dihenry's Journal

so its 4 am last Tuesday...

I have to pee so I carefully get in the wheelchair and wheel myself to the bathroom...  I then use the grab bars in my bathroom to stand and pivot like I did the previous 3 weeks when I had to go to the bathroom and then....

I feel my left leg giving out on me...  I try to use my upper body strength and my right leg to save myself from falling to no avail...  My right leg at this point is doing more harm than good.  My left ankle is twisting underneath me and bam I am on the floor.  OUCH!!!!

I try to get back in the chair...  not working...

I try to use the grab bar to at least get on the toilet....  definitely not working!!!

So now I am panicking...  I pee my pants and realize that I probably did something bad...  After a good cry I realize that the only way out of this situation is to figure out how to crawl out to my cell phone to call 911...  I carefully move my feet out from the other side of the toilet and my ankle and left hip are screaming at me to stop....   I see the pile of dirty clothes that I left in the bathroom.  I grab a couple pairs of dirty shorts to cushion my left hip and ankle and unlock the wheelchair.  I push the wheelchair out of my way and carefully butt-scoot out to the kitchen.

Ouch!

Its now about 6 am....  I call 911.  Some policemen and other people come to the door.  They make sure that basically I am not having a heart attack and then call the CA on duty to open my door.  They unlock the door and come in...  They lift me back into the chair for the time being until the ambulance gets there.  I use this opportunity to test my hip/ankle and try to put some pressure on it to help the firemen and police lift my lard butt back into the chair....  OUCH!

They put me on the stretcher and haul me away in the ambulance.  They gave me some good drugs in the ambulance!  The ER doc examines me...  My hip gets xrayed.  ER doc says I am good to go home....  not broken....

No NO NO!

I told them that I was just in the hospital last month due to a flare and that I wanted them to call Doc K.  The ER doc told me that he didnt want to call the neuro because basically he "knew what they were going to say" and "they would accuse him of wasting their time."  Flippin idiot!!

So I talked to the social worker for a while and then she went to talk to the ER doc.  They talked to Doc K shortly after that and they admitted me. 

Doc K figured a few days in the rehab unit would be good for me.  Of course due to insurance issues they can't just wheel me to rehab.  They have to admit me to the regular hospital until they get the ok from the insurance company. 

The first day of this it took forever to get my pills ordered and my ankle/hip prevented me from doing a whole lot.  It took 2 nurses to help me pivot to the commode.  After that they decided that the best way to go...  especially at night... was to have a bedpan there.

There was some light PT and one of the other docs ordered me a boot for my ankle.  It helped for a little bit, but it was awkward having a boot on one foot and a sock on the other...  I was not balanced!!!

They of course drew blood and discovered some type of infection.  They wheeled me down for an xray of my chest to make sure it wasn't pneumonia...  It wasn't.

The physical therapist noticed that my leg was really warm and red.  I was wheeled down for an ultrasound to rule out a blood clot...  It wasn't

They started me on an antibiotic... probably spelling this one wrong....  Keflax???  I digress...  and my legs were burning so bad that I had to have ice on them practically all the time just to keep comfortable....  The technical term for what I have is cellulitus....  a nasty skin infection that causes burning, heat and redness that is I guess pretty aggressive...  Note the word HEAT!!

My theory on this is that I would have been ok if that infection wouldn't have started to set in.  I would not have fallen if it weren't for the infection....  I would have been ok if it weren't an infection that causes heat.....  Did I forget to mention heat!!!

I ran my theory by Doc K and he said I was probably right....   Wow!  I was right??  and especially coming from Doc K thats a compliment...

See Doc K is a older guy...  my guess by seeing his degrees on the wall in his office would be like give or take 63ish....  been doing this for awhile....  Everyone I have talked to raves about him.  I like him as a neuro overall....  I dislike the fact that he is extremely conservative with meds.... especially the steroids...  His communication style takes some getting used to also.  I remember when I first started going to him I used to get pissed because he would all of a sudden leave the room before I got done telling him all my ales....  The thing I realized though is that he does listen and he does try to help even if he seems like he is just being strange or arrogant.  Most of the time when he all of a sudden left the room it was because he was going to get me some steroids ordered.  Smart guy.... 

But most importantly....  HE LISTENS!!!!!

Ok so back to your regularly scheduled hospital story.....

So I got to the rehab unit...  my ankle gradually got better.  My legs burned and burned.  I had to sleep with a blanket on the top half of my body and ice packs on the bottom half in order to keep the legs from burning too bad and to regulate my body temperature.... I did the 3 hrs of OT and PT a day after I got down to the rehab unit.  I relied on ice and ultram to keep me from hurting too much.  I had a couple bouts of explosive diarhea due to the antibiotic.  I also developed a yeast infectiion on top of it all.

I was just released from the hospital yesterday.  My legs are still burning.  They switched the antibiotics that I take and I have to be on the other for the next week.  I am SOOOOOOO glad to be home right now. 

I switched the classes that I am taking this semester to online.  That way I don't have to go outside right away.  I can ice and take care of business all at the same time....  needless to say I cannot tote my freezer to class with me...  I don't think the Heartland van nor the university would appreciate that one too well...  lol!!!  Wait a sec...  I can't even lift my freezer lol!!!

I wish that this were all over and I can return to my regularly scheduled life.  Sugarland is coming to Ames Sept. 17 and Jeremiah put me down to work the concert because we were thinking at the time that I would be better by then to at least kind of hobble around and help out with traffic in one of the easier jobs.  Daughtry is coming sometime in October too...  I hope I can return to work for the Daughtry concert especially...  Getting paid to watch most of the concert when everyone else pays 40 bucks or so for tickets...  I like that idea lol!!!

I hate my wheelchair....  its fancy shmancy blah blah lightweight gonna throw me out at any second because the idiot that delivered it didnt know how to adjust it.  Um..  ok so that sounded bitter... lol

So ultimately its just one of those gotta do whats best regardless...  Hopefully I will be walking again after a while.  But meanwhile the hospital has ordered a whole bunch of stuff that I don't even know....  Home health aide??? um really don't need that unless they are going to clean my apartment for me.  I need physical therapy....  maybe a maid, but I don't think that my insurance will pay for a maid.  What did they expect me to do????  not shower for 3 days... NO!!!!  I can shower and dress myself thank you very much!!!!!!  Idiots!!!  I am not that disabled yet....  The intention is to get rid of this infection and then get rid of the wheelchair!

I will do that...  Tysabri will work for me...  It has to...  I want to be skating by the time I am 30 not in a nursing home by the time I am 30...  Is that too much to ask???