So much for my resolve to blog more this year...and there's no way I can catch up in one post, so I'll just begin with recent events and eventually work my way through the whole story. It's 2 am and I'm still up because we have a tornado watch and we've had a couple of instances where the storm sirens didn't go off. Usually DH is on stay up half the night until the bad weather has passed duty, but he was falling asleep at 10 pm so I agreed to stay up. I was getting ready to go to bed when Ms. Thang came downstairs crying because she couldn't sleep. Now I personally think thunderstorms are the best sleeping weather but I guess if you're afraid your house is gonna get blown away you might have a little insomnia. So she's laying on the couch, asleep finally, and after talking to several people on Facebook about different things...softball, gay adoption, and getting ripped off at a bar, I am WIDE. FREAKING. AWAKE. So here we are.
The past few months have been something of a whirlwind. Two of my nursing school besties traveled north to help me out at the end of January. I figured they just wanted to come visit and hang out, but nope, we cleaned house. Literally. I took 8 lawn size garbage bags of stuff to Goodwill and threw away at least that many more. We moved furniture, mopped, dusted, vacuumed, straightened, organized, sorted, and on and on and on. And it was a blast. I have never had so much fun cleaning in my life. It's amazing that the bond we formed in nursing school is still so strong that we can drop what we are doing and help each other out when necessary. I only hope someday I can repay the kindness.
This past Thursday I had my tissue expanders in my chest replaced with silicone implants. It was an outpatient procedure, I think we were at the hospital for a total of 6 hours. We stayed the night before and the night after in St. Louis so we'd be close to the hospital if something were to go wrong. But everything went just fine and we drove back Friday.
Do you know anyone that if something bad can happen to them it will happen? Not like tragic, but just stupid. Like if there's a 10% chance of having a side effect of a drug it will happen to them? Yeah, well, if you couldn't think of anyone, then yeah, it's me. My nurse friends will understand this for sure. It seems that my body has developed an allergy to just about every antibiotic I've ever taken. When I had my previous surgery, remember, they gave me clindamycin and steroids and the steroids masked the clindamycin allergy for several days. So since I'm allergic to the pre-op antibiotics they normally give, they gave me vancomycin instead. Now I've given a ton of vanc over the years and I know to give it slowly, usually over 90 to 120 minutes. However, I did not have my nurse hat on that morning, only my patient hat, so when they mixed it and hung it and piggybacked it into my IV fluids and used dial-a-flow tubing to 250 ml per hour. It was mixed in a 250 ml bag so I would get all of it in an hour. Only...I didn't. I got it in more like 30 minutes. Ever heard of red-man syndrome? I was laying there and my head started itching severely. I thought it was the little surgical cap so I took it off and I was just clawing at my head. My doctor walked in and asked DH, is she normally this red? He said no. The the doctor said, oh I bet it's the vanc, let's slow it down. And he reached up to turn it down and it was all infused. My face and upper chest were severely flushed and it's finally starting to fade today. He told the nurse to have anesthesia give me some benedryl. I've given a lot of benedryl over the years too, and you're supposed to dilute it and push it slowly. Now I know why. It felt like my arm was on fire when she pushed it. I even complained and she didn't even slow down. For a minute I thought the IV had blown and I had an armful of vanc. Then she turned up the IV fluids and gave me the versed and that shut me up!
I vaguely remember moving from the stretcher over to the table in the OR. They started getting me positioned and had my arms strapped down and my nose and head were itching. So I wiggled my left arm out so I could scratch. I don't think they liked that much and they put the mask on my face and gave me more drugs so I would cooperate! The next thing I knew I was in recovery. I drank some diet Pepsi and ate some vanilla wafers, walked to the bathroom to pee, then got dressed and left.
Dr. B said I have to wear an underwire bra and a belt above my boobs for the next 30 days. Well I guess now it's 26 days. In any case, OUCH!! I couldn't wear an underwire after my first surgery so I had gotten used to a softer type of bra. Or sometimes just a tank top under my t-shirt. So putting hardware back in there plus a belt on top, well, let's just say it's not the most comfortable feeling. But it is nice to have boobs that don't feel like boulders sitting under my chin anymore. And I'm sure the time will fly by quickly since I'm pretty busy the next few weeks.
DH says my diet is crap and I've got to start eating better. I take vitamins, doesn't that count? OK fine, I'll eat more veggies and less fast food. I'm feeling better so I should be able to get back in the habit of cooking most of the time. I do like to cook, but it can be a lot of work, especially the clean up. But I know I need to take better care of myself and my family so we can all live for a good long time.
Well I have more to say but I think it's gonna have to wait for another day. I'm getting sleepy now and Ms. Thang is out!!
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