"Home" From The Hospital

Well, as some of you know I had a very interesting last week and a half. I went on Wednesday the 16th to have day surgery. This left a very tight time schedule with getting all healed and ready to move to Virginia on the 1st. That was before everything went nuts. I woke up from surgery not being able to feel my right leg. Luckily this was not really a long-lived thing. After about a day it started waking up at a pretty decent pace. Had that been the only thing that went wrong I would have been home by Saturday. Alas, there were two other problems. The first being that I got a small infection. With me no surgical infection is ever really "small", but they started me on antibiotics on Friday two times a day via IV, and after about three days we were not too bad off. Then came the real fun. Friday night a nurse came into my room about 3 am asking if I was ok, if I felt dizzy, etc - I found this strange since I was really, really asleep. After about the third round of questions regarding if I was "light headed" I began to wonder if I should be, and asked why. Turns out my heart rate was 32 according to the monitor they had on me. The good news is that as soon as she said that it went right up, but not for long. Every time I went to sleep here they came...an entourage of nurses busting the door down to make sure that the computer was telling them the right thing. Sadly, my pulse really was below 40 several times and this was not due to a broken monitor. This meant no sleep for me and a round of doctors from Family Medicine at the TTUHSC and about three different Cardiologists and their cronies. After a day of tests and my pulse not getting above 60. Good news, all of the tests were normal! Bad news, no idea why my heart rate was so low. The doctors all took one look at my chart and said "Oh, she is on a beta blocker, that is why!" This would have made perfect sense except I had not taken it since I was in the hospital. Yes, beta blockers do lower your heart rate and blood pressure, but with the pain meds, etc I did not need it and the nurses were smart enough not to give it to me. No matter how many times I tried to to tell the doctors I had not been taking it, they told me that it was causing it - and to just stop it entirely. Well by Tuesday my heart rate was basically normal, but the doctor wanted it to be normal a bit longer before letting me go, which happened Friday morning. Alas, my Mom gets there and I pack everything to get ready, get down to the discharge center, and the last thing they do is check my pulse, blood pressure, and temperature. I think this is to just have documentation that you were alive when you left. Numbers pop up:BP = 130/90, Pulse = 135! Getting pushed in a wheelchair can really get your heart going. :) The nurses called my doctors because they were not comfortable with this, and they said "Don't worry, it is just the withdrawal from the beta blocker - don't take it." So I left, went to the car, and took my normal dose and all was happy. Yes, I did something the doctors said not to. Sue me. I am going to go see a nice family doctor when I get to Virginia to get this all figured out. I am feeling ok, just mostly very weak and tired. I have a lot of strange bruises that I cannot figure out, and about 10 others from various IVs they had in. The scar on my back is shaped like a "J" and healing very well. I have another scar from a central line over my right collar bone that is going to be small. I took a few pictures of my room to commemorate the visit, and those can be found below.

For those who asked, Cleo is doing very well. Even with the house torn apart and people running around taking her stuff she is sitting next to me on the bed very calmly. We will be going to the Best Western this afternoon (as they seem to be the only hotel in town that takes pets!) and I have a feeling she will not like that as well. I will be there until Thursday when we leave, even though the movers are picking everything up tomorrow! Yikes. We will then go to Texarkana and stay with my Aunt Marylin, then to maybe Atlanta, Clemson, then Rocky Mount on the 7th. Orientation at Ferrum starts on the 8th!