My Staycation in Anchorage, Part 8, CALL THE COPS!!!

CALL THE COPS!!!

An hour after I was re-admitted to the hospital for pleural effusion following my surgery for large hiatal hernia repair, another patient was wheeled into my room. No more private room for me.

Imagine my entire stomach being above the diaphragm, interfering with my lungs and heart.   That's what my surgery was meant to correct.

“What are YOU doing back here?” asked my surgeon when he came to my new hospital room the next morning. I laughed.

“I told you so,” I replied, referring to my life-long history of non-standard reactions to meds and procedures. I like to breathe, I thought, and may or may not have said it aloud.

He then took great care to explain what was happening to me. I described the previous day’s activities: walking laps in the hotel corridor, sitting up and feeling fine all afternoon, and struggling to get enough air that night.

He picked up Diane’s partially full water bottle. When you’re sitting up, he continued, this is where the pleural fluid is. He pointed to the water in the bottom of the bottle. Then, he turned the bottle on its side, demonstrating how the fluid  now affected more of the lungs, rather than just the bottom.

It made perfect sense.

He then told me that the hospital would probably drain the other lung sac if the X-ray showed fluid build-up. As to the previous day’s liter and a third, he said they were concerned about its milky appearance tinged with blood. 

The lab is going to check it for lymph. “I am reasonably certain that the system that moves lymph was not nicked,” he said. “It’s a long way from where I was operating.”

If it were, he continued, they would install a drain and you would have to remain hospitalized for several weeks until it heals.

Oh, joy, I thought.

Again, he said, “I’m pretty sure that is not the case. “ I thanked him for coming by and off he went.

During the day, I went to the bathroom and on my way back to my bed, my roommate said loudly, “YOU! Who are you?” I said nothing, not knowing if she was dreaming or to whom she was talking.

She was a frail, elderly lady who had fallen and had some hairline fractures in her hip and back. English is her second language, and she apparently had trouble understanding why she was bedridden, where she was, and so on. I also think she had more than a touch of dementia.  Her husband stayed with her during visiting hours, explaining again and again what was happening.   

On another trip to the bathroom, I paused at an opening in the curtains to her area and said, “Hi. I’m Jeanne and I’ll be your roommate for the day.”

That broke the ice and Diane and I spoke with her husband frequently afterwards. It turned out we knew someone in common.

Diane was better able to hear what the lady was saying. She was having hallucinations and thought I was one of some intruders in her home. She wanted to call the police.

That night after her husband left, I heard her crying. Frequently a nurse would spend a long time with her, reassuring her, explaining her circumstances, and comforting her.

Nonetheless, we both had restless nights with little sleep.

Vitals, pills, checks, etc., continued on schedule. Finally, I was sleeping at 7 A.M. when a nurse brought me a cup with all my morning meds. She tried to get me to take them, but I said I would need to wake up a bit before I could.

I fell asleep again. When I awoke an hour later, the cup of meds was gone.

The Drill Sergeant

 

 

I called Diane my “nanny” rather than my “caregiver” when she came to Alaska to help me through my hiatal hernia repair surgery.   I figured, knowing my propensity for pushing the envelope, that she would restrain me from doing things too early in my recovery.

 

Instead, she turned into a drill sergeant.

 

“This afternoon,”  she declared, “I want you up doing laps in the hallway.”    Dang, I thought, all I want to do is lie in bed.  Plus, that’s a long hallway.  But, I consented.   I knew I was supposed to be moving around to prevent pneumonia.

So it came to be.  The worst of the pain was gone, I was sticking to my Tylenol schedule, and getting out of bed was—well, it wasn’t easy but it was doable.

We made two complete laps of the long hallway and I felt pretty good.   Later, Diane went out to get food and I made one lap.   After her return, we started on another two laps and I noticed, when we paused at the end of the hall, that I was somewhat out of breath and we took a longer break before moving on.

I was again out of breath when we returned to the room, so I sat down.

I was awakened during the night, very short of breath and struggling to get enough air.   My respiration rate was quite high, and I was aware of having to take every breath, one right after the next.

I sat up as far as I could and struggled.   

Fifteen years ago, I fulfilled a lifelong dream and traveled to Tibet.  Three hours after arrival, I had a massive migraine headache.   During the night, I found myself lacking air.

With that experience in mind, I knew what was happening.  The extreme altitude (10,000 to 11,000 ft) meant there was a lot less oxygen in the air than my usual sea-level air.   Now, the cause was different but the feeling was similar.

Diane stirred and I told her we would need to go to the ER in the morning.   I don’t think she slept after that and early morning found us heading back to the hospital.  She lay awake listening to my breathing.

Test after test after even more tests.  I can tell you, though, that the chicken broth a nurse prepared for me in ER was far better than from the hospital cafeteria.

It was ten hours before I was admitted and put in a room.  During that time, I had 1.3^rd liters of fluid drained from the capsule around my right lung and I could breathe easier.  The tech who did the procedure was astonished at the amount.

 

The blood-tinged fluid was sent to the lab for tests.

  

The next day, a half-liter of fluid was drained from my left lung area, so 1.8 liters in total.   I told the techs in the ultrasound room where the pleural effusion was drained that I was supposed to lose up to 20 lbs. from the hiatal hernia surgery and that I was coming back for refund if I didn’t.  

 

We had done some quick conversions from liters to quarts and I remarked, “You just accounted for four pounds of that.”   It wasn’t, however, the weight I hoped to lose.

Finally, near 10 P.M., I was wheeled into a two-person hospital room, admitted until further tests showed I was okay. 

  I was hoping for a good night’s sleep after last night’s sleepless one, but an hour later they wheeled in a roommate, and that was the end of sleep.