Smokers outside the hospital doors*
Mar. 10th, 2014 05:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bending_sickleI've been meaning to write up an account of the whole hospital thingy. So here it is.
Admitted Feb. 14: Admittance. The hospital called at 11 a.m. asking me to be there at 1 p.m., so mom and I hauled ass, threw a bag together, and took the metro then the bus to the hospital. I think we got there a half hour or maybe forty-five minutes early, but it wasn't until 3 p.m. that anything started to happen and we were moved from the waiting room to the actual hospital room. This was all done on a lunch of a shared single-serving pack of chips and a handful of gummy bears. Then there was more waiting until a doctor showed up and we went off to an office to fill out the personal history thing. Then back to the room for more waiting until another doctor showed up to do the basic reflex tests (foot, knee, and finger tapping, abdomen tickling, peripheral vision, and "is there a difference in sensitivity between one side of your face and the other" and...I think that's it), then some walking tests (heel to toe in a straight line), and finally and electrocardiogram. Then thank the gods it was dinner time and my mom left and there was my first night ever in the hospital.
February 15-16: Nothing. Absolutely nothing happens. Nothing. The weekends are for nothingness. I got so bored and wandered the same four halls for a while. The food is worse than that in airlines and I like airline food. I talked a lot with the lady sharing my room, who was a darling.
Feb. 17: Routine chest x-ray, visual evoked potential test (VEP), somatosensory evoked potential test (SEP), and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The whole "being slightly electrocuted at the ankles" thing was interesting, fasting until 3:30 p.m. wasn't fun, and the MRI was the most relaxing thing ever. There was this continuous thumping like from a far-off disco, and then the occasional buzzing and clanking and I felt like I was heading down a tunnel in a train at the start, and then lots of waiting between different types of thumps, and I half-napped my way through the rest of it. I also hate the goo they put in your hair for the electroencephalograms.
Feb. 18: Lumbar puncture, fainting, and bed rest (recovering from lumbar puncture). So the lumbar puncture was indeed with the gigantic needle I'd thought it was going to be with, although I never saw it. (The doctors were all, "Oh, don't worry, it the needle like when they do an epidural" which I have no idea what that's like so not helping.) It didn't hurt any more than an intramuscular shot does, aside from the, well, the English translation is cramp, but that's not right, so let's say "sparked jolt down a nerve" sensation down my leg that I got when the needle went in and out, which startled me more than hurt. It was more scary than anything because the doctor was like, "Don't move for the love of God" so there I was curled up on the edge of the bed with a pillow between my legs trying not to breathe. And then she tells me to cough and contract my abs and I felt like an orange being squeezed for all it's worth. The whole process took a while but it was fine, and afterwards I had to lie flat on my back for at least half an hour and was told to spend the rest of the day lying down as much as possible. Aside from my back throbbing at the puncture wound, everything was shiny. Then, four hours later, a - not a nurse, a technician? a person came in to take me down for a visual field test and I was like, "...um, are you sure? I was told to do the whole bed rest thing." And they said they'd go check, and meanwhile if I wanted to be taken down in a chair and I said no because I felt a-okay (which in retrospect, maybe you shouldn't ask a patient these questions because they shouldn't be walking so don't give them the option). So the person checks and yeah, sure, take the patient down for the test, so down we go and I'm walking fine down one hall and the other and when we get to the ophthalmologist section and the person is handing over my papers my vision tunnels and I'm like "I want to sit down" and next thing I know I'm waking up from what feels like the most relaxing sleep in my life and some four people are setting me down in a chair and I've broken out in hot damp skin. So that's the third time I've fainted in my life (and I've come close a few others). So they set me up on a bed, hike my legs up, and I hear them talking that it's not the first time someone who'se just had spinal fluid drained out of them has been shipped off for a test with them like communicate with each other omg bed rest means bed rest not "sit upright for an hour taking a test that demands your complete concentration and fast reflexes". So after a while I get taken up back to my room in a chair and I feel terrible about it the whole way there like oh dear gods I can walk, I don't want to be a bother, seriously I'm fine, I shouldn't be in a chair, nobody look at me, which were stupid thoughts, I know, because I wasn't fine and I needed that chair. So bed rest happened for the rest of the day.
