I am at a loss.
I came home from the hospital on New Year's Eve and within 2 hours of leaving, things started going in the wrong direction.
I started having complications related to my bleeding and my intestines.
While a quick call to my doctor (and Cristel and Ruben) proved to provide a resolution in a few days of the intestinal issue, the bleeding issue was still there causing an unbelievable amount of pain.
Initially, I tried not to freak out about the ever growing ball of fun that had become my surgical site, but when my legs started turning yellow, I called my doctor.
Unfortunately, I found that he was on vacation.
Dammit.
(Not that he shouldn't take a vacation, but I was admittedly disappointed to have to deal with someone unfamiliar with my case.)
When she (We will call her Dr. Incompétent) called me, she actually seemed very proactive about a resolution and ordered me to the ER immediately.
She was afraid that they would need to cut me to get the blood out and wanted it done ASAP (and before the approaching snow storm).
Her urgency both freaked me out and comforted me all at once.
I arrived and went through the drill at the ER.
They checked my ginormous lump, doped me up on morphine, and sent me for a CAT scan.
Yvette came to sit with me while Jay rode his bike over so that we only had one car in the lot.
The CAT scan showed that I indeed had a ginormous lump. (So weird, because you could actually see it, sooooo...)
Anyhoo, the CAT scan told them little else other than I had fluid there.
(Derrrr.)
Jay left to pick up The Sass while I awaited the doctor to come and "visit" with me.
A very nice doctor came to discuss the situation and told me how he would like to proceed.
He wanted to cut me open and get that mess out. They just had to figure out whether or not to admit me.
He had me wrap my head around the fact that whether in-patient or out-patient, they were cutting into me to resolve the issue.
I got busy wrapping my head and did a fine job as he left to confer with Dr. Incompétent (Isn't it cute how that word is pretty much the same in many languages?).
I coordinated the plan with Jay, who gathered my things in my backpack in case they decided that admitting me was the best plan. He and The Sass grabbed some sushi-to-go and edamame at Whole Paycheck and headed back to the hospital.
Something happened between the time that Dr. Nice spoke to me and returned after speaking to Dr. Incompétent.
I think she "pulled rank" or some such crap, because when he came back, the plan was drastically different and opposite of what his plan had been.
Now they were not going to cut or even aspirate the area. They were going to draw a specimen and send it to the lab and send me on my way to follow up with Dr. Incompétent.
WTF?
Soooo...I just sat here for 5 hours (having been sent there by Dr. Incompétent to be cut) and now that everyone agreed that I needed to be cut, they were not going to cut...but she *might* do it when I follow up with her in 48 hours when the results come back.
Needless to say, I was displeased by the sudden change of plans and lack of resolution or pain relief.
So they gave me antibiotics for the infection that they told me they may have caused by injecting the needle into the site and gave me some meds to assist with the nausea, patted me on the head after mumbling something about "the system" and sent me on my way.
Dr. Nice did not appear happy.
(I will later find out that because he did not agree with Dr. Incompétent, he chose not to tell me what she wanted me to do...so of course I didn't do it.)
Good thing, because on Friday, when I followed up about my test results and a time for her to cut me, I found out what Dr. Incompétent (aka Dr. Crazy/Lazy) wanted me to do.
SHE apparently wanted me to get "aggressive" with a Q-Tip and hydrogen peroxide (her own words) and force the stitches to tear so that the blood would drain.
(Ummmm...raise your hand if that sounds like fun or even remotely sane to you...)
Being unaware that I was not given those orders, she was frustrated that I expected her to actually do something to remedy the situation. However, she hesitantly allowed the receptionist to schedule me in and I was specifically told that she will cut me and drain the blood.
I was ordered to take a Percacet before coming in.
(Jeeze, I hope they are going to rely on something stronger than that before slicing in...)
As Jay and I found out a few hours later when she had me lie down on the table-of-hell, she had NO (read "ZERO") intention of numbing the site.
Wow!
Really?
Yes, really.
Also, once there, she informed us that she had no intention on following the plan to cut me and she was also not going to aspirate.
She did not look at my file to see whether the results from the culture were back and decided that she was just going to rip off some steri-strips from the stitches and go nuts with a Q-Tip and hydrogen peroxide.
Let me state for the record that Jay and I have never communicated so efficiently as we did in that one silent moment in which without my saying a word or inciting violence, he understood my fear, pain, frustration, and anger and immediately was at my side.
The tears slowly ran down my face as he gently played with my hair to relax me as this nutcase (who may have had one too many Prozac martinis prior to seeing me) got aggressive with the Q-Tip and attempted to dig through my healing skin to rupture it.
*Cory mentally flips through imaginary Rolodex of attorney's and known assassins*
Dr. Crazy/Lazy is actually surprised that the Q-Tip is not a very effective weapon and seems to look to us for guidance.
I swear to you that at that exact moment I:
A. was super happy that Jay was there as a witness to this crazy mess, and
B. started mentally drafting this blog because it was so fucking entertaining...if it wasn't happening to me, and
C. started to sweat because it was a very "National Lampoon's" experience...
At this point I just want to get out of there alive, and not in hand cuffs or a straight jacket. So, I calmly explain to her the aspiration process, in the hope that she might adopt a more "normal" approach to this "medical practicing" she was doing on my person...
She is unsure that they have the correct syringe at the office, but she goes to check and Jay is frustrated that I gave her the aspiration option because he wanted her to do the right thing...
