms when I was around 16 years old and started taking acid my first semester of college at 18. I truly believe that acid is the reason I am no longer addicted to cocaine, and I’ll eventually tell the story of that one day. The point being, I’ve never had a bad trip before. When on these hallucinogens, I could easily see how someone could turn it into a bad trip, but I honestly feel like I am in control when I am taking these drugs. I also know not to take too much, and how much my body can handle.

Having said that, my experience this night at the hospital was absolutely terrifying.

First, I abruptly woke up sweating since I fell asleep with the heating pad on my back. Opposingly, I had a small fan pointed straight at my face. The opposite feelings of a cold sweat were so uncomfortable. When I looked around I didn’t recognize where I was. Out of nowhere, I would have flashes of being somewhere else. Another place I didn’t recognize. It was dark, and almost like a mirrored version of where I was but black, and almost burnt. It reminded me of silent hill, so I started freaking out.

My hospital bed has arms on both sides that can be put up, or down. That night my nurse put both arms up because she feared I would roll out of bed. I don’t know what happened, but somehow my PICC line tubes (on my right arm) had gotten stuck underneath the arm of the bed, so my arm was stuck. Frantically, I couldn’t move to remove the heating pad from my bad.

I started screaming and throwing a fit, having the absolute worst trip of my life.

The flashes were getting worse, and I had forgotten where I was. All I could think about was the fact that my tubes were going to be ripped out of my arm. I could somehow remember that the hose in my arm was a 16-inch tube that went up to my heart. I couldn’t even reach the nurse button because my TPN tubes were so stuck under the arm of the hospital bed.

Finally, someone heard my screams and came into my room and relieved me of my bed prison. As I am realizing where I was, I was trying to explain what was happening. Of course, I just sounded like a crazy person. They were shushing me like a baby, and I was getting angry that they weren’t taking me seriously.

After the heating pad was removed and I was free to move my arms, the flashes died down and I was able to recognize where I was.

The whole experience was awful, and I told my nurse that I would never take Ativan again. I don’t know if it was the mixture with the Dilaudid or the fact that it was administered via IV. I just knew I didn’t want it ever again.

They gave me another dose of Dilaudid and before I knew it I was out again. This time without the heating pad, and with both arms down. I had set up my tubes so that they couldn’t get caught. Also, I rested my arm on a pillow to be extra cautious. I don’t think I could ever forget the feelings I had that night. Nor could I forget the visions of the dark, burnt room I was in. It was something from a nightmare, and I felt like I was in my own personal horror film.

October 12, 2018 (FRIDAY): Things Start To Make A Turn For The Better

Today was a day that starts the turn towards getting better, and a miracle happened. This whole time, I had been in the hospital alone. My roommate brought me flowers the second day I was there along with some PJs to change into. Besides that, I was completely alone.

I knew when I moved out to Oregon, being alone was the risk I was willing to take.

So when I got the call from my mom saying an angel has blessed her with the opportunity to fly out here and be in the hospital with me, I was so ecstatic.

Our relationship, my mother and I, hasn’t always been the greatest. However, for some reason when you’re in a hospital bed completely alone, the only person you want next to you is your mom.

I thought this would be a perfect time to try and mend the relationship I’ve broken in the past. Nothing can take back the lies, the stealing, the drugs, the alcohol, the sneaking around, or all of the horrible things I’ve said and done to her. All we can do is start fresh, and start over, talk through our issues and move on. I feel like it is hard for her to get out of the defense mode she had to be in with me. Even though I’ve completely changed my life around, and I’m not the person I was even 2 or 3 years ago, I’m sure it would be hard to let go of that pain.

Again, this could probably be an entire blog post on its own. To keep it short, I was so excited to have this sort of fresh start with her. I was also excited just to have my mom with me.

She said her flight was early and that she would be there around 3 pm. The whole morning I was like a little kid on Christmas.  It was so refreshing to have feelings of happiness, and warmth in the heart, instead of fear and panic. This is when everything started turning around.

To Be Continued…

xoxo

Thank you so much for being here and listening to my story. I love having an outlet and the ability to put my thoughts down into words. I love all of the feedback I recieve and encourage you to let me know what you think. You can leave a message below or contact me via the contact page. I love all of you so much and I appreciate your existense. Thank you!!