Feb. 19: Ophthalmologist test (partial), electroencephalography with intermittent photic stimulation (volunteer for experimental study), bed rest (recovering from lumbar puncture). So next day they tried to take me down again for eye tests (in a chair!) and I managed to do the easy short ones before I was squirming and feeling terrible and everything was horrible and was like "Guys, I'm sorry, but seriously I can't" so up again and more bed rest only with continuous headache of doom. I'd be okay if I was lying down, so there was a lot of that. In the p.m. they shipped me off (in a chair) to take part in the control group of an experimental group so yay, more goo in my hair.
Feb. 20: bed rest (recovering from lumbar puncture). Excruciating headache that didn't give a shit if I was sitting up or lying down and also nausea and me basically not eating anything all day. My parents were really worried and stressed out 'cause they were leaving the next day on a trip to cross the Atlantic.
Feb. 21: bed rest (recovering from lumbar puncture). Same as the previous day, except I got an anti-nausea shot that made me shiver and the headache eased up by late evening so I finally had a proper meal. The doctor's decided I'd do the eye tests later as an out-patient because omg let me go home.
Feb. 22: Released. The morning was spent waiting around for various papers, then I walked what felt like miles to find the hospital's pharmacy for meds, and then more walking to find the exit, and then the taxi phone number didn't work so more walking (all of this with a backpack and a bag and a body that hadn't been out of bed in a week) and finally finally people showed up at the help desk and called me a cab. The trip home was a trial because I was so tired and feeling like crap but I managed to drag my ass to the house and onto the bed by 2 p.m. at which point I had a good cry. Then I ate something, dragged my ass to the sofa, and stayed there for a few days as the moderate headache wore off and my body remembered what it was like to be vertical.
The rest of the week was spent slowly dragging my ass around more, taking very short walks to get my strength back up (I was scared of pushing myself too hard because there was no one to make sure I made it back home) and eventually I got back to my old self, more or less.
So after all this it turns out that the blind spot in my eye isn't neurological and that my nerves and brain are all dandy except for shit I don't quite understand because technical terms in Italian but basically boil down to kinda sorta epilepsy maybe. So I'm taking stuff for that which leaves me pretty drowsy (which seeing the other possible side effects, this is good, I can live with this) and will have more future appointments for follow-up and etc. So daily pill and chronic sleepiness and no booze is my life now.
Also last week I finally had the eye tests and my visual field seems to be doing better, the blind spot seems to be smaller, so... Basically we're still on the "wait and see" and the "you're not dying" pages.
And that's how things are.
Also I've done fuckall regarding the editing of draft 2 of the proposal (besides email the professor saying "yeah hi had a little hiccup but will do once I'm feeling less like death") and yeah so basically fuck me sideways.
