Hubs has/had been sick mostly non-stop since 12/22/10. He's stubborn and figured he was "fine" and would be fine with time. It was getting pretty rough by Friday. When I left for work at 11am he was in the bed sitting up moaning in his 1/2 sleep state every so often in pain- kinda crampy and nausea.
When I got home he wasn't really any better or worse. At 11pm it got worse, as he was throwing up blood. My lil bro couldn't come watch the kids so we woke them and took them to my moms. Hubs wanted me to "just stay home with the kids. I'm fine I can go to the hospital alone"... ummm NO! So we took the kids to my moms and got to the hospital a little before 11:30pm. Luckily thanks to the snow flurries the ER was basically dead empty! We had our own room before 12. In fact I was pleasantly suprised but the relative speediness of the ER staff and friendliness. I had heard my share of horror stories about our local ER and since I had only ever been there twice and ages ago I tended to believe what I had heard. Infact we joked on the way to the ER... you know they are just gonna give you a prescription for 10 loratab, tell you you have a virus and will be fine in a week and charge you $10,000 for their signature on that prescription.
Nurse Sheila and Tech Tiffany took care of Hubs in the ER. Hubs quickly got a heart monitor, pulse reader thing, blood pressure cuff, and IV, blood samples and all that funness.
He was wheeled off to XRays. All w/i the first 30 minutes. Then we had a "lovely" time with the registration nurse when we learned apparently someone (We assume one of Marko's brothers) had used/been using his SS# with a different address and name. In fact she asked him 10x in 4 minutes what his ss# and other info was, then she came back an additional 4x throughout our evening/morning in the ER to reask the same stuff--- like he was going to change his SS# sometime during the night!
They gave hubs 8mg morphine to get the moaning to stop--- it only 1/2 way worked. We did get some nightly entertainment thanks to the crazy lady next door hollaring and yelling about her x bf trying to kidnap her every month for her $1200 check and I swear calling EVERYONE she knew to tell them the story and how the security guard watching her was going to steal her purse because she had $5 in it and how the handcuffs were hurting her and the list of complaints goes on.... umm yeah about 6am she was admitted to the psych ward.
We realized about 2:30 there was something more wrong with hubs when they told him he needed a CAT scan and gave him 2liters of dye to drink. The lady who gave him it forgot to mention to drink it slllooowwwlllyyy so he chugged the first bottle and was in even more pain so 8mg more morphine.
About 5am Nurse Ann took him for his cat scan. About 6am we finally see the dr for the 1st time since midnight and he tells us hubs has a obstructed bowel and will need admitted. We saw the admission Dr. Roberts. We were wheeled over to admittance bay from ER bay.
Just prior to 7am we got our room. The admittance nurses showed us where they were building the new pediatrics unit on floor 2 just down the hall from our room N244.
Sleep was still impossible for me due to the every 10 minute dr visits/nurse visits.
Our nurses for the 1st 12 hours were Melanie and Ella. Ella was very personable--- guess that comes with the grounds of working there for 28 years! We met two Drs.... Richardson- not to be confused with Roberts and Dr. Tate Woodrow who was awesome! Not to mention one of hubs clients does all the phone/pager services for the hospital so we enjoyed some jokes.
Hubs had an endoscopy and biopsy around noon.
He was OUT OF IT. It was scary when he returned to the room, was imobile and was having difficulty breathing (and he was already hooked up to oxygen) so they increased his oxygen levels.
I snuck a call to his mom-- against his will because he didn't want her to worry-- but I felt she should know. He slowly started to come around 7pm...
and low and behold MOMMA showed up unannounced :-0.... Yeah hubs was annoyed with me for calling her! Our 7pm-7am nurses were Jessica and Mary. Jessica has a great sense of humor.
Sunday morning they FINALLY allowed him food--- he was on a liquid diet all Saturday. It was amusing "Chubs" as I frequently lovingly call him was brought TWO trays of food--- hahha they messed up on his diet restrictions so he had a "liquid" breakfast tray and then a Lactose free reg food tray.
FINALLY about noon we FINALLY saw the doctor again-- we hadn't seen him since the previous day around 11am and were getting anxious about his endoscopy results. With meds his obstructed bowel was becoming less painful and would be "self corrected" by the meds. We got his results. He had a torn esophagus, "significant and serious" burning in his stomach lining and esophagus and was diagnosed with severe GERD. He was prescribed prilosec twice a day for 1 week and then one pill daily forever.
We were released at 3pm on Sunday. Nurse Melanie came to remove his IV and hubs said "If I take this out myself can I get a discount" HAHA... you wish hubs!
He was put on quite the restrictive diet: No dairy, No spicy, No tomato, No citrus, No un-needed acids, No peppermint and limited fried foods.... and so you ask what did hubs ask for when we left the hospital? YES that's correct KFC's new hot wings. WHAAAT!?
His gross looking lunch--- broth and chickensalad sandwich- gag!
This is how a bored wifey passes her time... Every good and wise soul knows every room should have pig decor... And every hospital should know not to leave bored visitors unsupervised with dry erase markers :-)
POST HOSPITAL: Hubs has remained low on energy but when he obeys and takes meds as directed and eats smart he feels mostly ok. Well I mean that is until we add up all these medical bills and no insurance---- he then has informed me he will need a heart specialist for his after heart attack care!
I was not allowed to take pictures of him--- and I did good the first 12 hours.... then the temptation got worse... and so I god him knocked out--- and snuck a few others. And I am DEF not allowed to post any pictures, but again my obediance is not top notch.... so I waited 10 days and the need to post is getting stronger...
Oh yeah thanks for all the well wishes, thoughts, prayers--- and Chick Fil A (Wendy :-)
ypically we get year end awards at the annual BK Christmas party, but since that was canceled we got them at this meeting.
owner as he, his wife and the corporate big wig sat right across from me :-0 The food was prettier than it actually tasted. But this is FINE dining so it may be a tad to fancy for my picky lil taste buds. And for the record I had NO clue I was in the running for an award... but I did have on my lucky skirt thanks to my amazing sister Missy for buying me it :-D Once again it has proven lucky :-)
