Joy and Pain, starting again.

So this is the end of the story about my hospital stay. It's an end but also a beginning. I can't help notice that after years of back and stomach pain, it is gone. Physically I feel 10 years younger, but also sad that I've lost a month of my life. Then again if the back pain stays gone I'll save thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours on physio, massage therapy, chiropractic, and IMS accupuncture. I look at pictures of myself from my honeymoon and even a few from my wedding and I can see a pained expression on my face. I used to see that in the mirror, but I don't see it anymore today.

I still hurt, but it's getting a bit better day by day. This feels like a chance to start again but before I start again, I'll tell you how everything ended.

The Friday before I left was full of up and downs. Only one doctor came to visit. The hand IV started swelling so that I didn't have knuckles and a breeze hurt so the nurse came to move it.

First he tried shoving a needle in my left arm but the IV didn't work so we left it until the afternoon. It hurt so bad and I was so tired of being poked at I started bawling and he left. My poor mom came an hour later and I hadn't stopped crying and knew it was upsetting her but she could see the big green bruises crawling down my arm.

When he tried again he gave me a cup of apple juice and cookies first. "I don't want you to cry again." He was as upset as me. The IV in my wrist hurt like hell but hadn't inflamed and I was willing to suck it up for a day knowing it wasn't going to be longer than that.

My sweet husband came for our final, going-away solid dinner hospital food. In the cafeteria he made me turn around and spread out a tablecloth and cloth napkins on the table behind me. It was like being real people again and I wanted to cry. He turned on one of those electric candles and we ate dinner by candlelist. I was in my double blue hospital gown get-up, my blue socks and navy blue granny slippers my mom brought for me. Him in his suit and Edward pumping me full of saline.

Saturday morning came and when they woke me at 5:30 am to give me my last Benedryl I couldn't go back to sleep. It was like a kid on Christmas except I was waiting until Edward, my IV drip machine was disconnected and the needle taken out of my wrist. (I still cringe thinking of it).

I went to the TV room, I came back to my room. I didn't even open the tray of the hospital food. No doctors came. The nurses didn't take my "vitals."

Finally one of the nurses came to take out my IV. "Why did they put it in your wrist? This hurts most of all places. Who did this?" When she left I cried again for all the poking and prodding and hurting and why would he put it in my wrist!!!

Chris came a bit early (thank goodness) and I changed into "real people" clothes. Not the clothes I came in, because they had been stolen. Did I mention that?

I felt my humanity returning a bit. You feel very nude and vulnerable wearing the "sick uniform". As I walked past the foot of my bed I scraped my leg on the metal clip from my chart. I scraped it hard and started crying. And though I knew it wasn't my crying that got me in the hospital I fell into Chris's arms "Don't make me stay, I'll stop crying, it just hurts but it will be ok." We laughed and I kept crying and he promised he'd take me home no matter what.

So with that we left. There's no ceremonial "leaving" that you have to do. I felt like I could have walked out as soon as they took the IV out. They don't even give you anything to take home.

It's weird of all the things that happened, the IVs were what caused me the most problems. They pulled and swelled and I hated having to walk around with the post. I hated the sound Edward made as he pumped liquid into me.

My hand still hurts. But I've come home with a new appreciation of pain. One of my roommates was asked what her pain was on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the worst you could imagine. She said in her sprightly English accent, "Oh well, I'd have to say it's probably, you know, a 10."

See and on the other side of the curtain I rolled my eyes. A 10 is really unimaginable, it's roll your eyes in the back of your head, unspeakable, horrific horror. It's not able to make a complete sentence pain. I didn't get there. But without hitting an eight or nine I never would have been able to comprehend what "pain" can really mean. I think of people who are tortured or the bodies at Pompeii with new appreciation.

Remember that song about "Joy and Pain" it was popular when I was in Grade 7.

Joy felt like my shower. It felt like drinking water from a real glass. It felt like lying on my own bed. I felt like people looking at me like I was a person, not a patient of interest.

