I've decided to create a 30 Question Challenge. A list of 30 questions to answer, either on a daily basis or at the beginning of each entry (I'll be doing the latter as I don't write every day, other than during NoJoMo). Feel more than free to steal and do this challenge! Here is a list of the challenge questions:
What are your ideal sleeping conditions?
If you could have an hour long conversation with anyone, living or dead, who would you choose and what would you hope to gain from that conversation?
Do you have post-death plans made (funeral, burial/cremation, etc)? What's the plan?
What's the story behind one or two of your scars?
What's the best advice you've ever received?
What's the first thing you think of when you wake up for the day?
Do you follow a routine in the shower? If yes, what's your routine?
What is your definition of love?
Explain, to the best of your capabilities, an inside joke you share with a friend(s).
What do you believe happens to us after we die?
List 5 things in your house that have sentimental value and why they have value to you.
What's the meanest thing you've ever done/said to someone?
Do you believe in luck? Why or why not?
What do you think about the death penalty?
What do you think about abortion?
What do you think about gay marriage/rights?
Describe a quirk or two that you have.
If you had a "1 Free Revenge" card, meaning you could get revenge on one person in ANY way, shape or form and NOT be punished for it, who would would you use your card on and how would you exact your revenge?
Are there any lyrics from a song or a quote from a movie that has special meaning to you? If yes, what is the lyric/quote and why is it special to you?
If you had an unlimited budget, how would you change your living space?
Tell us 3 random facts about yourself.
Has something life changing happened to you in the last year? If yes, what was it? If no, what do you wish would happen and how you hope/think it would change your life.
If you could go anywhere in the world, money is no object, everything is included, where would you go and why? What would you do while there?
If you died but had 24hrs. to spend on earth as a spirit (ghost, whatever), what would you do and how would you make someone aware of your presence? How/why would they know it's you?
You've won a contest and the prize is your dream date. You can choose anyone you want, who do you choose (and why)? You can do anything you want, cost is no factor, what would you do?
What is your opinion on suicide?
Who was your last phone call from and what did you talk about?
If you could eat only one thing for the next 5 years, what would you choose?
Did you have an imaginary friend when you were younger? If yes, describe him/her/it and your relationship.
Describe your parents' relationship.
7. Do you follow a routine in the shower? If yes, what's your routine?
I actually do follow a routine in the shower (not sure if it's my OCD or what, but I've done the exact same routine since I was about 12 years old). First and foremost, the water temp has to be exactly perfect, if it's off by even a degree, I'm not a happy camper, LOL. Yeah yeah, I know, picky picky girl. Once the perfect temp is achieved, I get in and stand under the shower spray, getting my hair and body wet (for the record, the shower head is above the tub, it's not a standard front-of-the-shower-wall shower head, it's in the middle of the bathtub, attached to the ceiling, so the water sprays down on you, rather than at you on an angle). Once I'm good and wet (snickers Insert inappropriate joke here LOL), I start by washing my hair with Alberto V05 2-in-1 shampoo/conditioner. Once I rinse that out of my hair, I put in some Dove moisturizing conditioner and while my hair marinates, I give myself a 2-3 minute scalp massage or, if needed, I shave my armpits. I rinse out the conditioner, then I wash my face with a green tea exfoliating face scrub. After that, I take my body poof thingy and put 1 of the 3 body washes I have on it and then use the poof to scrub my body clean. Once I rinse off, I call for Geno, he has to help me out of the tub because it's kinda slippery and I'm very afraid of falling ass over teakettle as I'm getting out of the tub on my own. So, he helps me and then I dry off completely, run a wide-toothed comb through my hair, then moisturize my body with Curel Extreme Care Intensive Lotion for Extra Dry Skin. I don't actually have extra dry skin, but I really like how the Curel makes my skin feel so soft and supple. Once the lotion has sunk in a bit, I get dressed and go on with my evening (I always shower in the evening, never/rarely do I ever shower in the morning anymore). And that's my whole shower routine from start to finish.
Ugh, today, while not as unbearable as yesterday, is still another painful day. Yesterday, I really did try to write about what happened on Tuesday night, but I was SO out of it all day that I couldn't even put together a coherent sentence, let alone trying to write a whole paragraph (or more...). It took me about 20 minutes just to write the ETA sentence I wrote last night in the entry I started earlier as a placeholder.
