It's been awhile. Sorry about that. Life is exceptionally sucky right now.
Remember how I said work was really important to me? Well, I lost that job. A combination of the sequester and my needing to be homebound to get help with TPN led to my being let go. That happened at the end of March.
I spent the last week and a half of March job searching, filing for unemployment, and figuring out how to get my Social Security reinstated. I struggled emotionally to understand how I could be in the position of having to find a job again. It was hard enough interviewing when all I had to contend with were people's attitudes toward my using a chair. Now, I am going to present a whole new set of challenges at some point in the process thanks to GP. Talk about stressful. So things were in major flux.
Then April 3 happened.
I had felt exceptionally tired all day. I didn't think much of it since I'm often really tired. I also had some body pain that was new but I figured was explained by a lowish potassium found on my weekly labs drawn just two days before. As five o'clock neared, I actually took a nap at my desk waiting for my nurse to come. Weird. When the nurse came she unhooked me and I took a shower. I noticed I was weaker and had a harder time transfering than I do normally. Again I chalked it up to being tired. I got dressed while she got my next bag out and ready. She hooked me up, started the pump and started taking my vital signs. She told me my blood pressure wasn't low, but it was very "loud." My pulseox was fine, but my pulse was 135 reading from the pulse oximeter Wow. That machine is finicky sometimes, so she checked it manually and still got 110. High, but I had just been moving around and getting dressed. Then, she took my temperature. She asked me if I felt sick. No, why? My temp was over 100. Because I have a central line, a fever is a huge red flag for infection.
I had my nurse call the on-call GI covering for my motility specialist. She wanted to call my primary doctor. I knew it'd be best to let my GI handle it since I have the PICC for TPN. While we waited for the on-call to call back, I put shoes on and began gathering my supplies to sustain me through an admission if it came to that. The on-call called back and after hearing my vitals said I needed to go to the ER. I got my stuff together and headed out to the metro.
About 45 minutes later, I made it to Big Academic Medical Center. I headed to the ER and checked in. Every time someone took my pulse, they had to check two to three times to be sure it was right The first time I saw what it was, I wasn't all that surprised. It was reading 145, but I was feeling every one of those beats. I was brought back to an exam room fairly quickly.
When they hooked up the monitor, my heart rate ran between 150-160 beats per minute and my temp was hovering around 100. I was sitting still, not running a marathon as my heart rate seemed to indicate.The doc ordered a chest film and blood cultures. The x-ray to rule other sources of infection like pneumonia and the cultures were to check for an infection of my PICC line or in my bloodstream. They drew blood from my line and collected it in a jar that would be allowed to grow after being exposed to air. They drew blood from my other arm as well and collected that sample in a jar that would grow without the help of air. They also wanted a urine sample they could culture to rule out a bladder infection. Thanks to the fever and despite having TPN running, it took nearly three liters of fluid for me to deliver that.
My brother had met me in the ER and was a huge help. He distracted me and turned off my heart monitor every five minutes when it alarmed because my heart rate was so high. The rate began to come down as I was better hydrated, but stayed above 100 for the next two days. My fever trended down too, but was still high enough to be a concern.
Around 10:30, I was seen by the ER Attending. He asked some questions from behind a computer monitor. He decided I should be admitted in light of my fever and tachycardia. I called my dad to let him know I was staying, texted my mom, and then waited to go upstairs. My brother hung in there until midnight, but had to leave at that point. I hung out in my chair for another couple of hours but was transferred to the gurney at 1:30. I busied myself by eavesdropping on the goings-on in the ER. The stories I heard ranged from a woman seeking drug rehab, to a barely-drunk but very angry 19-year old college kid who was apparently there against his will thanks to a contract between the hospital and the university on whose campus the hospital lives.
Around 2 AM an internal medicine doc came down and saw me. She said she wanted them to stop my TPN in case that was a source of the infection. Apparently fungus likes to grow in TPN. Who knew? She said I would be given a peripheral IV in my right arm so that they could stop using my PICC.
The ER nurse had started me on two broad-spectrum antibiotics, Zosyn and Vancomycin which I was on for the duration of the admission at twice daily dosing. She also started an IV in my right hand that ranks near the top of my Most Brutal IV Experiences list. She found a good vein quickly. When that vein rolled, as my tiny red-head veins are wont to do, she FOLLOWED it. This fishing expedition meant an extremely awkward and painful placement into the boniest part of my hand. The bruise that line left is only now starting to fade.
Around 5 AM after nearly 9 hours in the ER, I was finally brought up to the fifth floor where I would spend the next six days.
Stay tuned to find out what grew!
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