I explained to him that she clearly wasn't going to and that at this point I didn't actually want the wacko slicing into me like a lime on a bar top.
Once he noodled on that for a second, he had to agree.
Dr. Crazy/Lazy came back with a syringe that she "hoped" would work, but she still was not going to aspirate.
*Jay and I looked at each other in confusion*
Nope. She was going to ignore the aspiration process and use the needle to pierce a hole in the site.
(GOOD TIMES!)
I felt like a guinea pig on a 7th grade biology table.
FUUUUUUUCK!
She clearly was unprepared (or experienced) for what would happen when she popped a hole in my bloody parts.
(Did this woman never have balloons as a child? Was she once some crazy kid who received a doctor's kit one Christmas and locked onto it like a fat kid locks onto chocolate cake and simply decided it was a good career path for her?)
The look on her face was one of pure demented fascination as the geyser of blood erupted out of my site.
She seemed to have stopped blinking and it was as if she was awaiting a show to begin...
She snapped out of it and grabbed some gauze and tried to mop up the mess.
She soon ran out of gauze and thinking economically (because it sure as shit wasn't sanitary) she grabbed paper towels out of the dispenser and dragged that nonsense across my raw and now open incision.
I'm fairly certain sand paper would have felt equally as good...
Seriously?
Paperfuckingtowels, Lady?!?!?
Bad. Cheap. Hard. Rough. Made-in-China-stored-in-boxes-with-roach-terds-rat-hairs-and-other-little-buggie-things.
Ewww.
Soooo, it's a good thing that the ER had already hooked me up with antibiotics for the infection they may have caused, because they sure as shit didn't see this screwball coming...
I felt I had to make a joke, so I asked her if she thought that printer paper might work better.
She told me that I could hit her after she was done.
Jay advised her not to say such things and I secretly wished that I had recorded her saying it so that I could just smack her a good one.
She slapped a maxipad on the situation and because I was bleeding so much, she also took an examination gown (the really cool and rough paper kind) and rolled that up and shoved it down my pants *in case* I bled through.
Hmmm...
I don't know about you, but I know that during this experience I developed a new fun game for people to play...
It's called "Third World Country/American Healthcare System/or Hell"...
Just like that, she was done with me.
She told me to double up on my pain meds and to sit up rather than lay flat so that the blood did not accumulate at the site.
She let me know that she would be on call all weekend so that if I needed anything, I was not to hesitate to call her.
(Yeah. Sure sister. You're the first person I would call right after heading to the neighborhood Wal-Mart to purchase an adorable shotgun to blow your effing head right off. Psycho.)
She gave me a virtual slap on the arse and sent us on our way.
Between the office and the door to the parking lot (which was one elevator floor down), I bled through.
Jay and I were super excited by this.
I leaned against the wall while he ran for the car and damn near carried me to it.
I wanted to scream but no longer had the energy.
We headed home and decided that a nice hot caramel apple cider would be lovely, so we detoured to the local Sbux for a little cup of relaxation.
As we headed home from Sbux, a sharp and curious pain shredded me and splattered my guts all over the windshield and I died.
(OK, that last part did not actually happen...derrrr... but it felt remarkably close to that and Jay had to pull over and help me with the site.)
WTF did this woman do to me?!?!?
I felt like I had just had a back alley abortion and part of the wire hanger was left behind as a cute little souvenir...
Home we went, as neither of us trusted her and neither of us trusted me to be in the same room with her again.
I will summarize the rest to say that her stupid plan failed. FAILED!
The blood continued to collect at the site and cause more pain.
The next day (by classified means) I had the site punctured and drained again and then I had to do it again myself (with Ty and Jay as my assistants) on Sunday night.
Each day was getting 40-50 cc of blood.
On Monday, I was back in the office to see my REAL doctor (Dr. J.), who without even asking, knew something had gone wrong (more than the chart documented) and he was not pleased.
I gave him a brief summary without throwing his attending assclown under the proverbial bus too much and he was not remotely surprised that I opted to drain it myself rather than call Dr. Incompétent.
Interestingly enough, his plan of action was the same plan originally agreed upon in the ER.
Hmmmm...
Sooooo...he cut me open and in went the wick (5 days after the ER visit).
Wow! That feels good! (NOT!)
He looked so damn apologetic about what had happened that I couldn't help but smile at him and let him know that I was OK.
I am now going back every other day to be drained and have the wick changed.
On Wednesday, we realized that the wick was not working, so I was cut again and different wick method was used.
It's a lot of fun.
I really like the new and fantastic hole that I have in that area.
I have of course started draining some on my own because the pain is pretty effing ridiculous and on the shallow side, I am also pretty much over looking like I have a goddamned F.U.P.A., dammit.
I'm like my very own blood fountain. It's pretty adorable.
Last night I crawled into Dr. Tim's so that he could work his pain management magic on my sorry ass.
Dr. Tim is the shit.
He treated me and put me to sleep (something that happens when he releases my pain) and I was a whole other person when I walked my sassy ass out of there.
Last night, Jay and I drained a helluva lot of blood out and I tried to hold it together emotionally about how fucked up this all is and how much I hate that he has to see this mess.
Today I awoke and was able to stand up immediately without Jay's assistance and the color has returned to my face.
For the first time since the morning after the surgery, I feel like myself.
Hopefully I can dazzle Jay with some of my re-found spunky "ME-ness" and make him forget that his girlfriend is a bloody fucking candle...
I mean, I don't mind if he lights my fire and all that, but seriously, I don't think the wick is really going to help with that.
*giggle*