And now, here I am, though still in quite a bit of pain, it's better than yesterday, thank Frank. So basically what happened is on Tuesday evening, around 5pm, Geno noticed that I was really out of it and it was obvious I was in a LOT of pain, not to mention, I had a 40.1C/104F fever. So, he called an ambulance and I was rushed to the hospital. While in the ambulance, I asked for a puke try and the paramedic didn't even have time to put it in my hands before I puked. I did manage to get it in the puke tray, but still, poor guy almost got puked on.
So, we get to the hospital shortly before 6pm and I'm triaged and sent to Streaming. I was a little confused by that since it was well before 10pm, so Minor Treatment (MT) was still open. Weird, but whatever. I waited in streaming for almost 2 hours andd then the Dr called me back and I showed him the abscesses I knew had to be drained (3 in total, possibly 5 if the two I'd ruptured/drained earlier hadn't been drained well enough). So, he asks me "And what do you want me to do for you?". Um, what? YOU'RE the DOCTOR, why the fuck are you asking ME?! So I say "The usual, sedation, I&D, sent home with antibiotics and somethinhg for pain". So he leaves the room and about 10 minutes later, a nurse comes into the room and says they're moving me to MT. I asked her why they didn't send me there to begin with and she said she had no idea and agreed with me that I should've been brought there in the first place! So, in the exam room of MT, my nurse comes in with an IV start kit and I ask her why they're starting an IV and she says "Well so you can be sedated!". I told her that I've only had ONE IV started in the last 3 years, other than that one time, they've always just done IM (intramuscular) ketamine. She says well just let her try, blah blah blah. So she does and sure enough, she can't find anything useable! So she decides to call in a nurse from another ward who apparently specializes in "difficult/impossible to start" IV cases. She comes in and I say to her "Just so you know, you'll want to use the yellow pediatric needle. Any bigger, you won't get anything." and she snottily says "I never use smaller than a blue! Those are ONLY for pediatric cases because of their very small veins.". I shrugged, like "Yeah okay, whatever!". So, she pokes me once and is convinced that she got it in, but I could already tell that it was NOT in and I told her so. She totally ignored me and hooked up the IV line to the catheter in my arm and she starts it runny full blast. Immediately, it hurt like hell and I cried out. Bitchy Cunt Nurse tells me "It's just the position, it's in there" and I say to her "I know the difference between positional pain and when an IV has gone interstitial, and it's NOT the position!". She ignores me and starts fiddling with the catheter end that's in my arm. Finally, I said "It hurts A LOT. I'm telling you, IT'S NOT IN!". She pulls it out, copping a major attitude as though she's pissed off at ME because she can't get a vein. And then guess what she says? "I'm going to have to try the pediatric IV catheter.". Um yeah, you think? I only told you that when you first came in. But what do I know, right? I mentioned the IM ketamine sedation a few times and Bitchy Cunt Nurse kept saying "They don't do that." and "They won't do that." and my favourite, "They haven't done an IM ketamine sedation in years". At that point, I was pretty pissy myself, so I said "Well, unless they've changed the definition of the word "years" recently, that's crap because I just had an I&D done on Sunday night - with IM ketamine sedation!". She huffed and puffed a little bit before finally giving up. IF they would just fucking listen to me, I could save them time and frustration. But again, what do I know, right? I've only done this a million times now.
So finally, they decide to do IM ketamine sedation (surprise, surprise rolls eyes)and it took about 45 minutes for them to get that all organized and everything. I was thinking there was just 3 abscesses that needed to be done and maybe the one on my thigh that I had done earlier that day could use some more draining. When I kinda came to, the nurse was giving me a sponge bath and I was completely naked (I went into the surgery wearing my pajama pants, a t-shirt and a hoodie). I asked why I was naked and the nurse said something about having to drain more abscesses than they originally thought and there was a lot of pus and blood, that's also why I was getting a sponge bath. I was still fairly out of it, so I don't remember much until Geno was brought back into my room. Wait, I do remember apologizing for nearly kicking her in the face when she started rubbing the soapy wet facecloth on the bottom of my foot. That fucking tickled and my gut reaction was to kick out. Thankfully, she had quick reflexes and got out of the way before my foot was able to make contact with her face.
