DOING TIME...... in the hospital

My husband was admitted into the hospital Saturday morning on September 22nd, 2007 at 6:30am. I have been there by his side for most of it. Here lets play this out properly.

Sunday September 16th my husband was having bad neck pains. I attempted to massage them out and make him as comfortable as possible, to no avail. We had to go to a wedding that day so I was really hoping he would be able to take pictures for us. Which he did. As we drove to the wedding he was still complaining about his neck. I explained to him that all I had were my stomach pain killer called tramadol. He said gimme and I did. About 15 minutes later he started getting nauseous. He asked me if they were supposed to be taken with food and I said no. Thankfully he did not throw up. The nauseousness thankfully died down but he still had neck pain. After the wedding as we drove home he got that throwing up feeling again and ended up stopping at his grandmothers so he could vomit. Which he did not. We visited for awhile and I told him to undo his pants to relieve the pain. Which it did make him feel better. Then we went home with me driving.

Next morning he was feeling fine. No issues. Tuesday morning no issues. Tuesday night we went to the movies and saw 3:10 to Yuma. Then Wednesday he got up feeling a little blah and had high blood sugar. He went to work at 10am but they sent him home at noon. I came home at lunch, which is at 2pm, and brought him some Clariton and diabetic tussin (thinking he was getting a cold and would start coughing soon since that was what was going around). I also had him take my 600mg ibuprofen. When I came home, at 7:30pm, we ate dinner and watched TV. He started to get the chills. To the point where his whole body was vibrating and nothing warmed him up. I gave him another ibuprofen. A couple minutes later we went to bed at midnight and he was shivering so bad that I ended up making him put on sweat pants and sweat shirt, socks, and a ski cap on his head. (I later found out that was not helping him).

Thursday morning he woke and was feeling semi fine. I had him take a clariton and an ibuprofen before he left. Around 4 p.m. he started to get the chills again. He took a jacket from one of the guys at work so he could warm up. He ended up leaving work a half hour early. When he got home I told him to take one of my 600mg ibuprofen, and put the sweats back on. I brought home an ear thermometer, and some food. His temperature was 102.4. This is when he had started coughing. I had him take his diabetic tussin. We ended up going to bed early because he was not feeling well.

Friday morning he woke up I made him take the cough syrup, the clariton and some ibuprofen, and he went to work still not feeling all that well. He worked the whole day and came home still not feeling well. When I got home he met me outside for a cigarette. As we were walking back inside he said that his back itched and had me look at him. Even though he was facing the light and his back was in a shadow I saw bumps on the small of his back. Walking inside I turned on the light and looked more carefully. The bumps were going from the small of his back all the way up to the middle of his back. The looked like a group of mosquito bites that had just been scratched. He then raised his right arm and asked me if it was the same thing under his arm. I said yes. I stated we should go the emergency room (chills and a rash not good). He then proceeded into the bathroom to look for himself and check his neither region. He found more under his left arm. Sitting on the couch he got a feeling on his leg and when he pulled down his pants he found another series of bumps, on his inner right thigh, that were not there before. Thinking a little more clearly I decided to call the 24 hour nurses hot line that is provided by my company. While he was on the phone he took his temperature 100.8 and checked his blood sugar, it was normal. After talking to my husband for about 30 minutes and asking him different rounds of questions, they told him he needed to see a physician within the next 4 hours. Being that it was 9:00pm we new that only meant the emergency room. I immediately called worked and notified my boss what I was doing. Giving her well over a 12 hour notice.

Arriving at the emergency room at 9:10pm we checked in and sat down. Around 9:45 pm they did his vitals and asked him what he was in for. His temperature was 98.8. He explained everything. The nurse looked at his rash then told him to go have a seat back in the waiting room. But not before telling me that bundling him up did not help the chills. The chills are your body trying to remove the infection by cooling you down from the temperature. By bundling him up it was trapping in the heat. Deciding this was stressing him out he told the nurse that he was going to go out for a cigarette, but she told him that they would be calling him at any minute. He said he would only be gone for 6 minutes and she said he would not be waiting that long. While sitting and waiting to be called he got the chills again. My best female friend came to the emergency room with her husband and they hung out til he was called back. We took turns having cigarettes so that we would not miss having his name called. They called him once around midnight and took him back for a chest x-ray, then brought him back to the main waiting room.

