So, my last post on October 8th related my bitchy reaction to my hypochondriac husband, who actually turned out to have an infection. Well. It didn't stop with that trip to CareNow. Oh yes, you finally get to hear the rest of the story. Because, the Universe sometimes isn't on your side.
After the visit to CareNow, an antibiotic injection and finally figuring out which antibiotics he can take, we head home and try to relax, smug in the knowledge that we caught that infection early and showed it who the fuck is boss! Fuck yeah, antibiotics! Well, by the time we get ready for bed, his temp is hovering at about 100. We're a little concerned but the kidney doctor had told him not to worry unless it gets up to 103 or higher, then it's time to go to the ER. So, we go to bed. At about 4:00 am, he wakes up on fire and dehydrated. We take his temp and it's 103. Gah! Universe :( So, we grab stuff and head to the ER. We called the kidney doctor and he says to tell them as soon as we get there to admit him to this hospital. Not another hospital stay *really sad face* We get to the ER and they get him back to a room and we tell them that he is a transplant patient, has 103 temperature and that his kidney doctor said to admit him immediately. And then we wait. And wait. And wait some more. The ER doc comes in about an hour later and says they need to run tests, etc, and he will get in contact with kidney doctor. An hour after that, the kidney doctor arrives and asks why he isn't in a room yet then goes and gets John ice because he can barely talk or swallow from his mouth being so dry. Also, 2 hours in the ER and they haven't taken blood, urine samples, hooked up an IV to get him hydrated, started him on antibiotics or taken his goddamn temperature! He's also in tremendous pain, but that was the least of our worries. The nurse finally comes in and takes his temp and gets blood and urine samples. She starts an IV, but no antibiotics. His temp is at 103.7 and I am in a panic. I ask when he is being moved to a room, she doesn't know or care apparently. 30 minutes later and it's time for the shift change. And things just go downhill from there.
The new nurse comes in and I immediately ask why he hasn't been admitted and why they haven't started him on the antibiotics. She gets pissy and says she just got on, blah blah blah. She then rips the blanket off of him and says he can't be covered up if he has a fever, so I said she needed to tell the nurse who just left that SINCE SHE WAS THE ONE WHO COVERED HIM UP! DH asked what was he supposed to do since he was freezing and shivering so bad. She said - deal with it. I almost punched her. Instead, as sweet as I could manage, I asked her to find out when he would be moved. And I continued to ask each time she (or the person she was training) walked by the room over the NEXT THREE HOURS. I am about to turn on bitch mode when they come in and say they are going to need to admit him and are moving him to a room. I'm like, "You think?" So 5 hours in the ER with no pain meds, no antibiotics and no compassion.
We get him moved into a room. A shared room. With another sick person. He has an infection and a lowered immune system and they put him in a room with another sick person!! The guy turns out to have kidney disease too and is in there for other reasons (not infection or contagious stuff). As soon as he gets in the other bed, they give him pain meds and start the antibiotic. Like, the nurse had the stuff in her hands when we got there. I love her. He gets instant relief and drifts off. The nurse asks if I knew why it took so long for him to come up? I said we were told the ER was waiting for the orders. She said...you're going to love this, readers. She said they had it down there at 6:30 am. 6:30 AM, ALMOST 4 HOURS AGO! I just stared at her. She said the kidney doctor had come by around 9:30 looking for John. I think he's the one who finally got the ER group to get their shit together. By the time we got to the room, his fever had broke and his temp was down to the normal range.
After that, things were better, to an extent. He was in the hospital for 3 days and the last day he was there, they brought in someone with pneumonia. HELLO - why would you put someone with an airborne infection like pneumonia in with someone else who just got over a kidney infection and has a lowered immune system. His other kidney doctor came in to talk about releasing him and when we told him what the guy in the next bed had, he was upset and said DH should never be put in a room with other patients. No one puts Baby in a corner, and no one puts DH in dual occupancy hospital room!
I stayed home with him the rest of the week and worked from home due to TB scares around town and on campus (yes, that TB) and someone at work being diagnosed with "walking pneumonia" who had been hacking up a lung at work the 2 weeks prior to all of this. I was not going to take any chances, and emotionally, DH wasn't doing well.
We are a couple of weeks out from all of this and he is doing much better. He is focusing on school and trying to finish out this semester after 2 hospital stays. I'm happy he is home and seems much better emotionally and health-wise.
So, Universe, all I have to say is....thank you. Thank you for giving us more time together and thank you for helping remind me the importance of patience and compassion. Fuck. Yeah.
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Why I'm a bitch
So, I'm really a nice person. But, I sometimes get in bad moods. Ok, often. STFU, ok, all the time! Gah! Anyway. My husband has to live a life full of doubt (due to his OCD) and anxiety and health issues. I always try to be understanding. But, every now and then I get bitchy. Because he complains. A lot. Ok, maybe not a lot, but enough. Seriously, though, he deserves to be able to complain. His life is pretty difficult.
He has 3 kidneys, 2 of them the size of footballs and covered in cysts that like to burst and cause pain, the third one newly transplanted from an 18 year old kid who died from a head injury. He has to take about 17 medications (not even exaggerating here) on a daily basis to make sure that new kidney doesn't turn on him and try to reject him. It's my honey, who could reject him?! Anyway, he also has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder which can sometimes make leaving the house an act of Congress (amiright?) and can sometimes make him as helpless as a child. There have been nights when I've waited for over 45 minutes for him to finish "checking" before he could come to bed and countless times I've caught him touching the burners on the stove and in the oven "to make sure they aren't on". He sometimes doubts his artist abilities, he used to doubt his love for me and always he doubts that the garage door is really down.