So Geno comes into the room and I start crying, telling him I hurt all over. He said "It's no surprise. Do you know how many abscesses you had?!". I was like "Yeah, like 8, right?" and he goes "No. Try SEVENTEEN They only drained 15!". Let me break in down for you: 1. Right calf, side 2. Right calf, back 3. Right thigh, outer side 4. Abdomen, a total of 7 that were drained + 1 that wasn't ready to be drained yet 5. Left breast, 2 drained (one on Monday by me and one on Tuesday night @ the hospital) + 1 that I drained today myself 6. Left thigh, upper front - 2 7. Left knee Yeah, I wish I was exaggerating. I had actually had 4 of them drained before, the one on the back of my right calf (in the hospital on Sunday, you should still remember that if you read about it) and 3 on my right side, right calf side, right thigh outer side and one of the ones on my abdomen earlier on Tuesday. Oh and one of the one on my breast, I did on Monday afternoon. But on Tuesday night, they did all the ones I mentioned above, including 3 of the 4 I drained at home earlier. Apparently I didn't drain them as much/well as I could've, so they had to go back in there and drain those as well. OUCH! And, the one that was drained in the hospital on Sunday evening had to be re-drained as well. Geno stayed in the room with me while I "sobered up" from the massive amount of ketamine they gave me. I usually get 200-250mg IM ketamine, but because of how many abscesses there were, they gave me 375mg. Then, part way through the surgery, I was starting to come around, so they had to give me another 100mg! I had a total of 475mg IM ketamine!!! That's a LOT of ketamine. The nurse came back in, it was now about 11:30pm, telling me that I'd been admitted. I refused and signed out AMA (Against Medical Advice). When I explained to my nurse why I didn't want to stay, he said he completely understood. He tried to find the Dr that did the I&Ds and admittance, but he was already done his shift and gone, so he couldn't get the order changed to discharge, so I had to sign out AMA. I just explained to the nurse that the hospital doesn't carry 2 of the meds I require on a daily basis (long acting Dilaudid and a sleeping pill) and there was no fucking way I'd be staying there without those meds because I would just wind up getting sick from not having those meds, not to mention I wouldn't be able to sleep at ALL!
Yesterday was a rough day. I was incredibly tired after getting not quite 6hrs. of sleep on Tuesday night. We got home around 1am and I was too wound up from the ketamine to fall asleep before 4am. Then, I woke up around 9:45am and spent pretty much all day in bed and in pain. I did go see my Dr after lunch and he gave me 10 short acting Dilaudids and gave me strict instructions to follow. I'm on complete bedrest until I see him again next Thursday, which is fine, whatever. Gives me a chance to recuperate in the comfort of my own home rather than in the anxiety inducing hospital. My Dr. set me up with home care yesterday, so a nurse is coming in twice a day to give me IM antibiotics (Vancomycin I believe? There were a few mentioned, so I might be confused) and check up on my abscess sites, just making sure I'm going forward and not declining. Tomorrow she's bringing an IV Specialist to see if they can maybe try to get an IV going (which would be great for the antibiotics as they would absorb better and faster).
As I said, yesterday was a rough day. I passed out cold twice, I slipped while getting off the bed and that fucking hurt like HELL! I was also pretty nauseated and even puked a few times (likely a side effect from the strong doses of antibiotics, even if they are intramuscular). The pain was pretty bad, like a solid 8 out of 10. Just for the record, to me, a 10 out of 10 on a pain scale (0 being no pain, 10 being the worst pain ever), is when the asshole obstetrician begins your c-section before you're completely numb. Yeah, I'm sure I'd be hard pressed to find anyone who would disagree with me on that being a 10 out of 10. So yeah, it was 7-8 throughout the day.
