Celebrating and Recovering

We watched the Super Bowl together and we celebrated the victory.  
Of course I was distracted by physical discomfort, but I was very happy to be home.

The time in the hospital was mostly sleepless.  The first night someone nearby on the floor was out of his mind and kept setting off his bed alarm, which beeped very loudly to the tune of "Mary Had a Little Lamb". At one point there was screaming and running.  I asked the next morning about it.  The patient had punched a nurse and I think had attacked a second one.   

My roommate, who was getting a lot of counseling about what to expect with the brain tumor that has just been discovered, moved out the next day.  It was quiet until the next roommate came.  She was an elderly Japanese lady, not very proficient in English, who kept having episodes.  She had just had neck surgery and had been moved up from another floor.  First she didn't like the room and wanted to go back to where she was.  Then the moaning and gasping and hard to describe sounds began.  She needed to go to the bathroom every 20 minutes and needed help with this.  Because she wanted to go on her own, they put a bed alarm on her so she would wait for help.  Then they didn't turn it off when they got her up.  Mary Had A Little Lamb was now right there in my room, loud, piercing, endless.  The patient talked the day nurse into letting her use a bed pan but when the shift change came she had to beg and beseech all over again, trying to be understood as she repeated "bed pan".  Of course they wouldn't just tell her "no".

This was now the pattern all night long.  I yelled at the staff a few times, hit the call button a few times when the patient was in distress and now one came (I guess they had it figured out by now) and finally just gave up and tried to stay as comfortable as possible,  I think I got an hour of sleep.

I was recovering well from my back surgery but I was still surprised when I was asked the next  morning if I was ready to go home. I wasn't sure I was but I knew I couldn't take another sleepless night.

I had been eating light, mostly loose meals and tried to get up and move often but the intestinal gas was building up.  The ride home was painful because I felt every bump be also because of the intense gas pressure.  

I spent most of the football game feeling miserable, vomiting, and trying to keep my meds down.  But I was happy to be home with my family, my TV and my chair.  

I got a very good night's sleep Sunday night, such a relief.  But now with my digestive system a mess of constipation, gas pressure and nausea, I ended up back at the hospital to be checked out for blockage (none) and get an IV drip for dehydration.  I also got anti-nausea medication and that has helped.  I can now eat and drink and take my meds, but things are not moving yet, if you know what I mean, and that situation is getting a bit desperate.

We have cut back on the trouble causing oxycodone but now my back hurts more and it's hard to find a comfortable position.

This morning I don't know If I will be able to handle this on my own of if I will need more medical attention.

Tom is being a wonderful nurse and is taking good care of me.