Training Log Archive: hilarity

I am much more awake today but still enjoying the morphine delivered through my central line. I manage to count all the tubes sticking out of me. I get a few more x-rays to see if my pneumothorax (air outside my lungs) has gone away. I really hope so, cos old episodes of ER where they dealt with pneumothoraxes by stabbing patients in the chest, are running through my head.

Still thirsty. I got my first look at hospital food and sent it back in horror - white bread sandwiches with bright yellow pickle stuff and processed meat! You have got to be kidding me. My nurse understood and got me some Weetbix instead. I had one bite. It tasted weird.

Apparently someone thought it would be good to get me off the morphine and onto something else that wouldn't work. Dumb idea. I felt like an elephant was sitting on my chest and I was in tears.

The South African nurse coordinator then tore the head off whoever decided taking me off morphine was a good idea: 'You CANNOT take young women off morphine so early, they have very sensitive sternums! It will take us HOURS to get this pain under control!'.

Unfortunately she was right. They put me back on morphine and gave me something to help with the nausea and eventually I fell asleep.

C • Young woman 2

My pneumothorax went away so they pulled my drainage tubes out - these were large plastic tubes that went from my heart to my tummy and felt really awful coming out. I also got my catheter out so now I was allowed up! I walked to the toilet and back by myself (barely) and was booted out of ICU and into my own room on the cardiac ward.

I slept the sleep of the dead there, thanks to an injection of morphine in my tummy, and finally having peace and quiet.

Morphine is good. I am SOOO thirsty. If I disobey orders and have more than one sip of water at a time, I feel very nauseous. So I don't do that anymore. Some people come to visit. I am rolled onto my side which I am NOT happy about, while two nurses look at my bottom to see if I have any bed sores. I have a warm towel bath and OHH is that nice.

At some point (hard to tell, day and night are the same thing in ICU) I am woken by an old hag of a woman yelling 'get your hands off me, you're killing me'. At some other point the Chinese man next to me starts yelling at the top of his voice. He only speaks three words of English, so he just keeps repeating them: NO, DON'T, and WAH!

I get irritated and yell at the top of my voice, 'shut the f*&^ up' but sadly, the top of my voice is only a squeak and no-one hears me.

Around 11:30am some people came in with my pre-op meds, and lots of them, and by noon I couldn't have escaped no matter how hard I tried. The things I remember:
* Being lifted onto the operating table
* Looking at three VERY large lights above the table and thinking 'shit this is really serious surgery, it requires three VERY large lights'
* Anaesthetist #1 looking for a good vein and in the process removing my only ID band
* Waking up at 11pm and being aware of a large tube in my throat (I had 11 things protruding from me but I was only able to count those later)

I had to go into the hospital a day before my operation, they claimed that's less stressful then coming in the morning of surgery. Not when you get told you're sharing a room with a VERY sick old lady who moans constantly. I sat in the hall instead of in my room and waited and waited and nothing happened, didn't even have an ID tag attached.

After a few hours I discovered the patient lounge and moved all my stuff in there, and told the nurses that was where I'd be. Anesthesiologist #1 came to see me, and a nurse took my vitals, and my dinner arrived.

There was a mild freak-out level during all of this, but by 8pm I was in tears. At 8:30 I told them I was going home. Only then did they decide I could have my own room without a near-dead roommate.