It was 1 a.m. when they finally called his name. All they did was move him to another waiting room where he sat for 30 minutes. Then took him into the next room and checked his vitals again. Which he did have a slightly higher temperature. They poked him twice one for an IV and the other for blood. Well the first one was supposed to be blood and IV but the vein would not release any blood. Asked him again why he was there today and being told again to go and sit in another waiting room. In this room he broke down in chills again. Because covering him up is not the right approach I draped my legs over his and his head rested on my chest using my body heat to keep him slightly warmer.

It was 3am (6 hours after we had arrived) when he was finally moved to a bed where a nurse.. once again.. asked what he was there for. (How many times must he tell the story)? She wrote down the information and left him there til the doctor arrived. At 4:00 am the e.r doctor showed up and asked him what he was doing in the e.r. (Do they not write down what you tell them)? After telling her, he requested 42 units of lantus (a medication he takes every night to level his blood sugars) because he was so late taking it. She ignored him. She had said she looked at his x-ray and that it looked like pneumonia but she wanted to order a cat scan, he left for that not to long after. Bringing him back to the bed he waited around until around 5:45am when the e.r nurse said that he had an interesting case of pneumonia. Most pneumonia is supposed to be on one side of the lungs in the middle. His was all over the far sides of his lungs. She explained that she was going to release him and give him some antibiotics. But if there was ANY changes to return back to the emergency room immediately. I wanted to know what the rash was cause it had already been concluded it was not a fever rash. Some of the nurses called it hives. Fifteen minutes later she came back and said 'my conscience won't let me discharge you... we are keeping you over night.' Tears started to well up in my eyes. Suddenly we felt like we were in an episode of house. I went out and had a smoke and cried. I didn't like that her conscience wouldn't let him come home. Another doctor came down and talked to my husband about his x-ray and what they would be doing to treat it. He asked this doctor for 42 units of lantus and he told my husband that he was in a hospital they would take care of him.

At 6:15am they came to retrieve him and take him upstairs. Immediately upon arriving he was asked what he was in for and they took his vitals. Again they look at the rash but don't know what it is or how it was caused. Now I know they are not telling each other what is going on. In fact every nurse that came in the room asked him why he was there. DON'T THEY LOOK AT THE CHARTS? What do they think he was going to do make his rash go away and stop coughing the minute he got admitted. Say that he was just faking it. He asked again for the lantus and they said they needed to talk to the attending doctor. Basically blowing him off. But at least 3 people explained the perks of the hospital. This place was basically the Ritz Carlton of hospitals. Every room is private, with it's own direct phone line to the room, every room has a TV with webtv, Ethernet Internet hookup, and wireless Internet (except my husbands his didn't seem to work). Along with that, visitors can come at all hours to visit. They even had a couch that turns into a bed for people (like me) who stay all night. Though for the first two days and nights I was sleeping in a chair directly beside the bed, so that I would move every time he did. This hospital also provided room service from 7am to 7pm. He was able to order anything that he wanted off the menu for free including crab legs which did cost a little something extra.

At 7:00 am I went downstairs to have a smoke and call my boss. I had already been up for twenty-two and a half hours and had not eaten for over 16 hours. I really didn't think I was going to survive even 4 hours at work. I was already doing the drunk walk and had a very thick country accent. ( something I get every time I am overly tired) I went back upstairs to see that the nurse had found some cereal for my husband and a very stale and super dry sandwich for me. Thank god she did get me some orange juice though. I ate half the sandwich and threw the rest away I just could not choke down anymore. They checked his blood sugar and found it to be through the roof. (In the 300's). They panicked and he explained that if he would have been given the lantus it would not have been so bad. They also gave him all kinds of other medications. They had him take pills for indigestion and to relax his muscles, along with something to ease something for when he laying on the bed all this time. So they were making him take pills, inject his stomach, and put stuff in his iv. Most of it to counteract an effect on one of the other medications. After they finally left us alone my husband and I passed out. But it was a restless sleep. Every time we would fall asleep they would come in to poke and prod. A hospital is definitely not a place to relax. First it would be the vampires, then 15 minutes later it would be testing his blood sugar, then another 15 minutes later they would be bringing him some humalog to bring down the high blood sugar. Which he would gripe about because it was there fault it was so high. Then nothing for 15 minutes and another round of pokes would come. This happened all day and all night. A doctor came in and talked to him about his pneumonia's and said he also had valley fever. (Valley fever is a bug that lives in the dirt on the west coast. When it is windy or you kick up dust the bug releases spores into the air that get into your lungs. Most people who have been here for awhile and natives usually don't get it. Mostly it is visitors.) So now we had a two for one deal to cope with. That night they only gave him 21 out of the 42 units because he was having a procedure done the next day and they did not want him having a low sugar reaction. That of course set him off. And of course another day of high sugars.

