After the first couple of days post surgery, I really didn't feel much. I slept all the time. I was never hungry, I would get a shot from time to time of morphine for pain control and back to bed I would go. The sound and sight of food actually made me nauseated, even the sound of water made me cringe.
Nearing the end of the 2nd day moving into the 3rd, I started feeling this intense sharp pain that was right under my chest in a spot I called "the button". If you were to take the first four fingers of your hand and start at your sternum and go downward you'll fall right into this crevice. That's where my pain was.
It would get so bad it felt like a squeezing pain, such a tight pain I couldn't breathe it hurt to inhale because this overwhelming discomfort would come when my stomach would inflate. I would even feel it in my back, I felt like I was wearing a revenge seeking fanny pack. This belt of pain that wrapped itself from the front to the back of me and brought such pain I would scream and be writhing in pain. I remember the first time I felt this pain near the 3rd day after my surgery, I hit the nurse call button and asked for pain medicine and to hurry.
What she had was a shock to me. In she came with what I had thought was morphine like I had normally gotten and the pain would be fine, however; what she had in the syringe was Dilaudid. It's actually 4 times stronger than morphine and she shot it into my IV line in under a 3 second count without saying Mississippi in between the count. It went something like, "1,3" and that was it. I instantly got burning hot. I felt like my skin was on fire, my stomach felt like I was going to projectile vomit. I started screaming and twisting in the bed I started pushing my legs up under my body and scooting up like I was a pair of windshield wipers on a hospital bed. I was turning red almost purple from crying. My mom flew out of her chair and the terror in her voice shook as she asked the nurse "What did you give her?!"
The nurse replied, "It's Dilaudid"
"Okay, and what is that? How much did you give her?"
"It's only .05, very low dose. Lower than what we typically give our patients anyway."
"Look at her!! Look at her! Candace, okay okay stop crying"
"MOM!! (crying so hard, I grabbed her hand)"
"Get her a towel! We need to get her cooled down she's going to pass out look at her!"
(My heart monitor started going off, 2 more nurses from the ICU physically ran into my room)
"What's going on Candace?" Asked a very loud concerned voice from a nurse.
"It hurts, it hurts, owwwww."
"What hurts Candace?"
"This started when the nurse gave her that new medicine"
"What did she give her?"
"I have no idea but this is the result of it and we are not doing it again!! I've never seen her like this."
By this time it had been about 3 minutes and the effect of my body boiling and the pressure that was in my neck like someone 300 lbs doing a hand stand on me had subsided.
I could talk, faint and mumbled. I could talk.
"You went to fast, I can't even feel my fingers I'm numb."
"Okay, we'll make sure to go slow next time. We have to switch up your meds because the morphine isn't lasting you long enough it's wearing off too fast and we need you to stay comfortable to heal."
I nodded, I said nothing else and I nodded.
"Can you believe there are people that want that feeling?! They don't care where it gets shot into their body they just want it?"
She was talking about drug addicts.
"Yeah.." I said completely annoyed by her dry joke.
I had just had a "high" that I wanted NO part of. I was in a toss up.
The Dilaudid, was the perfect medicine to take the pain away and I mean honestly truly take the pain away. With how fast she flushed my line with the opiate medication it made me panic. I had a minor panic attack, those seemed to be coming to be me more frequent throughout my days. 20 minutes later I was watching the cooking channel and drinking a cocktail of juice, and telling my nurse she smelt like aqua net and cookies. She was my favorite nurse and truly cared for me, even though I wanted to punch her for inducing my panic rage. She looked like she just walked out of a white snake video. I swear it to you. What a beautiful person she was.
On the 5th morning of my emergency stay they had me up and humbled over walking. Can you believe it walking?! I was ready to take the 2.5 hour jaunt home. The type of ready where you've been waiting for what seems like ever to get going. With a Zofran(nausea medicine) tab dissolving under my tongue and a Norco(vicoden) in my stomach. I was literally ready. The ride home was an emotional one. We talked about the accident, we all talked about how tired we all were especially my parents making trips daily sometimes multiple times in a day. When we pulled up to the house I was overjoyed to see my garage door. You might wonder why? Because that's the door we use to get in our house more than our actual front door. I knew that behind that garage door was my life the way I last left it. Excited and ready for the dunes. I was returning tired, and in pain from the medicine upsetting my stomach and the orange Gatorade I had drank before the trip home was definitely making it known to my body it was not a good choice.
That night I kept the Norco by my side as I had a pretty rough time getting comfortable on our couch. I had gotten use to the hospital bed living, and being able to adjust my bed and body to my discomfort. It was so bad being uncomfortable on this couch my mom even called a medical supply store to try and rent one for me.
I didn't make it to my second night home to sleep in the much desired hospital bed for comfort ONLY. What I got instead was a real hospital bed at the Salem hospital. It was a night of pacing the kitchen to the living room to the family crying holding my dad's hand. Throwing up this awful deep brown matter. We finally had enough and we went straight to the ER where the admitted me within about 1.5 seconds again with the rushing of the wheel chair and getting me in a gound and an that awful IV started. My arms were so red and bruised. I even had red scabs on both arms in both big veins inside of my arms and on my wrists. They found a spot on my vein that wasn't completely bruised and set up camp for my new source of relief.
They brought in another surgeon, and she started ordering xrays and a CT scan searching for where this mystery pain was coming from. My CT scan had come back abnormal due to my surgery that had taken place just 4 days ago. She couldn't tell what was wrong, and wanted to keep me for observation and completely stop all intake by mouth. No water, no pills, no food. They called this being NPO. This term was my life for the next few days as I lay in a hospital bed in pain, with a concerned, confused surgeon stating if my pain didn't subside and I didn't have a bowel movement she was certain she would have to go back into my stomach and see what was the matter. NOT ON MY WATCH LADY!
It has come to my attention that when you cannot eat, every other commercial on the television is about food. Red Robin, yum! Applebee's, Taco Bell, McDonald's. Every food commercial that could possibly be about food somehow zoomed onto my TV, the only thing I could do while laying strapped into a bed. What torture!
I had a few foreign things happen to me, saposatory for one, an enema for two, and last but certainly not least a digital and yes that means finger right up the bum! To try and get my bowels working after almost a week of not working. By some sort of another miracle the next morning I had woke up and the bowel gates of Candace had opened and I was a new woman! They watched me gain progress as I slurped down jello, Gatorade and even finally the food I had been waiting for, a mashed potatoe and turkey dinner before I went home that next morning.
We were pleased at how things had been going and I was looking forward to being once again back home! Unfortunately that didn't last long, I made it a day and that next evening I was in horrible pain again. This time we decided to go to Portland to OHSU where "the best of the best" were and get this figured out!
We had HAD enough.
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