"Illness Recollected in Tranquility," Part the Last (IV!)

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 Note: Part I, 6/10/13; Part II, 6/11/13; Part III, 6/13/13.

IV...

There was another tube, too. 

Recognizing there was a lot of old blood in my stomach and I was not pooping it out very fast, Dr. R------- decided to put a tube down my nose into my stomach to drain the old blood out.  He must have noted the look of alarm on my face when he told me the plan because he quickly pointed out that this tube would be tiny, much smaller than the breathing tube in my lungs, and it would go down from my nose (not my mouth) so I could continue to talk and even move about pretty much as usual.

I didn’t even really feel it when the nurse stuck in this little red tube: yes, red.  I also didn't see it beforehand. 

Having this little tube installed made my nose drip clear fluid a little bit all the day and night I had it in, and the nurse assistant who took my vital signs every hour through the night must have bumped it every single time she came in (ouch!), but it really wasn’t half bad.  And the way it was doing me good was obvious. 

About 12 or 15 hours hours after it was inserted, no more blood was draining out, so Dr. R------- said to take the little tube out.

I think the sensation of its removal qualifies as an exquisite pain: not enough to make me want to cry out, but weird and most uncomfortable... qualified by the anticipation that I would in a minute be free of it altogether!  The nurse showed the tube to me after the extraction.  The part that had been inside me was about three feet long.

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Closing day on our house had passed by this point, and since the movers had been there the day before, A----- had no natural place left to stay (some friends took her in for a day or two).  We started talking about getting me moved to a hospital in our new home city (that is, the city where our furniture would arrive any day).

The doctors all said the only way the transfer could be done was by medical jet... It took about one day to set that up.  So, on Friday of the second week, it happened.

A crew in snappy black uniforms came bustling in about noon, bundled me up, lifted me from the hospital bed onto their gurney, and whisked me away... with A----- trotting along behind.

The local ambulance took all of us to the airport; my gurney was transferred to this little private plane tricked out with medical dials and equipment of all types; I was hooked up again, and A----- was seated in front of me, although I couldn’t see her...

And we lifted off into bright sunlight at 1 p.m. Eastern time.  By 3 p.m. CST we were landing in our new home airport in the rain.  By 3:30, I was in my new hospital bed.

How slick is that!

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I was not in Intensive Care in the new hospital, having somewhat recovered by then.  That part was good, of course; on the other hand, my range of activity was more constrained than it had been the last few days in the first hospital's Intensive Care Unit.

Since I did not have one or even two nurse assistants hustling into my room whenever I pushed the little button – instead, a disembodied voice saying, “Yes?” – I couldn’t get away from the I. V. pole at all.   

That meant my frequent strolls with walker around the halls were no more.

Also, since the assistants were not at my beck and call, I couldn't make it to the toilet anymore.  Not on my own, since I was attached to the wall for oxygen and since I was attached to the I. V. pole for medecine and nourishment, and not with help since there wasn't any.  When I mentioned this little concern, I was given a strangely shaped plastic bottle, which staff called a urinal (though it didn't look like one).

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Since all my food was still straight from the I. V. there was no need to worry about Number Two, and after once using the plastic thing, I thought I could get along with that method...  But all the bed-rest, the lack of movement generally, and the liquid going into me through my blood veins was causing my body to swell... and not just my ankles either.  My whole legs, including my thighs, my so-called "love handles," even my bottom were collecting fluid.

When A----- pointed this out to one of my new team of doctors, Dr. W------ got staff started giving me diarhetics, more than one I think.  For the next two nights and the day between, when the disembodied voice answered my Call button, I had to report that I was worried my urinal would overflow if someone didn't come by and empty it.

(They had to record how much I had produced, too, you understand.)

*

I had a long enough connector with my oxygen that I was able to set myself up in the one chair in my new room.  I could even stand up, do half knee bends, swing my shoulders side to side...

Late in the morning of the second day, a break-through.  The doctors had been weaning me off the oxygen feed: 4 liters per minute, 2 liters per minute, finally 1 liter per minute...  Dr. W------ (I later learned) was trying to get me to see if I could get through the night without any extra oxygen at all.  Since most of my physicians - not to mention nurses - thought lack of oxygen was the cause of my panic attacks in the nights at home, I was real reluctant to try that experiment.

But when Dre. W------ said I could take off the oxygen feed whenever I wanted to in order to go to the bathroom, the real complete room, OR to take a little walk out in the hall, I jumped at the chance.  I had to ask the Voice a couple of times, but a walker did finally materialize.

I was on my own out in the hallway, but I was off!

*

Twenty-four hours later, my son-in-law was driving A----- and me to our new home, where our furniture had been somewhat oddly dispersed but it was there, safe and sound.  "Sounder" than me, of course, but we were equally "safe."

I will be grateful not to have more such vivid experiences for a while as those I had in my 18 days in the hospital!

Note: Part I, 6/10/13; Part II, 6/11/13; Part III, 6/13/13.

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