During our stay at the Ritz banner, he was visited by a few doctors. Each asking what was wrong. Each looking at the rash. He would explain everything know one really seemed to care about his rash it was the crap in his lungs that concerned them. The lung specialist was talking to him Saturday morning and wanted to get him in immediately for the bronchial scope but because he had eaten they had to wait til the next morning. My best female friend and her husband stopped by and hung out for roughly an hour. They offered to let my husband use their laptop during his stay. They said they would run home and grab it with some movies and come back by. They returned about an hour later and we were fast asleep. Later in the evening I went home and took a shower, fed the cats, packed him a bag and got something to eat. I was gone 3 hours, when I only meant to be gone 1. By this time all family and friends were aware of where my husband was and what was going on. You would think we repeated the story enough to the nurses and doctors! Now we had all his friends and family and my 2 friends and family. One friend didn't even ask him if he was OK he asked him if he gotten the tickets for weird al yet. Another friends wife wouldn't let him come see my husband because she was afraid he would come home with a disease and make her sick. She has heart issues. Yeah he has a great friends. I kept sending updates to everyone every time something new happened. The one who was the most freaked out was his little brother that lives in Hawaii but was training for Iraq in California. He wanted me to get his doctor to contact red cross so that he could get away from there and come here. The doctor told me no because it was not yet a life threatening situation.

Sunday morning they did a bronchial scope, and said they would know the results on Tuesday. When they took him away I went downstairs to have a cigarette and call my boss again to try and get my co-worker to work for me all day instead of just in the morning. When I came back up the nurse said they wanted me to be in the waiting room where the procedure was taking place, so that I would be there when he came out of the sleep. She explained how to get to the waiting room, which was located on the east side of the building. I walked down the hall she told me to but the doors were locked. I walked down the hall in the west side and they were locked too. I returned to the east hall and paced the hallway till someone came out. Eventually his lung doctor came out. I explained to him that I was supposed to be in the waiting room but could not get into it. I could not even access the hallway that was before the waiting room. He said the doors are usually unlocked and that he was locked out too. We walked around to the west hall and his door key would not work let him in, he attempted to call a nurse inside who was currently working on my husband. A transport came through (a person who moves patients throughout the building) and got the door open immediately. We fallowed him in. I sat in a very large room and cruised around looking for something to do and a bathroom. Why do hospitals and doctors offices only have doctor magazines, women's magazines, and home development magazines. What ever happened to readers digest? And why are the bathrooms always outside the room and down the hall. Anyways I found a remote and turned on the TV where I sat and watched morning cartoons. About 15 minutes later they came and escorted me to my husbands bedside. He was out cold. I talked to the nurse and him to get him to wake up. They needed him to breathe on his own at a certain oxygen level before they would take off his mask. Once he started to come more out of it he explained they did not fully put him out for the procedure because his oxygen levels were not that great and they did not want him to need assisted breathing so they only put him somewhat out. He told me that they sprayed his throat with latacane and began shoving the tube down his throat. He began choking and they told him to take deep breaths. (which is what I was telling him too when he came out of it to get his oxygen back on level). From what I was told it was a bit difficult to insert the tube because he was fighting it. I think I would have been fighting it too. I don't even like sticking my finger down my throat. Anyways we sat there in the recovery room for 30 or so minutes waiting to take the mask off. He talked to me saying the wanted to go back to his room, I kept saying no. Finally we returned to the room. As we got him settled back into his room one of the nurses told me he had a guest waiting in the room beside the elevators. I asked them to describe her and I immediately thought it was his mother. Found out that it was his friends mother. I escorted her into his room and left to call work and get something to drink. Oh and smoke. I had asked my boss if I could have Monday night off. She said another associate would be able to work for me after lunch. I was ecstatic. As I was getting back on the elevator I caught his mother and grandmother heading down the hall. I stopped them and escorted them up to his room also. His friends mother left about 10 minutes later. The other two only stayed for about a half hour. That was the last of his visitors til late Tuesday night. They did finally give him the correct dosage of lantus, and he took over the amount of units he was taking for the humalog. I called my boss again to verify I would be off at 2pm and she said yeah we were still on. At 11:30pm that night I went home. I new I would not be able to stay the night, get a good nights sleep and work for 9 hours the next day. I started crying again. I was terrified that something was going to happen while I was away. So I slept with my phone on a super loud ring.

