Life and work have gotten in the way and I haven't been around in a while, but now I'm stuck with nothing but time and I figured I'd update everyone and I plan on making sure I keep checking in even once I get back into the crazy world.
So Friday night I started having an increase in nausea (for the last little while nausea when I wake up has been pretty standard, but this was worse) at about 10pm. it got a little worse by the time I went to bed, but as I'm sure we've all done I decided to see how the night went. The next morning it was worse still and getting worse by the minute. So, I packed my hospital bag (I actually used to keep one packed but since it's almost been a year since my last stay I had stopped) and called an ambulance. I still feel a bit silly calling an ambulance to get to hospital but my options were ambulance, an expensive cab ride, or about an hour by bus. I knew I couldn't afford a cab, and I've taken the bus with a blockage before and about half way to the hospital I was extremely regretful of not calling an ambulance instead.
I got to the hospital by about 8:30 Saturday morning, and by 9am I was in a bed in the ER, apparently they actually had beds available... so no waiting hours to be even under a nurses care which was a bonus. Saw the doctor relatively quickly and he agreed it sounded like the right symptoms for an obstruction and sent me for X-rays. He ordered both abdomen and chest x-rays, and I was really glad for that, because that way nothing would be missed. When he read the x-rays a little while later my self-diagnosis was confirmed... an obstruction. I then got to see the general surgery person, and he said it looked like we caught it early. It was low down, and my stomach wasn't very distended yet, so that was good.
Next order of business was getting an NG tube in, and giving me some gravol by IV, some IV fluids, and some dilauded by injection. Severe increase in the nausea after the nurse put the NG in, so I was very glad when the gravol finally kicked in. Then all of a sudden I felt tingly all over and very unfocused, gen surg guy happened to be right by me and he seemed to think it was just too much dilauded and nothing to worry about, but it was definitely a scary feeling. I was fine by the time I got back from the X-ray to check the placement of the NG tube, so turns out he was right. Turns out they can give a range of 0.5 to 1 for the dilauded I got the full 1and was a bit doped up at first
after that they made a note on my chart that I was only to have the lower 0.5 dosage.Made it up to a room that evening. The plan when I saw the general surgery team before coming up had been to wait and see how things went, because they thought they'd caught it early enough that it could resolve itself without surgery. And so far that plan seems to be working. I had them unhook the NG tube last night to go to the washroom before bed and was feeling well enough that i just never got them to hook it back up. When I saw the team this morning and the resident heard that she gave me two options: 1. we could clamp the NG tube and see how I do, because then if I need it back I don't need to go through the trauma of having it put back in, or 2. they take it out, and if I have a setback and need to have it put back in then we deal with putting it back in. I went with option 2, because at this point I'm used to having it put in and just want it gone. Once it's out I'll be able to try some liquids, and if that goes well I might even get solid food for dinner and could either go home tonight or tomorrow morning
I asked the surgery resident about how long I have to take it easy before going back to work... and when she heard I work at Tim Hortin's (in her words a pretty physical job) she said if I get out tonight I might be able to be back by the end of the week, if I get out tomorrow I'm looking at the beginning of the following week. It's so frustrating because I'd just finally gotten a scheduled 40 hours for the first time since my boss took me back on in June... and now i have to tell him I can't come in for any of those shifts... He's been amazing with everything I've gone through since coming back after my surgery and has been very accommodating, but I worry that since it's just been proved that I still may not be able to be in for all my shifts, I may end up only scheduled for one or two shifts again next week. I mean I know this isn't just me calling in because I'm a little under the weather, and i will have a doctor's note.... but I'm still worried. Who knows he may surprise me yet again.
I am so sick of these complications... it's been almost a year since my last obstruction (September of last year) and I thought I was past these... but if they can come on so far after surgery, it makes it really hard to make plans to get on with life. I want nothing more than to go visit some of my friends down in the US, but if I do that and end up in hospital down there I'm screwed
Oh well, it could be worse...So that's been my last few days, hope everyone is doing well
Aideen