LostWoods Blog

Sitting here beside my hospital bed giving the nurse, Jayme, a bad time. Okay, not a BAD time, but teasing a little bit about the having to ask me my name and birthday every time they changes one of my gazillion meds. Like somone might come in and want the Flagyl. LOL! Okay, someone might want my pain meds, but the dose isn’t very high, even if it is good stuff.

Everyone here has been friendly, efficient and competent. My room is nice — as hospital rooms go. And it has wi-fi. The wonders of modern technology to keep geeks like me happy. Probably the only downside is the constant parade of people to poke and prod me — usually within 15 minutes of me falling into a lovely sound sleep.

There was one other mildly alarming event… literally. On my second night here I’d just been poked and prodded and was at last drifting off when I heard a “ding!” I wondered if I’d accidently bumped the call button, but almost as soon as that thought occured, I realized the ding was accompanied by two other dings, then a pause, then repeated. ”ding, ding, ding!,,, ding, ding, ding!” The call buttons dings once, that’s it.

About then somone walked by and  shut my door and I further realized I could hear the distinctive “buzz, buzz, buzz!” of a fire alarm.

It is not particularly encouraging to hear fire alarms when one is basically immobile in a hospital bed. I think if I’d been seriously motivated, I could perhaps have made it to the door of my room in about ten minutes. Of course, I’d have expired right there, because that would have taken all the energy I had. Luckily it was either a test or a false alarm and the alarm was silenced. Still, not conducive to a peaceful, restorative night of sleep.

I’m doing a lot better today than previous days. The ghastly catheter is gone. I’ve taken a shower. I am allowed “full liquids” as in cream of chicken soup, orange juice, pudding, etc. A real step up from chicken broth and lime jello. But when you haven’t eaten in nearly three days, even broth & jello sounds pretty darn good.

My son Justin drove all the way from Denver to spend some time with me last night and this morning. He’s now continuing down the road to go see Heather & her family in Oregon. It was good to see him, even if the visit was short. Glad he finally made it all the way up here.

When Justin came in this morning he said the Basia is obviously looking for me all over — especially the hippo room/office. She’d probably still trying to figure out where Ken-dad took me and why she isn’t allowed to take care of me like she did on Sunday. I’ve asked repeatedly for a therapy cat — I think Buzzy or Allegra would be perfect — but Ken says no.

I think I’ll get to go home tomorrow some time. I hope… Now that I’m not needed the constant help and drugs that I’ve been getting here, I’d much rather be home where I have my stuff and my cats. It will be challenging — our bedroom is upstairs — but I’d still rather have to deal with that and be home.

I don’t remember everything I wrote the other day — drugs get in the way of a functioning brain — but I’ll give you the quick recap here. I suffered (an understatement – had to be one of the most, if not THE most painful things I’ve ever been through) a ruptured diverticulum on Sunday morning. Sunday afternoon, realizing that it was likely something serious that was causing the pain and a fever, I had Ken take me to the doctor at the urgent care clinic, who sent us on to the ER. After an exam and a CT scan, the ER doc broke the news to me that a surgeon was on her way in and I’d need surgery. During the surgery, about six inches of my bowels were removed. One end was tacked to the abdominal wall to be reattached later. The other section was routed through an opening (stoma) in my abdomen and I’ll have to have a colostomy appliance for the next 3-6 months. Then when the doctor thinks I’m healthy enough for surgery again, she’ll reattach everything. Yes, another fairly major surgery in less (I hope) than six months.

In the meantime, I’ll be off work for a few weeks, then probably back part time — hopefully working from home until I go back full time. Lots of kitty time!

I felt fine when I got up Sunday morning — this was unexpected and sudden. So any of you out there who have suffered through bouts of diverticulitis (I’d had two in the past two years) if your doctor recommends surgery to remove a section of bowel because they suspect weakness in the walls, take them seriously. You do NOT want to go through a rupture and an emergency surgery like this.

I’d like to thank everyone who has posted comments or written me privately with well wishes. I truly believe that prayer works wonders and I am thankful for yours. I also appreciate the offers of help and care packages. I don’t really need anything and since Jeremy has yet to find a job, I have him to be my cattery boy. It’s a bit extreme to go to these lengths to get out of litter box duty, though!

I know the blog is crashing for some reason and once I’m home and more together, I’ll try to figure it out. I thought it was something easy like a database being out of space, but unfortunately, I”m not that lucky. So I’ll need a somewhat working brain to figure this out.