Up All Night

It looks like I will be going home on Monday.  I could leave Friday if I want to, but I am still winded too easily.  Going home and taking care of everything myself will be too difficult at this point.  I am going to let the nurses take care of me so I can concentrate on relaxing and getting better.  My coughs are still a lot harder than they normally are.  I get stuck in them, turn red and feel like I am going to pass out.  I get light headed, the room gets spotty and my body feels shaky and tingly.  This happens to me sometimes, but right now since everything is moving, it is happening multiple times a day.  I go into coughing fits just from transferring from the bed to the wheelchair.  This is probably the worst part when I come in here, but it is a necessary evil.  All the mucus that has accumulated in my lungs is breaking free and plugging up my airways.  It makes it harder to breathe, but it makes it so that it can come out too.  Once I get most of it out, I shouldn't go into coughing fits so frequently and then hopefully start to feel a little better.  Plus I am not even bored here yet.  Believe it or not I have lots to do and have actually been busy.

Friday Deb from child life came in my room and asked if I wanted to paint a ceramic turtle piggy bank.  I normally don't do the crafts when they ask me.  I bring enough stuff with me to keep me busy, but this one sounded fun so I said sure.  She came in with the turtle and gave me paint and paint brushes.  I got to work and painted him.  He took awhile because I decided to paint every oval on his shell.  Grandma came up that day, plus I had PT so basically I didn't have time for much else on Friday.

Saturday my mom and Darren came up to visit.  Grandma noticed how much I like painting the turtle so she told mom to pick something up at A.C. Moore for me to paint.  She got me the letters B, A, B, Y to paint.  They are little train parts that have magnets and then you put them together.  So I painted that to put in the baby basket for the benefit.  So between them, the painting, and playing on World of Warcraft with Jason Saturday was taken up.

Sunday was more relaxed and I didn't do much that warrants me to talk about.  Just played on the computer, slept, boring stuff, but the day seemed to fly.

Monday I asked Deb if I could do another ceramic piggy bank and she brought me in a pig.  I painted this one and finished the train, both for the basket.  The turtle is mine.
Here are my little projects:

The last two nights have been challenging.  Monday night I was coughing for most of the night.  I could not get it to stop.  I called for a nebulized Albuterol treatment and it helped a lot, but I was still uncomfortable and it took a while to settle down even after that.  Then last night was a debacle.  My nurse came in at 3:30 to set up antibiotic dose.  To explain the time....I came into the ER and had my first antibiotic at 3:00 so they just kept it that time.  Which is fine with me because otherwise it is 6:00, 12:00, 6:00, 12:00.  Those times are a pain because I get interrupted twice at night whereas the way I have it now I only get interrupted once.  Anyway back to the original story...she came in at 3:00 to set up the antibiotic dose.  She took the flush and pushed it through.  I was a little groggy because she just woke me up, but it felt like she just took the syringe and squirted me with it.  I asked her if she didn't put it on the tube right and she looked at me confused and said, "No it is on there I got a blood return."  She didn't notice the squirt.  I figured I was just confused and went to lay back down after she connected the med.  I then realized the thing was leaking all over the place.  She stopped the med and took it off and because there was no med on it and there was a hole somewhere my blood starting backing up.  She blocked it off and then went to find a new tip.  We were hoping that was what broke because it was leaking right were the line met the tip.  She changed it and when she went to flush the blood out it squirted all over me again.  This meant the whole needle needed to come out and my port had to be re-accessed.  Now this would not be an issue normally (it is a simple thing putting the needle in and I use a cream to numb the skin beforehand) but my nurse started asking me how to do it.  I asked her if she had ever done one and she told me once but a while ago.  I wasn't completely comfortable with that so she went out on the floor and found someone that said they knew how.  Well she accessed me once and did not get a blood return.  This means it was not in correctly.  She pushed a little saline in to see if it was just blocked.  That felt so strange and uncomfortable telling both of us it was not in.  So she pulled it out and went in again.  Still no blood draw.  She tried pulling it back a little to see if she went too far and then she looked at it and saw just how much room was between the top of the needle and my skin.  She pushed it in farther and got a blood draw.  Good thing because I was not going to let her do it again.  I was just going to wait for the morning and let my day nurse do it.  She obviously hadn't done it in awhile either.  You are supposed to keep pushing until you feel the needle make contact with the back of the port.  After she left I stayed up during the antibiotic and got to thinking about how she took the needle and accessed me twice with it.  Whenever I have gotten blood drawn or an IV in, if the first try does not work, they always threw it away and got a fresh needle.  I was wondering if that was supposed to happen in this case too.  The next morning I asked my day nurse and she said the needle should have been replaced.  She wasn’t sure what to do in this case so she was going to ask infectious disease if it was safer to leave it alone or pull it out and do it again.  They got back to her pretty quickly and told her to take it out.  So I was accessed again today.  The site is a little red and irritated, but she thinks because of all the pokes, but we have to watch it now for infection.  We don't think there will be a problem, but to be safe they are now watching me for fevers.  Hopefully nothing will come of that and I get some sleep tonight.