So, back to the transplant part - he now has a suppressed immune system and this means he can catch any little bug and where it might knock you or me down a couple of pegs and make us have stuffy noses, for him, it can mean a visit to the ER or a stay in the hospital, like with the recent pancreatitis at the end of September. Well, today we ended up in a CareNow clinic because he was afraid he might have a urinary tract infection. This is where the bitch part comes in, by the way. Thought I forgot what the fuck I was writing about, didn't you?
Well, we wake up LATE this morning. I'm irritable because I slept too long and I was hungry and I had cramps from hell the night before and, honestly, I was a little hungover from the muscle relaxant I finally agreed to take the night before to help with my back spasms and cramping. So, instant bitch! For the record, before I took the goddamn pill the night before, I said I didn't want to because I had taken one the night he had the pancreatitis and had to drive him to the ER 3 hrs after taking it and that had to be dangerous so I was afraid something like that might happen again when I took them! And, fucking universe has it out for me because something happened!!
He tells me he was up having some issues in the peepee department since 3 AM and had called the on call nephrologist to see what needed to be done. They said, if it continues, to go to CareNow or the ER in the morning.
So, I'm hungry, groggy, cramping and irritable when he tells all of this. I'm mentally rolling my eyes because, let's face it, with his OCD, he can sometimes be a hypochondriac. With his doubt, he always asks me what he should do. And, sometimes, I don't know how to respond. So, he starts this up this morning, this line of questioning and I just grab his phone and check him in for an appointment to CareNow. I was kind of bitchy about it, too. But, we got the call and headed out. I'm STARVING by this point. Anyway, we get there, they run some tests, a random doctor who didn't read his chart comes in and rudely announces that he has a UTI and that he needs to see a specialist because "guys don't get UTI's, man", etc, etc. So, we tell him, he has about 30 specialists, he has polycystic kidney disease, and he's a transplant patient. AND OH YEAH, WE ALREADY TOLD THE FUCKING NURSE HIS WHOLE DAMN HEALTH HISTORY AND SHE WROTE IT IN THE CHART. Btw, that last part was all in my head, but seriously, FUCKING READ THE CHART.
So, I'm being a bitch to my husband and thinking he was over exaggerating and he actually does have an infection :( Again, for me or some of you reading this that would mean some painful urination, lots of cranberry juice and some meds. For him, if we had waited much longer or not gone in at all, it could have meant kidney failure.
I'm such a bitch.
He has 3 kidneys, 2 of them the size of footballs and covered in cysts that like to burst and cause pain, the third one newly transplanted from an 18 year old kid who died from a head injury. He has to take about 17 medications (not even exaggerating here) on a daily basis to make sure that new kidney doesn't turn on him and try to reject him. It's my honey, who could reject him?! Anyway, he also has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder which can sometimes make leaving the house an act of Congress (amiright?) and can sometimes make him as helpless as a child. There have been nights when I've waited for over 45 minutes for him to finish "checking" before he could come to bed and countless times I've caught him touching the burners on the stove and in the oven "to make sure they aren't on". He sometimes doubts his artist abilities, he used to doubt his love for me and always he doubts that the garage door is really down.
So, back to the transplant part - he now has a suppressed immune system and this means he can catch any little bug and where it might knock you or me down a couple of pegs and make us have stuffy noses, for him, it can mean a visit to the ER or a stay in the hospital, like with the recent pancreatitis at the end of September. Well, today we ended up in a CareNow clinic because he was afraid he might have a urinary tract infection. This is where the bitch part comes in, by the way. Thought I forgot what the fuck I was writing about, didn't you?
Well, we wake up LATE this morning. I'm irritable because I slept too long and I was hungry and I had cramps from hell the night before and, honestly, I was a little hungover from the muscle relaxant I finally agreed to take the night before to help with my back spasms and cramping. So, instant bitch! For the record, before I took the goddamn pill the night before, I said I didn't want to because I had taken one the night he had the pancreatitis and had to drive him to the ER 3 hrs after taking it and that had to be dangerous so I was afraid something like that might happen again when I took them! And, fucking universe has it out for me because something happened!!
He tells me he was up having some issues in the peepee department since 3 AM and had called the on call nephrologist to see what needed to be done. They said, if it continues, to go to CareNow or the ER in the morning.
So, I'm hungry, groggy, cramping and irritable when he tells all of this. I'm mentally rolling my eyes because, let's face it, with his OCD, he can sometimes be a hypochondriac. With his doubt, he always asks me what he should do. And, sometimes, I don't know how to respond. So, he starts this up this morning, this line of questioning and I just grab his phone and check him in for an appointment to CareNow. I was kind of bitchy about it, too. But, we got the call and headed out. I'm STARVING by this point. Anyway, we get there, they run some tests, a random doctor who didn't read his chart comes in and rudely announces that he has a UTI and that he needs to see a specialist because "guys don't get UTI's, man", etc, etc. So, we tell him, he has about 30 specialists, he has polycystic kidney disease, and he's a transplant patient. AND OH YEAH, WE ALREADY TOLD THE FUCKING NURSE HIS WHOLE DAMN HEALTH HISTORY AND SHE WROTE IT IN THE CHART. Btw, that last part was all in my head, but seriously, FUCKING READ THE CHART.
So, I'm being a bitch to my husband and thinking he was over exaggerating and he actually does have an infection :( Again, for me or some of you reading this that would mean some painful urination, lots of cranberry juice and some meds. For him, if we had waited much longer or not gone in at all, it could have meant kidney failure.
I'm such a bitch.
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