I think that if people are in the hospital for more than four or so days they should really have a counsellor come and talk to them. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't going crazy -- but I felt it was my fault that I was there. I felt like I had been bad. I felt like the doctors and nurses were enjoying my pain. I felt like an experiment. I felt like I would never get out of the hospital. When I thought, I thought of all the germs on everything including me. For example they'd use the same finger clip that measured your pulse and blood oxygen on everyone without cleaning it once. I tried not to think and just live from vital check, to meal, to visitor and back to sleep.

Mrs. Poopy-pants didn't understand what the nurses wanted her to do or how to get better. I could tell that even though they were trying to get her to roll on her side so she didn't get bedsores, she didn't understand. She thought they were trying to hurt her. I felt the same way sometimes -- even though I knew everyone wanted to help, it felt like they were trying to hurt.

And when you leave everything stops and no one tells you what to do. Do you stay on bland icky foods, can you eat tacos? When can I go to the gym? When can I eat spicy indian food? How much sleep do I need? How do I "rehab" myself so I keep getting stronger -- while still getting the rest I need?

As I get stronger I realize the thing that made it all worthwhile were my friends and family. Waking up and finding someone coming into my little curtained stall just made my heart soar. I always knew how important they were, but they are the rocks our lives are built on.

Side effects and a timeline

So there are two weird side effects from my time in the hospital. One is the track marks and bruises up and down my arms from the IVs. My right hand still doesn't work right and has a big red lump on top that hurts like a burn. The other side effect is my tongue. It's yellow and blotchy and feels like I have hair on it. No matter how much I brush, use rinse or eat, it just feels icky.

So here's what happened after I was admitted.

Sunday

Morphine, antibiotics, a horrid incident where they poked around in my wrist to get some arterial blood nearly killing me with pain. I'm on clear fluids.

Monday

Nurse Ratchett is a student and decides today is the day she is going to kill me. She makes me get up (I don't want to get up) to get bathed. She unhooks my IV and blood and saline starts splurting all over the bed. It was horrid and she should never have touched my IV. I pinch the top of my nose with my fingers and she says "Are you crying? Don't cry."

"I'm not crying, I just want you to stop the blood from coming out my IV." It was all I could do not to start screaming. Seriously it looked like an axe murder had attacked my bed.

She 'bathed' me by taking a cold facecloth and rubbing my back. Then she took the water away so I couldn't possibly finish what she had started. I didn't want her near me.

She kept coming back and poking me with things. She accidentally pulls my hair. She pushes too hard on my stomach. She scratches my mouth with the thermometer. She tried to re-wire the existing IV by twisting it while it was still in my veins. This should not happen.

Everything hurts. I started getting agresssive. "No, let's wait until someone who knows what they are doing comes back." She's scared I'll tell on her about the IV so she goes away after taping the IV to my arm so I can't move the arm without screeching pain from the tape.

One of the other ladies in my room keeps calling out "Oh, I'm so constipated." I'm afraid this won't end well.

I'm on clear fluids and the doctors won't give me any timeline for going home. "We'll just see how you feel," they keep saying. I feel better. I feel like the nurses are trying to kill me. Let me go home.

They bring me onion soup for dinner. My family has gone home but everyone else's in my room has arrived. I open the bowl and smell the onions and can't stop crying again. I'm trying so hard to be quiet but everyone can hear me.

The intern-doctor comes in the room. She's shocked and doesn't know what to do. "Is this a bad time, should I come back?" she asks.

"They gave me onion soup," I bawl. "I HATE onions. I know it's stupid but it's just....onions."

We laugh together and she gets me to lie down and she pushes my stomach in. It feels better but it's still swollen. She won't give me a timeline for going home. She tells me to ask them for non-onion soup. I sleep most of the day

Tuesday

Nurse Ratchett is back. I hide out for much of her shift in the TV room and downstairs. When she does have to poke me she tries again to undo my IVs -- I shriek. Her trainer comes in and says "You can't work those, only the RNs can work with those ones." I give her the dirtiest look I can muster. It's not mature but it comes straight from that place of "You hurt me. You hurt me a lot and you should know better. You are a bad, bad person."