I got up at 7:45am the next morning, left at 8am, stopped at Circle K and got him some coffee, then arrived in his room at 830am. I found him missing. I asked the nurses where he was and they told me that he had gone to x-ray. I called my boss to tell her I would not be going in for the conference call but I would be on time for work, and to verify again that I was off. She then told me that I would have to work the whole day because my backup backed out. I was pissed. I waited for my husband as long as I could and was lucky enough to get to see him before I left for work. While I was there he told me that they may release him today it would depend on the x-rays. I asked what bout the results from the bronchial scope? He just shrugged his shoulders. I left for work at 9:40am. At 2:00 pm I would leave during my lunch to go be with him and get a progress report. I would leave to return for work 2:45pm. When I get off work I would immediately go see him and then go get something to eat. When I arrived my husband told me that the x-rays had come back and nothing had changed in his lungs. All the drugs they were pumping into him and no changes? Well he wasn't coming home any time soon.

Tuesday morning was a repeat of Monday morning. Except the bronchial scope results had come back. They found out that his rash that was on his legs, back and arms was also on his lungs. The doctor said that he had a rare case of allergic pneumonia. NO idea what the allergy was but hopefully this would cure it. They began pumping him with prednisone (steroids). At first it was 125 units. Then 40 units every 12 hours. We learned that prednisone causes an incredible appetite and raises your blood sugar. I guess when non diabetics are on it they watch their blood sugar too. They were not kidding. He was up in the 500's. While they are trying to drop it, he is eating, which makes them give him more units. I still came back during lunch. After work I came to see him, with food in hand. A visitor arrived about 30 minutes later. A friend from work had come to see him. The only one from work that had come to see him. He stayed for about an hour and went back home. I stayed til 11:30pm and then I went home also.

Wednesday morning I continued my regular morning routine. I guess he had just returned from another round of x-rays. While I was visiting his doctor said that he was acting to healthy to be in a hospital and should be released sometime today. I immediatly called my boss but could not provide her a time. Then of course my phone company started screwing up and all my messages I sent after that, not one of them arrive til the next day. I actually thought my boss was ignoring me. I went and visited him again for lunch, hoping they would give him to me. They told me he was definetly being released today sometime soon. I went back to work and at 4:30 he was released from the hospital. Of course that is when everyone decided to show up to take pictures and pick up their pictures. So I called my best female friend to go and get him for me. After everyone was done in the studio, I wrote a note and placed it on the counter saying I had to leave it was emergency, and shut the place down. My friend drove him home then came back to my work and gave me his perscriptions, prednisone and levaquin. I picked them up and went home to find him missing. I called him and he said that he gone to work to do some paperwork that needed to be done by Friday. I asked him why he couldn't just wait til tomorrow but he started bitching. I drove to his grandmothers and waited for him to pull into the driveway. We sat at her house for awhile then went and got something to eat. At home we argued about when he should start taking his meds. I won finally. I figured since they gave him his final dose of meds around 330pm he should wait 12 hours before taking it again. It would also keep him on a schedule I can monitor.

From day one we have been trying to figure out what he had new that he was allergic too. At first it was the starbucks double shot frapachino with splenda. He had, had 4 the very first Sunday. Tuesday or Wednesday he had a grape leaf? I made him chef boy r dee macaroni stuff. But Wednesday night after he had gotten out of the hospital we found 2 more things that he could have had an allergic reaction too. One was the clariton that he asked me to get for him on the first Wednesday, the second could have been the tramadol I gave him on the first Sunday. Thinking of it now he had never had that high of a dosage of ibuprofene before either. So any one of those things could have made him sick. Or it could be something new at work that one of his co-workers is wearing or has on their desk. He is scheduled to see an allergist sometime in November. He went to see his diabetes doctor and they told him to increase his nighttime dosage and split it into two. Take 20 in the morning and 30 at night.

As of today October 4th he is off the levaquin and has 4 more days with prednisone. Now if they can just fix his bitchiness when he bloodsugar is high.