Well, here I am… again- in the hospital trying to figure things out. Fourth admission in the last 45 days. This one was unique- was feeling pretty crappy all of the sudden, high heart rate, super high blood pressure, and a crazy bloody nose. Had the medical assistant in the building come see me and we called my primary. Decided to call ems and take a ride to the local stand-alone ER.
Doctor came in an did his quick assessment, ordered some bloodwork and tried to stop the nosebleed. Lots transpired including a ct to rule out blood clots some packing in my nose and eventually stronger antibiotics, fluids, and some pain medicine. A plan was devised to go home with close follow-up at the urologist the next day (already scheduled) and a quick pick up of the stronger antibiotic. As my luck goes, as the dr was typing my discharge papers, my medical record was flagged with a new result- priliminary results of the urine cultures from my past admission two days ago. The results were not good a
“superbug” of sorts that required iv antibiotics and triggered a sepsis alert. Obviously this meant an admission. Being that I was at a stand-alone ER, I had to be transferred to the hospital.
Without being super specific and reliving everything, a series of promises were made to me about the level of medicine that they could offer; this was not true and extremely frustrating. Given it was nighttime in the hospital, I knew I wasn’t going to get very far. Morning came and we were moving and shaking, even a transfer to MUSC was in the works. As quickly as things were happening was as fast as they were falling apart, my goal was to have a great visit with my amazing friend who brought me more things from my apartment, and then to sleep well, hopefully with the bipap. I did manage some good sleep in between the interruptions and woke feeling pretty good, considering.
MUSC was not accepting transfers because they didn’t have any available beds, so I decided to make the most of the situation and practice my advocacy skills. Then the news came, MRSA detected in the bloodstream (blood cultures started to result), new additional antibiotic, and close monitoring of vital signs and blood work. I’ve been down this route many times with sepsis- always scary, never fun, do not recommend!
After a great visit from an area priest who anointed me and then came back with Communion (so thankful!) and some good phone calls to family/friends, I had a decent sleep (thank goodness!) and woke up ready to see what the day would bring. Another new Dr., she thinks that the MRSA found in the last round of blood cultures was a contamination, not a real result and ordered more blood cultures and discontinued the 2nd antibiotic (GRR!) Now it’s a waiting game to see what will grow with the newest cultures.
At the same time, I continue to battle with my bladder. I’m now going on my third week with a foley catheter in. Dealing with continued pain, pressure, and now bladder spasms. The plan is to leave the catheter in until the UTI clears and then try a voiding trial. The hope is that I can both void and full empty, otherwise its on to plan b- lots of things have been discussed, none of which please me in the least. Then there is the issue of the large kidney stone that needs to be addressed, but that needs to be done as an outpatient apparently.
Whew! Besides the obvious of trying to make the best of this pretty crappy situation, it important to recognize the importance of trusting your “gut.” I unfortunately am rarely wrong when I think something is wrong with my body- many would have brushed off my initial symptoms that brought me to the ER, but I pushed through to the doctors that “something wasn’t right!”
Still have this feeling that I will come out ok on the other end, but something still isn’t right. Infection isn’t clearing as well as I’d like and I have a bad feeling about this bladder stuff. For now, I will visit with anyone and everyone who I can, in person or on the phone, do some writing, brought some crocheting with me, and getting some good earned sleep.
Tomorrow is Monday, which means things will be moving and shaking again after a quiet, empty weekend. Hopefully something, not too scary will grow on my cultures and I can start planning to go home to full recover. I am bummed that I had to cancel a few things that I was really looking forward to and hope my visit from a dear friend isn’t too impacted.
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