It doesn't matter, by mid-afternoon there is already a swollen hard lump where the IV is, a bad sign of infection. They will have to move the IV. I don't IV easily and every time they move it it takes two attempts to get it right.

She convinces me to take a shower. Since they don't have shampoo or a hair dryer and since I want to go home soon, I don't wash my hair. They have a little shower room that runs hot and cold water but never both at once. She promises to come back in five minutes. I wait ten and toddle back to my bed still dripping wet and looking for a clean gown. I watch and it takes four days before someone in cleaning picks up the facecloth I left hanging on the handrail.

I call Monika and cry. I call Chris and cry. I call my mom and cry. I call my boss and try my hardest not to cry. I have no news. I sleep a lot.

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday:

The days merge. Chris visits, Dave visits, Tamara visits, Mark visits, my parents visit. They bring me more onion soup and I throw up. Nurse Ratchett doesn't come back.

They have to reinsert a new IV, I flinch and the vein pops and they have to do it again in my hand. It hurts so much. I'm trying to "relax" and the infectious disease doctor comes by and wants to talk about my condition. I'm trying to relax and not talk and she's poking an IV in my arm and he wants to poke my formerly sore stomach.

I watch a lot of daytime TV. The nice thing about having the IV is that you need to sit by a power outlet and I'd sit in front of the TV and ask if anyone was watching the TV and all the families would let me change the channel. Not that there was anything worth watching.

They think I'll get out after five days, that means Friday. No, I have to stay until Saturday. I have a deadline of getting out. I feel better.

They wash the floors every second day and the bathrooms weekly. Can you imagine how DIRTY bathrooms get when washed weekly? Particularly at the hospital. I notice the grunge on my hospital bed. They stop changing my sheets.

The constipated lady in my room starts to go and it gets stuck and they "remove" it. I thought I was going to die from the smell and she was dying from embarassment. She becomes incontinent and two or three times a day she "messes" herself and it takes a long time to clean and it smells horrific.

I start staying up past 8 pm and watch the nurses play facebook and hotmail. I want to play facebook.

I refuse to take a shower. Whenever anything on the IV changes it hurts and needs to be moved. I wash in a basin in my bedstall. My hair is horribly greasy. I don't care, I just want to go home.

The IV ends up in my wrist. For fun put your thumb on your wrist and wiggle your fingers. It doesn't matter how flexible the needle is, I can still feel it everytime I even think of my hand. The top of my right hand is still swollen.

I get on a solid food diet. The bowls smell of onion soup so I stop eating anything from a bowl. I got to the cafeteria and eat muffins. Someone steals my clothes between checking into emergency and now. Everything just gone. There is no lost and found.

Everyone in the room is sent home after a night or two. Everyone except me and Ms. Poopy. I talk to her husband -- she's been healthy her whole life. She hates being here. So do I. But she's sick and by Friday, I'm not.

Not out of the woods

See and until now it sounds like a normal, routine appendix-removal. It sounds fine and really if just getting my appendix out and being send home was all it was, I wouldn't be writing this at all.

Everyone keeps telling me I need to take it easy. I need to go slow. I need to give myself time to heal. My doctor said I needed two weeks after getting out of the hospital before I go back to work.

I'm not used to sitting around all day and barely being able to walk to the park. I'm not used to taking it easy. My right hand is still sore but I called the BC Nurse line and they said it can take up to a week for an IV vein to feel right again.

I went home from the hospital for the first time on Friday, June 6. Saturday I sat around and watched TV and drank water and tea. My temperature hovered around 38.3 and 38.5 -- but didn't hit the magic 38.5.

Saturday night we went to bed and the mice came out. I swear there were mice in the kitchen. I could hear them scratching through the cupboards. Chris told me I was imagining things and told me to go to sleep.

