REFLECTION 2009 - Part I - The Beginning

This weekend is important to me. It’s not to others, and I don’t expect them to understand how big it is to me.

On Friday, March 27, 2009, at 9:07am I walked through the door of Banner Thunderbird emergency room. I had severe pain in my upper abdomen, which I had been up most of the night hoping it would go away, as it had once or twice before. But this time the pain had become unbearable. I tried to go to the office after being up most of the night, but I only lasted there a few minutes. After throwing up in my trash can, I managed to get the words out to ask a co-worker to take me to the emergency room – quickly.

After a two hour wait in the ER, and an EKG, I was finally seen. I have little remembrance of time that day, and that is probably a good thing. Two EKG’s, chest x-ray, abdominal ultrasound, IV, blood tests, and who knows what else. All I knew at that time was that I felt very ill, that they had looked inside my body with all those tests, but most importantly, I was thankful I had finally been given the blessed Dilaudid for pain.

Most everything is a vague memory, not because a year has gone by but because that’s just how those things are, and that’s a good thing. I do remember being asked, “Do you drink?” No. “Smoke?” No. Then at some point, “Have you ever had your gall bladder out?” No. “That’s going to change today.” I remember thinking, Today? Whatever. I also remember hearing, “We’re going to admit her.” OK. I remember being asked, or maybe I heard others being asked if I had diabetes, and being told I had pancreatitis. I guess the rest of what was going on in my room was being dealt with by my husband, Dave. It didn’t seem like I was in the ER as long as I was, to me anyway. My family likely has a different viewpoint on that one. I guess around 8pm they found a room for me.

I vaguely remember the ride up to my room, which I heard was on the 3^rd floor. I thought, we’ll be taking an elevator. Hmmm, I don’t especially like elevators, but what choice to I have at this point. Down the halls, turns and bumps, and into the room, people helping move me from the gurney to the bed. I remember little else. Maybe that’s when I learned I could not have anything to eat or drink because I would be having a procedure done the following day which required anesthesia. At some point my mouth became unbelievably dry and I craved something wet. The lemon swabs really didn’t cut it, but I suppose they were better than nothing. I preferred the ones my son, Jason gave me because he let them soak up more water. Dave on the other hand, gave me ones with less liquid. I remember that. I remember someone asking Dave if he was spending the night, and I remember quickly answering, “Yes.”

Late the following morning (Saturday) I was taken for an ERCP (Endoscopic Retrograde Cholangiopancreatography). Down the hall, elevator, I really remember little about it, other than I was hoping the procedure room would be cold because I wasn’t! Please leave the blankets off, I don’t need to be covered going down the hall. It really didn’t matter to me, just cool me down. I remember telling the nurse I didn’t need the blanket she was about to put over me once in the room where the procedure was being done. They told me to roll over onto my stomach. Seriously? OK, I managed to do it. They told me even though it wasn’t easy, to hold my head up a little, they needed to spray something into my throat. Really? They were right, it wasn’t easy. Then I woke up. Apparently my O2 stats were a bit not so good when waking, and they told us to remember to let the anesthesiologist know that when they take my gall bladder out. Even though I was very sick and not caring about much, I did hear that one! People came to visit, I remember it but I wasn’t up for talking, and really wished they would stop talking to one another.

I was allowed to have water and ice chips until midnight, after that nothing by mouth. The dryness and thirst were awful! I was alert enough to rationalize that they would have told me nothing after midnight regardless of the time my surgery was scheduled, and since mine wasn’t until early Sunday afternoon, I was going to take ice chips for awhile, despite my husband’s frequent reminders that I wasn’t supposed to be doing that. So until about 3am I was able to somewhat relieve the horrible thirst. At some point I recall needing to go to the bathroom, and there discovering I was quite dehydrated (if you know what I mean). I was so glad when they finally came to get me for surgery. As I’m being taken to the operating room to have my gall bladder removed, I remember Dave asking, “Are you afraid?” I shook my head and said, “No”, because I wasn’t. I was aware of that.

I suppose I was anxious to have some water when I got back, but really at this point the next thing I remember is around 1am the following morning they moved me to a different room, down in the basement. I remember not caring what I looked like or if my gown was closed or open or who saw what. It really didn’t matter – after all, I was in a hospital.

