Alexander Fleming, I am Your Humble Servant

Blessed antibiotics. Verily, if we didn't have them in this day and age, I think it could be said that I might very well have been a goner this past week. But we do have them, so I can keep on bugging you, my devoted Cake Eater readers.

Yes, I am better. I'm still not pumping on all four cylinders, but am doing ok on about two and a half.

It's been such an eventful past week and a half, that I don't really know where to begin, so I shall try and sum things up in bullet format, because, honestly, I don't have the energy to put this thing in essay format. Here's the story:

• Went in to the hospital on Friday, the eleventh, to have another go with the sclerosis. They put the kaibosh on that once it became obvious that I was feeling the 98% pure alcohol they were pumping in---which I shouldn't have been. Down the hall to the X-Ray machine they go, they pump in some contrast, take some pictures, and ascertain that there's a hole in the lymphocele, dear Henry, because the contrast is leaking out of it and into my peritoneal cavity. Furthermore, the radiologist informs me that the fluid that's draining into my neato bag looks more like peritoneal cavity fluid than it does like lymphatic fluid this hole might explain it. I've got some cool photos of this procedure, but as they're not of the digital variety, I won't be posting them. Suffice it to say, they decided to send me home while they consulted with Dr. Academic to see what he wanted to do.
• We trudge home, only to find out four hours later that Dr. Academic is out of town and his main nurse has decided to take the day off in celebration. The question of what to do gets thrown to the nurse practitioner, who is fairly decent but whom I don't know at all, and she punts: she says, "Let's wait and see if the lymphocele doesn't close up so we can have another go with the sclerosis." Greeeeaaaaat.
• The drainage tube gets clogged (yeah, I know, bleech) on Sunday, which involves another trip down to the hospital. The pain is also a lot worse, and I can't really figure out why. There's been pain associated with this thing, but since the installation, it's wheedled its way down. Now it's back at full, nerve rending force. It feels like it's going away after the de-clogging, but it doesn't. It gets worse. By the wee hours of Monday morning, I'm in such pain that I'm telling the husband we need to go back down to the hospital. He's exhausted, however, and is in no mood to coordinate an early hours ER trip---with all that entails for us, who have no car---so I suck it up, take some pain meds, and go to bed, hoping it will be better in the morning.

• It's not better in the morning. In fact, I scream not once, not twice, but three times as I tried to get out of bed. Excruciating, I believe, would be the word to describe it. We call Dr. Academic's off-hours answering service and announce that we're heading to the hospital. We do the same with the interventional radiology department. We get checked into the ER, and after a wait, are introduced to the nice people who will be handling my case. One nice nurse and one nice doctor, who, between the two of them, manage to hook me up to some IV morphine (oh, the lovely morphine) and get me set up for another CT scan. I'm wheeled down to the CT scanner, they run me through, shoot me up with some contrast, and they declare all looks fine, and they can't understand why I'd be in such pain. I even get a new radiologist, who wants me to actually keep the thing in so I can undergo more sclerosis procedures in a few weeks. Bite me. I tell him the thing's coming out.
• I actually felt sorry for the ER doctor, who really was a very nice guy, trying to coordinate everything. Seems as if Dr. Academic decided this would be a good week to take a vacation, so he's not around. My original radiologist isn't around either. I'm getting second-stringers all the way around. Distinguished second-stringers, but second-stringers nonetheless. Yet, we all agree on the plan to remove the catheter, and, after a few hours of waiting, which went fine for me, because I was high as a kite, but was somewhat more trying for the husband, the very nice nurse who'd been handling my drain all along came down and removed the thing, and I was finally released. I felt better and had hopes everything would get better entirely in time.
• It didn't. The pain was still there that night, and when I awoke at about four in the morning, completely drenched, I was tempted to put it off as a night sweat, but took my temperature anyway. Good thing I did, too, because it was 102. The good times just keep coming!
• Next morning, we call into Dr. Academic's office first thing, and the husband, who has HAD IT with being shunted around, stays on-hold and when the main nurse finally picks up the line, shoots so much information about what's happened over the past couple of days that I think the poor woman's ears must be smoking. When he's done with his laundry list, he hands the phone over to me. She asks, "What's going on?" "I think it's infected. I'm running a fever and I'm in pain. It's red in a few spots." "Chills?" "Yep." "Ok, let me talk to the other nurse and we'll get a prescription for some antibiotics called in for you." A half hour later, I've got the actual prescription in my hot little hands and am ingesting a Levanquin tablet. It helps. Immediately. The pain isn't a whole lot better, but it's easing. The fevers haven't gone away, but I feel as if we're getting a handle on things. This is when it becomes clear that my bedroom is going to be the extent of my world for the next few days.
• I sleep a lot. I manage to lose my appetite entirely, but somehow manage to subsist on lifesavers and sprite alone (and I'm thinking the fact I've got a couple of good sized hamhocks on my ass had something to do with it.). The husband is caregiver extraordinaire. He takes temperatures, tries to get me to eat, keeps the drugs at hand, helps me up and down, and is just in general a good egg. By Friday, which is when the main nurse told me I would be feeling better, I am actually feeling a bit better. I'm very fond of drugs which do precisely what they say they're going to do. Alexander Fleming: I am your bitch. Whatever you might need from the hereafter, I'm your girl. Just say the word.
• Yesterday, I was able to walk around the neighborhood a bit, which was nice because it was GORGEOUS outside yesterday. Woohoo. Spring has finally arrived, it seems. Only question is, will Kathy get to enjoy it this year? The verdict's still out on that one. The problem of the infection may have been solved, but the lymphocele's still there, throbbing away, and I haven't the foggiest on what we're going to do about it. I suspect surgery. We'll just have to see, though.
• And, now, my devoted Cake Eater readers, I'm off to take a nap, because this recapping business is tiring. Particularly when you're on percocet.

Posted by Kathy at April 21, 2008 09:20 AM | TrackBack