I couldn't sleep. My t-shirt was soaked. I got up and went to kitchen at 2 a.m. to get a glass of water. I knocked over a glass and it broke. I leaned down to get it up and started bawling my eyes out. Poor Chris.

I refused to go back to bed and instead lay on the couch. I woke up at 8 and again began sobbing. It felt like the world was falling down around me. My temperature was only 38 degrees. My stomach was distended but no more than when I left the hospital. What scared me the most was my face. I hardly recognized it -- I was the colour of linen or an old white sheet.

We called the BC Nurse line (a great free service that's part of the BC Health Guide. The line lets you talk to registered nurse and find out what you need to do for a bunch of different medical conditions. They kind of answer the question "Should I go to a doctor for this?" Phone 604-215-4700).

The lady talked to me and then said, "There's a lot going on. I could tell you how to fix one of your symptoms but I think you need to go back to emergency."

Still crying (remember, I don't cry much) I insisted on taking a shower before we left. We showed up at Richmond Hospital again. Again I refused to sit down and after showing them the stitches on my belly they gave me a bed as Chris checked me in.

It got scarier. The doctor came in and talked to me for two minutes and then ordered an immediate CAT scan (it took a few hours to get one last time). I hear him say, "This girl is really sick, she's not going anywhere."

I had my IV hooked up again and again they pumped me full of saline and morphine. They poked and all the doctors from the first time came back and looked at me worried.

It was my mom's birthday. Chris called and left a message.

They started me on a kind of "super" antibiotic. I'm allergic to penicillian and this is a relation, but they hoped I wouldn't react. I was going to be on it for a couple days, staying in the hospital.

The surgeon explained that they were worried I was developing an abscess -- a walled off bit of infection, possibly more likely because of the salmonella I still had in my system. He said if it got worse they would treat it with a long needle inserted in my stomach or ultrasound. "We shouldn't have to cut you open again," he said.

I got moved up to the sixth floor, in a shared room this time. I was the youngest person by far in the room and everyone else seemed far sicker. My parents came, Chris sat with me, everyone looked worried, but less worried than on Wednesday.

They kept on with the morphine until Monday.

By Monday morphine made me feel like my head was collapsing in. I was reading a book called Einstein: His life and universe. It was like feeling the atoms of my body collapsing in. Everything kept going dark. I don't know how you could get addicted to that feeling. It felt like I no longer existed. I wanted to be better.

Appendix-less

So here's the silly story of why I've missed yet another month of work, am hanging around in pyjamas and can't stay awake for more than 4 hours or walk for more than 15 minutes.

My hand, still sore and swollen from the IV, isn't as red and I can type two-handed easier.

I woke up from surgery and was in this wood-panelled, halogen lit recovery room. It's the funkiest room in the Richmond General Hospital I assume.

The first thing I said was "You fixed my back." It rather surprised the nurses who were under the impression my appendix had been taken out. Even in my sleepy, drugged up state I wiggled under the blankets and my back felt better than it had in years. Yes, the stabbing horrid pain in my stomach was gone, but that had only happened for a day. It was the back that amazed me.

They asked if I remembered the surgery (NO, thank god). Chris met me as I came out of the room and told me that my appendix wasn't inflamed or ruptured, it was just dead. Dead. Not really a common thing to happen, usually they get inflamed and swollen before they get taken out. He said I was lucky they took it out that day or the outcome would be totally different.

I don't remember Thursday much. Everything hurt, particularly the front of my shoulder and my belly button. The incisions really look like paper cuts in my stomach. It hurt to get up, I couldn't roll over. The nurses were great and every hour came to check my temperature, blood pressure, oxygen levels. I was on clear liquids all day. Clear liquids means soup and green jello.

When they let me go on Friday I started to cry, "I don't feel better." They checked everything and said I'd be fine. My doctor came and said it should take about two weeks to recover and get back to work.

My instructions were to return if I had a lot of pain or if my temperature was above 38.5 for four hours or more. And with that Chris took me home.

