Day 6 - Day After Surgery (Oxygen Issues Again)

This marks the sixth day of my hospital visit. I'm waiting on the lab results to see if any of my enzymes have gone down. My side is still in some pretty bad pain from yesterday and my throat is sore. I hope they feed me today. I'm really REALLY hungry. Also, I have a fever but my blood pressure went down to 127/80. That's good news! Hopefully, it will stay down. It goes down with the pain medication. I don't think they'll send me home today but I'm not sure. They want to make sure that I don't develop pancreatitis.

You can read more about Pancreatitis HERE.


I was able to catch a couple of cat naps last night but woke up to horrible pain. I'm really exhausted. I'm hoping that when I get my Dilaudid and my Phenergan in a hour that I'll go to sleep. I think I'm going to stay up for a bit and see if food comes.

I think I overheard them saying in the surgical room last night that I could resume a liquid diet this morning. I thought I also overheard them saying when they took the breathing tube out that I stopped breathing for a few seconds. They had to put a breathing tube in an sedate me completely for the procedure because I had been vomiting so much. The anesthesiologist said that he didn't want me to vomit during the procedure and then drown in my vomit.

I'm not sure if I really did hear that or if it was imagined. I imagine it was true because they put me on more oxygen and kept me on it. My oxygen levels did go down to 80 day before yesterday. I wonder why it keeps doing that? It's worrisome. So, I have to wear oxygen all of the time now.

Right now, I'm just anxious. I'm scared about classes, I'm scared about the future, I mean, what if this isn't the solution? What if I keep getting liver stones? I also don't know what to do about the gastroparesis. I'm going to ask my doctor today if he found any results from my Smart Pill test later.

I need to make a follow up appointment with my knee doctor. Next up, is the trial surgery. *sigh*


UPDATE: The doctor just came in to talk to me about my ERCP. She said that the sphincter they were worried about was almost closed shut. When the doctor made the ERCP incision, he released it which caused all of this "gunk" to flow out of it. That included blackish looking sludge along with gravel shaped stones. So, their theory of the sphincter was right on the money. My labs are slowly going down and the doctor is going to increase my pain medicine (since I just had surgery and it's wearing off quicker now) and advance my food this evening. If all goes well, they're going to send me home. Again, they want to make sure that I don't develop pancreatitis.

I should have asked her for something to help me sleep. I haven't slept almost the entire time I've been in the hospital. I'm exhausted and I hurt. I can't get comfy. So, I guess we'll wait. I'll keep you guys updated.

Day 4 - Telemetry

The nurse told me today that I'm going to be on telemetry today. I guess they're still monitoring my heart. My blood pressure came down with the medicine from 180/117 to 123/82 today. So, that's a big improvement. I feel a little better already! The doctor came in to see me and said that they would do the procedure for the ERCP tomorrow. He said it could be around late afternoonish like 2pm or 3pm. I'm a bit nervous and scared. I hope this procedure works and that I'm feeling much better after. I have a feeling that once they go in, they won't find anything.

I'm meeting with a cardiologist today because my qrt wave is prolonged in my EKG. My nurse said that Zofran can cause this but they're keeping me on telemetry as a precaution. So, I guess I'll be able to update you more on that later.

The Cardiologist came in and told me that they were going to keep me on blood pressure medication as needed until I left the hospital. After that, I need to make an appointment with my regular doctor and talk to him about my pressure. I also am having an echo of my heart done in the morning to see if there are any concerning abnormalities. The Zofran has been stopped and I guess they're waiting for the Zofran to leave my system before they can test my heart.

The Cardiologist did say that my blood sugar was high yesterday but they reran the tests and I'm not diabetic, so that's good news. I wasn't aware that there was a possibility that I could be.

I'm still wearing the oxygen and now I have a telemetry unit hooked up to me. I'm starting to have more wires than Frankenstein! =) Oh! I also just became the mayor of my hospital on Foursquare. Sad, right?

Day 3 - Low Oxygen & Heart Murmur

The nurse just woke me up to give me medicine. Apparently, I had fallen asleep, sitting up, with my laptop in my lap at about 4am. My Oxygen intake dipped down to about 80. It's not supposed to be below 92. So, now I'm on oxygen today.

*grump*

I've called my nurse four times asking for medication. I guess when the bag runs out, she'll have to be in here eventually .... or I can just vomit on her shoes.

I'm really tired but was able to sleep some last night. I'm just tired at the moment and bored.

...and my nurse just cussed out the front desk. =)

I have been calling the front desk since 7am (because well, I didn't have to number to call her directly, so I hit the nurse call button). The front desk never told her I called so she came into my room to check on me.

I told her that I needed my medicine while dry heaving into a bucket. She got angry, started yelling, wrote her direct number on the board so I can call her directly when I need something. She then proceeded to storm out after giving me my medicine and yelling at the front desk.

She have me two Dilaudid. She said since I was written for one to two, and since she remembers me from last time, she said she knew I had chronic pain and upped the dose so it would help longer. She's a great nurse and I had her the last time I was here. She remembered me and I remembered that she's the one I can't play zombie games around! =)

The nurse got my on call doctor to come and take a look at me because of my blood pressure. It's been REALLY high. The bottom number is the 110s. So, the doctor listened to my chest and found a heart murmur. They're going to start me on blood pressure medication and take me down for a test for my heart. They're going to sonogram it to make sure that there's nothing sinister about the murmur. So, I guess that's a good discovery! I didn't know about that one.

My hospital room view.