Oh, and quick rundown of hospital life. People would come in every morning at 6 a.m. to take your blood pressure, and sometimes to take your blood, and you'd be kicked out of bed at 8 a.m. so they'd make the beds, and breakfast was a sad little cup of a beverage and dry toast with jam, and the head doctors (not the specializing-in-neuro doctors, which is what my doctor was) would come round with their little flock at 9:30 a.m. and sometimes they'd talk to you for a question or two (sometimes it would even have to do with your health as opposed to the book you were reading or to chat about curling or as they called it "stone"). The nurses, cleaners, and technicians were all darlings. When I went back for my eye tests just last week, the same guy who'd taken me down before took me down this time, and was really friendly and nice and aw. And for the record, my doctor was a darling and would listen and explain and take her time and bless. She also helped me with paperwork getting an appointment with the epilepsy people in the hospital (ah, beurocracy) and even gave me her cell number because yeah hi all alone in the house and city and /o/
* ibid song, Editors
Admitted Feb. 14: Admittance. The hospital called at 11 a.m. asking me to be there at 1 p.m., so mom and I hauled ass, threw a bag together, and took the metro then the bus to the hospital. I think we got there a half hour or maybe forty-five minutes early, but it wasn't until 3 p.m. that anything started to happen and we were moved from the waiting room to the actual hospital room. This was all done on a lunch of a shared single-serving pack of chips and a handful of gummy bears. Then there was more waiting until a doctor showed up and we went off to an office to fill out the personal history thing. Then back to the room for more waiting until another doctor showed up to do the basic reflex tests (foot, knee, and finger tapping, abdomen tickling, peripheral vision, and "is there a difference in sensitivity between one side of your face and the other" and...I think that's it), then some walking tests (heel to toe in a straight line), and finally and electrocardiogram. Then thank the gods it was dinner time and my mom left and there was my first night ever in the hospital.
February 15-16: Nothing. Absolutely nothing happens. Nothing. The weekends are for nothingness. I got so bored and wandered the same four halls for a while. The food is worse than that in airlines and I like airline food. I talked a lot with the lady sharing my room, who was a darling.
Feb. 17: Routine chest x-ray, visual evoked potential test (VEP), somatosensory evoked potential test (SEP), and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The whole "being slightly electrocuted at the ankles" thing was interesting, fasting until 3:30 p.m. wasn't fun, and the MRI was the most relaxing thing ever. There was this continuous thumping like from a far-off disco, and then the occasional buzzing and clanking and I felt like I was heading down a tunnel in a train at the start, and then lots of waiting between different types of thumps, and I half-napped my way through the rest of it. I also hate the goo they put in your hair for the electroencephalograms.
Feb. 18: Lumbar puncture, fainting, and bed rest (recovering from lumbar puncture). So the lumbar puncture was indeed with the gigantic needle I'd thought it was going to be with, although I never saw it. (The doctors were all, "Oh, don't worry, it the needle like when they do an epidural" which I have no idea what that's like so not helping.) It didn't hurt any more than an intramuscular shot does, aside from the, well, the English translation is cramp, but that's not right, so let's say "sparked jolt down a nerve" sensation down my leg that I got when the needle went in and out, which startled me more than hurt. It was more scary than anything because the doctor was like, "Don't move for the love of God" so there I was curled up on the edge of the bed with a pillow between my legs trying not to breathe. And then she tells me to cough and contract my abs and I felt like an orange being squeezed for all it's worth. The whole process took a while but it was fine, and afterwards I had to lie flat on my back for at least half an hour and was told to spend the rest of the day lying down as much as possible. Aside from my back throbbing at the puncture wound, everything was shiny. Then, four hours later, a - not a nurse, a technician? a person came in to take me down for a visual field test and I was like, "...um, are you sure? I was told to do the whole bed rest thing." And they said they'd go check, and meanwhile if I wanted to be taken down in a chair and I said no because I felt a-okay (which in retrospect, maybe you shouldn't ask a patient these questions because they shouldn't be walking so don't give them the option). So the person checks and yeah, sure, take the patient down for the test, so down we go and I'm walking fine down one hall and the other and when we get to the ophthalmologist section and the person is handing over my papers my vision tunnels and I'm like "I want to sit down" and next thing I know I'm waking up from what feels like the most relaxing sleep in my life and some four people are setting me down in a chair and I've broken out in hot damp skin. So that's the third time I've fainted in my life (and I've come close a few others). So they set me up on a bed, hike my legs up, and I hear them talking that it's not the first time someone who'se just had spinal fluid drained out of them has been shipped off for a test with them like communicate with each other omg bed rest means bed rest not "sit upright for an hour taking a test that demands your complete concentration and fast reflexes". So after a while I get taken up back to my room in a chair and I feel terrible about it the whole way there like oh dear gods I can walk, I don't want to be a bother, seriously I'm fine, I shouldn't be in a chair, nobody look at me, which were stupid thoughts, I know, because I wasn't fine and I needed that chair. So bed rest happened for the rest of the day.