Tremor -- Wednesday June 4

My first sign this was not going to be a normal day was a tremble. As I reached out to slap the snooze button my hand trembled and I noticed it.

My back had been sore for two weeks, and I had tried everything -- hot baths, ice packs, physiotherapy, chiropractor, a new mattress. Every morning I woke up five hours after I had gone to bed with my hips feeling like the bones had been scrubbed with steel wool.

On Wednesday, it wasn't so bad but I felt so tired. I missed my bus and stooped for a black coffee before I got on the seabus. I had caught salmonella in Hong Kong six weeks earlier and had finished my antibiotics the week before. I still felt week and tired but my salmonella symptoms seemed to be gone.

The seabus closed in around me. Everything felt so old and tired. 'I'm still in my early 30s,' I told myself, 'This shouldn't hurt so much.'

Getting off the seabus I was overwhelmed with nausea. I stood on the gangway as we disembarked and stared into the water. The guards started walking towards me and mumbling. I walked over to the nearest garbage can and threw up. Then I did it again.

I have the feeling that my new co-workers are expecting me to get pregnant any day and looked around to make sure no one saw. I walked up to my desk and logged on almost robotically.

My co-worker leaned back and asked if I could help her on a project.

"I don't think I should be here, I just threw up on the seabus," I answered. I knew I was sick but didn't know if the answer was going home or going down to the medical room. My inner voice, the one who stays silent in all but the most extreme circumstances, told me to GO HOME.

And again I thought of staying at work for a bit and got anotherr GO HOME.

So I stood up, told my coworkers and my boss and left. I missed the seabus home and ahd to sit in the waiting room for 12 minutes. It was hot and cold and I hurt all over. I sat there wishing it would come and when I did the wastebasket called. I ran back to the bathroom and again with the throwing up.

I made it on the seabus and staked out the garbage can as if my life depended on it. My focus narrowed to just getting home. I would have taken a cab but the bus came first. The slow ride up Cambie, the urge to vomit again, getting off the bus and walking past the city workers vomitting at every lamppost.

Does it sound as bad as it felt?

Lying on the floor feeling the cool tile on my cheek I knew I had to get help. I called the doctor, got an appointment in an hour and tried to find a ride. I knew Chris couldn't make it up the hill in time and knew I couldn't drive. I called my mom, found some cooler clothes, grabbed the bathrrom garbage can and hoped.

My doctor asked about my immunizations I got in preparation for China and as I turned green and continued to use my blue garbage can. She said if the pain was very bad I should go to emergency. I nodded. She said she'd call ahead and gave me a shot of Gravol to go.

My mom and I walked to her car. We had parked semi-legally and as we came out a woman backed right into the side of my mom's car. The drama queen offender came over and started yelling at us for parking wrong. My mom told her we were going to the hospital and got her insurance info.

I remember walking in the hospital. I remember giving the lady my salmonella forms. I remember trying to lie down on the floor and the nurse wouldn't let me.

I got to a bed. I don't remember much. Chris came. My dad came. People kept coming in and talking to me. I kept asking for the "happy shot." Someone came and took three tabasco vials of blood and three big tubes. I was in isolation, everyone had to wear a yellow gown and use disinfectant.

They finally gave me morphine. It didn't touch the pain but my eyes started focusing ahead and not rolling to the back of my head. A CAT scan can be obtained very fast if you turn white enough.

You know it's bad when the three people you love the most sit, staring at you, ashen-faced and worried. You know its bad when the emergency staff won't quit poking you. Two hours after the CAT scan and no news. My dad said, "I've never seen you look so bad kid."

Seven hours in my back started to seize. I told my parents I'd be fine and they should go home.

Another doctor came in. They were trying to decide if they should operate now. The one question I answered right, "Did this just start today?"

"No," as if this morning I had been this bad. "I didn't feel good last night either."

Chris understood. "She hasn't felt well for weeks."