The next five days don’t bring the vivid memories of details like those first two do, as vague as they even are. When I look back, it doesn’t seem like five days though. To me. It probably does to my husband who slept every night in a chair or on a cot, got up with me when I needed to go to the bathroom, and woke up for all the middle of the night rounds, but managed to go to work a few hours each day. I remember lots of pokes and prods, testing blood sugar, given insulin when required, 4am blood draws (sometimes they got it in one try, other times they didn’t), changing the IV to the other arm, little pills and BIG pills. I remember being in pain but not sure what it was from, and being concerned about not taking Percoset if I didn’t need it. I remember believing the nurse who told me I needed it and not to worry about it. I remember having to unhook this cord and that cord, and take the blow-up things off my legs to make the trek across the room to the bathroom, IV pole in tow. I remember it feeling good that my room temperature was somewhere in the 60’s, but after the Percoset kicked in I cooled down. I remember not caring about eating. I remember not being able to blow very strong into the incentive Spiro meter. I remember people telling me I needed to get this stat up and that stat down. I remember the Social Worker coming in and telling me I needed to contact my employer about going on FMLA. I remember the Diabetes Educator coming in and going over a big manual of diabetes stuff. I remember the Nutritionist coming in. I remember wondering why they were wasting their time. I clearly was not able to exert the energy needed to take in what they were saying. I remember not feeling well enough to read or have the TV on. I remember taking the lid off of my dinner one night and quickly putting it back on, and asking the next person who entered my room to put it as far away from me as they could. I wondered why they thought I could eat a gigantic piece of some sort of meat when I wasn’t even sipping on broth. I remember some visitors and phone calls. I remember being grateful for them. I remember a couple of walks around the nurses’ station, but knowing I should be doing more. I remember it exhausting me, and oh how it hurt my back. I didn’t know why. But I did care if my gown was open or closed now. I remember an aide coming in the last day I was there and saying the orders said I needed to weigh every day. Really? I remember the weight! It seems I had gained about 17 pounds lying in the hospital not eating for 5 days. Wonderful. I remember a visitor asking if I was anxious to leave the hospital and get home, and I remember saying I felt bad enough that it really didn’t matter to me. I remember being kind and polite to everyone. It was genuine and I liked myself.

On Friday evening I was told the doctor had released me to go home. I had been there a week. Dave and my daughter, Ali came to get me. Ali asked if I was going to comb my hair before leaving. I told her no. As we were doing the infamous wheelchair wait, she suggested she would fix my serious bed head. She tried. I think she may have walked several yards behind the wheelchair on the way out. I really didn’t care. She told me oh well, you can shower and wash your hair when you get home. Uh huh, sure.

I wished my neighborhood didn’t have speed bumps and I wished we lived in a one-story house. I slowly walked up the stairs and I stayed there for three days.

My mother-in-law and father-in-law had come from Idaho for a pre-planned annual visit while I was in the hospital. Dave brought our portable refrigerator up to the bedroom, and additional patio chairs for the upstairs deck off of our bedroom. The first week of April in Phoenix was beautiful and I spent an hour or two out there with the family on Saturday afternoon, and several hours on Sunday. I had finally managed to shower and wash my hair that day. I called Ali and asked if she could come over and blow dry my hair for me because I didn’t have the strength to do it. She said she’d be right over (anything to get the bed head out of the way). I remember one night telling Dave a BLT might taste good, but discovered it would have tasted better when first brought to me, rather than two hours later when I mustered up the energy and wakefulness to eat a few bites of it. I learned to test my blood sugar. Turning over in bed was painful, getting up was painful. The thought of doing anything was draining.

Monday morning I walked down the stairs and laid and sat on the couch. The morning and the evening were the first day. I remembered I don’t like my couches because they aren’t comfortable. Tuesday I remember asking for the return of the ‘Frasier chair’ as my decorator had called it. The swivel rocker recliner had been taken to the patio in wait of the annual neighborhood yard sale that occurred the morning after I returned home from the hospital. It would have to continue waiting because there was no yard sale happening at our house that morning.

I bonded with that chair over the next six weeks. From time to time I became discouraged and depressed over not feeling well and having no energy. Walking a few steps and standing at the kitchen counter was very tiring. I walked two doors away with my mother-in-law, rested a couple of minutes and returned home, and then threw up. Going to a doctor’s appointment was tiring. I liked the small appetite as the scale was going down daily, especially the first week when the 17lb hospital IV fluid was leaving my body. I remember the gigantic potassium pills I cut in sixths and still it took me half an hour to get down with pudding. I remember the “grape” tasting antibiotic I opted for when the doc was concerned I had contracted MRCA on my leg. I also remember throwing it up in the sink, and going for more gigantic pills which I cut up and spent a half hour downing. I remember hoping the doctors were right when they said pancreatitis takes a toll on every system in the body, but one day I would wake up and feel normal again, but they couldn’t tell me when. I succumbed to a daytime TV regimen after my in-laws returned to Idaho. From the morning program to Oprah, and that was OK. Then one day I began to get bored. I thought that might be a good sign. It was. I began to leave the house with Dave for brief and tireless outings. Throwing up came easy those first weeks. I remember the phone calls and visits, and I’m very thankful. Two weeks before my estimated date to return to work, I got dressed everyday. Make-up was a thing of the past during this time. It didn’t matter. I even ventured out on a short jaunt to the local coffee place to meet a friend, and then a quick trip to pick up some photos from Costco. I was thankful that driving was not too exhausting. I returned to the computer a little. The following week I ventured out more, went to the mall one afternoon because due to my weight loss I needed a couple of new items in order to return to work. I think it was the Saturday before returning to work I went to Costco with Dave. We walked around doing the usual Costco thing, and sometime after the fact I realized my back had not hurt and I wasn’t exhausted. I was thankful. On May 18, I returned to work.