Feb. 19: Ophthalmologist test (partial), electroencephalography with intermittent photic stimulation (volunteer for experimental study), bed rest (recovering from lumbar puncture). So next day they tried to take me down again for eye tests (in a chair!) and I managed to do the easy short ones before I was squirming and feeling terrible and everything was horrible and was like "Guys, I'm sorry, but seriously I can't" so up again and more bed rest only with continuous headache of doom. I'd be okay if I was lying down, so there was a lot of that. In the p.m. they shipped me off (in a chair) to take part in the control group of an experimental group so yay, more goo in my hair.
Feb. 20: bed rest (recovering from lumbar puncture). Excruciating headache that didn't give a shit if I was sitting up or lying down and also nausea and me basically not eating anything all day. My parents were really worried and stressed out 'cause they were leaving the next day on a trip to cross the Atlantic.
Feb. 21: bed rest (recovering from lumbar puncture). Same as the previous day, except I got an anti-nausea shot that made me shiver and the headache eased up by late evening so I finally had a proper meal. The doctor's decided I'd do the eye tests later as an out-patient because omg let me go home.
Feb. 22: Released. The morning was spent waiting around for various papers, then I walked what felt like miles to find the hospital's pharmacy for meds, and then more walking to find the exit, and then the taxi phone number didn't work so more walking (all of this with a backpack and a bag and a body that hadn't been out of bed in a week) and finally finally people showed up at the help desk and called me a cab. The trip home was a trial because I was so tired and feeling like crap but I managed to drag my ass to the house and onto the bed by 2 p.m. at which point I had a good cry. Then I ate something, dragged my ass to the sofa, and stayed there for a few days as the moderate headache wore off and my body remembered what it was like to be vertical.
The rest of the week was spent slowly dragging my ass around more, taking very short walks to get my strength back up (I was scared of pushing myself too hard because there was no one to make sure I made it back home) and eventually I got back to my old self, more or less.
So after all this it turns out that the blind spot in my eye isn't neurological and that my nerves and brain are all dandy except for shit I don't quite understand because technical terms in Italian but basically boil down to kinda sorta epilepsy maybe. So I'm taking stuff for that which leaves me pretty drowsy (which seeing the other possible side effects, this is good, I can live with this) and will have more future appointments for follow-up and etc. So daily pill and chronic sleepiness and no booze is my life now.
Also last week I finally had the eye tests and my visual field seems to be doing better, the blind spot seems to be smaller, so... Basically we're still on the "wait and see" and the "you're not dying" pages.
And that's how things are.
Also I've done fuckall regarding the editing of draft 2 of the proposal (besides email the professor saying "yeah hi had a little hiccup but will do once I'm feeling less like death") and yeah so basically fuck me sideways.
Oh, and quick rundown of hospital life. People would come in every morning at 6 a.m. to take your blood pressure, and sometimes to take your blood, and you'd be kicked out of bed at 8 a.m. so they'd make the beds, and breakfast was a sad little cup of a beverage and dry toast with jam, and the head doctors (not the specializing-in-neuro doctors, which is what my doctor was) would come round with their little flock at 9:30 a.m. and sometimes they'd talk to you for a question or two (sometimes it would even have to do with your health as opposed to the book you were reading or to chat about curling or as they called it "stone"). The nurses, cleaners, and technicians were all darlings. When I went back for my eye tests just last week, the same guy who'd taken me down before took me down this time, and was really friendly and nice and aw. And for the record, my doctor was a darling and would listen and explain and take her time and bless. She also helped me with paperwork getting an appointment with the epilepsy people in the hospital (ah, beurocracy) and even gave me her cell number because yeah hi all alone in the house and city and /o/
* ibid song, Editors