Another wave of pain hit me. A knife in the stomach. The doctor came back. He was the surgeon, but he looked far too young for a surgeon. "Well, the radiologist says he thinks he sees a stone and some fluid in your appendix, but I think it's the salmonella. What can happen is that the bacteria gets to your colon and you develop colitis.Your colon looks very thick. So if it's your appendix I'll have to buy him a coffee. We're going to do a laparoscopy and see. If it's your appendix, we'll take it out, if not we'll figure it out tomorrow."

Do I remember this? Like it was happening today.

He left the room and Chris told me he hoped it was my appendix.

They took me to the OR. Chris knew some of the staff and introduced me. How odd to try to play nice when you hurt so much. They gave me long green socks. I told them my back hurt.

They put the mask on and everything went dark.

Home

I am home after 10 days in hospital induced delirium.

I am typing with one hand because the other is sore from the iv.

I am bored so while I'm home recovering I will tell you my story and maybe I'll figure it out too.

Three thing you should know before Istart:

1) My great-grandfather died of appendicitis on a buckbaord on the bumpy road to the docotr. I've always worried I'd die like this too.

2) A grandfather went to the hospital to have a splinter removed and they gave him an injection of adrenalin instead of penicillian -- he died leaving my grandma a widow with four small children. Eventually in a important case my grandma sued and won a good settlement. I don't like hospitals much.

3) I hate onions and don't cry easily.

Back to life

I feel strange. Today, for the first time it felt like life starting moving at a normal pace. Until now I've felt like the world was spinning too fast and I was just hanging on.

The pace of change? Since last September I've visited Nashville, Montreal, Saskatchewan (twice), Beijing, Sanya, Hong Kong and Macau. That doesn't include a million nights in my dear Kamloops Four Points.

In September, I was working at BCLC and excited about volunteering for the Special Olympics and Editors Association. I didn't like the Editors Association experience much so I quit.

Now I'm working at ICBC and still volunteer for Special Olympics (an amazing experience though I feel like a boob for not having done enough).

I got engaged and then got married, and then got married again. It's starting to be a routine, put on the dress, put on the veil, put on the lipstick, smile for the camera. Now I've got to plan another reception in Penticton this summer.

The only thing that has stayed the same is my apartment. But no, that's not the same, my husband lives here now and my couch is missing.

I kept hoping that when I came back not only would life return to the city (leaf-less trees really get me down) but that I would have more time and energy.

But on coming home I find that my new job, while slightly better paying and in a nicer location, isn't what I had expected. I find myself missing my friends at BCLC. I find myself feeling very much like a co-op student ( I don't know if you are supposed to tell your boss you aren't doing anything and feel like a student, but I did!)

I also have been sick. I got sick in China and just didn't fight it off. Now everyone automatically assumes that when you come home from your honeymoon and are nauseous you have "Egyptian flu" but I assure you, I'm not going to be a mummy!

I finally went to the doctor and found out that I have salmonella, something you usually fight off after a week. I've had it for five weeks. Saturday I woke up with an aching lower back and this morning I couldn't get out of bed. Ah, that's what husbands are for "Chris, lift me up. I'm stuck."

I felt like a 90-year-old grandma. In fact I feel like my grandma who now needs three nurses to lift her 98-pounds into a wheelchair.

So putting everything together, today with the sunshine and fresh air was just what I needed. Lying down KILLS, sitting down hurts, but walking isn't so bad. So we walked and walked and eventually I started to feel a bit better.

It feels like life is starting to move slower. I know I have a ton to do, but I'm getting there. I'm coming back to life. I'm feeling a bit better and a bit stronger every day.

Observation

As the internet becomes more a part of everyone's daily experience, internet cafe/usage prices in public places are going up.

Case in point the "business" centre where we are paying about $15 an hour. So I'll be breif and save the long version for my notes to be copied when I get home.

We're in Beijing and tired from all the walking and beautiful sights we've seen. We've stooped and gone to KFC and McDonald's but in our defense our stomaches are trying to cope with "travellers tummy."

I'll write more when I have time or money, or both.

Holly