I did manage to have a really good sleep last night though, thank Frank! Geno convinced me to have a nap around 8:30pm and he woke me up just over an hour later. I tried SO HARD to update the entry from yesterday, but I would start a sentence and I'd type totally random gibberish and have to delete a bunch of blah blah blah and I would try to start all over again, LOL. Typical, I'm totally a stubborn brat sometimes! Finally, around 11:45pm, Geno was like "I'm taking the computer away from you and you're lying the fuck down and going to SLEEP!" - after he caught me nodding off for the umpteenth time, LOL. So I caved and I'm pretty sure I was fast asleep before my head even hit the pillow! I slept straight through until 6:40am! I can't even remember the last time I slept close to a full 7 hours without waking up even once! I checked the time on my cell phone, rolled over (so very carefully because of all the I&Ds they had to do, it REALLY fucking hurts if you move in any way - one wrong move and it literally feels like someone is stretching open the cuts they made on each abscess OPEN again, it's horrifically painful, that's for sure!). I wound up sleeping until close to noon today, another surprise because I'm usually up for the day no later than 8:15am. But, the sleep was definitely needed and greatly appreciated.
Today was a fairly low key day. Didn't do much other than watch TV, talk to Mel and Mama JD on the phone, piddled around on the computer and...yeah, that's really about it. Welcome to the world of bedrest. Third time in my life I've been on completely restricted bedrest - first time when I was pregnant with Tristan and had some pretty severe complications, then the second time when I was pregnant with Nathan, again, thanks to some wonderfully wicked complications (and even then, he was born 61/2 weeks premature) and now, this. Happy happy joy joy - yeah NOT!
Geno had to buy some ear mites ear drops solution because we're pretty sure that Darwin has ear mites. We've been cleaning his ears every time we do the drops (twice a day total) and they are looking a lot better now. We called the vet today and were told that the stuff you buy at the pet store is super dangerous and could cause seizures and/or make them very sick if you accidentally overdose them by even ONE DROP! So Geno called Purple Seahorse (where we bought the solution) and told them what the vet said and the guy told Geno that what they said is absolutely ridiculous, if they were that dangerous, they wouldn't be on the shelves. While Geno was there yesterday, he also bought both cats a little felt stuffed toy. Yoda got an incredibly adorable pink pig head and Darwin got what looks like a two red legged yellow turtle. It might have been an attempt at a teddy bear head, but the "face" wasn't right. So we call it Mr TILT (TLT/Two Legged Turtle). Geno also got them a pouch of catnip and a bag of treats. I have to say that I'm incredibly impressed with Yoda. We bought the catnip yesterday and gave him some as soon as we got home. As I was giving it to him, I said "Nip nip! Nip nip!" and then the next time Geno gave it to him, he referred to it as "nip nip" and already today, Yoda understands that "nip nip" means catnip. Is it just me or is that impressive? I mean, 18 hours and we said it three, maybe four times in that time period and he's already figured out that when you say "nip nip", he gets catnip. He goes fucking insane for it. When I went to give him a little bit this afternoon, I called out "Yoda want nip nip?" and he came racing into the kitchen and literally tried to climb my LEG! Darwin likes it but he doesn't go apeshit for it as Yoda does. He certainly hasn't picked up on "nip nip" yet. So far, he only recognizes a couple things "Num nums" (canned soft food) and "treats!" (obvious). Oh and he understands a couple hand signals, but they're pretty basic, like "come over here" (rubbing the pads of your index and middle finger with your thumb) and "jump up on the bed" (patting the bed next to where you're sitting) and "off" (pointing down from whatever you want him to get down from). Yoda on the other hand knows a hell of a lot more, both words and hand signals. More than I care to recall right now, but just a few words are the same as Darwin, "Treats" and "Num nums", but on top of that, he knows "No!", "Git" (go away), "Roll over" (he'll roll onto his back for belly rubs), "Brushies" (which he loves getting!) and "Go get your ball/Where's your ball?" (he'll go find his little plush ball and bring it to you to throw for him - he literally plays fetch!). There's more but I can't think right now. He also knows about 3 times the amount of hand signals Darwin knows. Smart pussy, that's for sure!
Well, methinks it's time to lie down and relax a bit while watching some TV. Hollywood Game Night is on tonight. Twice! They air the previous week's episode at 9pm, then they show the new episode at 10pm. Love that show and I love Jane Lynch (hello crush on an older woman!).
Alright, that's all for now folks! Sweet (or wet, as always, your choice!) dreams! Much love!
Sarah. xoxox
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