Confessions of a Starbucks addict

Not really, but it's an eye-catching title, isn't it? The story...

Thursday Kaycee came home from school and said she felt sick. Immediately upon entering the house, she threw up. She was sick for the next 24 hours.

Saturday I became sick. I threw up multiple times all day and had stomach cramps that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy....okay, well maybe *her*. :p That night, Shayna got sick and a few hours later so did PJ. I was swimming in vomit. Nice picture, yes?

Sunday morning finally comes around and I'm *still* sick. Shayna and PJ are over their troubles, but I'M STILL SICK! At around 11AM Troy tells me to call my OB since I said to him the night before that if I was still sick I'd call my doc in the morning. So fine, I call my OB.

A midwife calls me back and tells me to get to the hospital since I must be dehydrated. Plus they can give me anti-nausea meds that will help my stomach cramping. So off we go. Instead of going all the way to St. Joe's, I decided I wanted to be close so we went to St. Francis. In the ER, they sent me to L&D so the baby could be checked. His heart rate was tachy so I needed fluids before they'd send me back to the ER for the anti-nausea meds. I didn't think I'd be in the hospital long, so I let the nurse put the IV in my left hand. OUCH! After 3 hours in the L&D, I was finally sent back to the ER.

Of course, I had to wait in the ER waiting room until they could get a bed for me...ugh. Picture a woman in a hospital gown, sitting in a wheelchair, thin blanket, shivering and cramping. I'm sure that made the other people in the ER waiting room feel safe! They did quickly get me back there though.

So, I'm in ER10...a room with sad memories for me. It's the ER room I passed out in from blood loss when I miscarried once. I also know it's the only ER room where the remote for the TV doesn't work! I would have liked to watch something on TV to take my mind off the cramping, but oh well... Anyhow, after another 2 liters of fluids, this time potassium bags (not banana bags, to distinguish), some IV Reglan, 8mLs of Morphine, and another 4mLs of dilaudid, they realized that the stomach cramps weren't going away and that I was still puking up everything I drank (they let me have ice chips and water). So I was admitted to the hospital. Fun stuff figuring out where they were going to put me too...

First they took me to the L&D "recovery" section. I got all settled in a nice, private room. It was heaven, except I was sweating like no tomorrow. Then the nurse came in and told me that they put me in the wrong room, on the *wrong* floor. Apparently the L&D people don't know how to take care of sick preggo people, just healthy ones. Duh! I get transported, yet again, to the 3rd floor. That's the "medical" floor. Where I don't get the window bed and my roommate is an 80 year-old complainer. If there were awards given for the most complaintent, she'd win for sure! Especially if anyone "stole" on of the 4 chairs on her side of the room! I mean holy hell, how many chairs do you need when you have one visitor at a time, who only stays long enough for you to lodge half of a complaint to them and then leaves? And I want to know whose smart idea it was to put vomiting me into the same room with a woman who can't keep her heart rate up? I swear my little bugs were gonna be the end of this woman!

Anyhow, I was drugged up most of the time, except when the nurses were too busy chatting with each other to remember that one of their patients actually "needed" those pain meds or they'd get royally ill with the pain... Would you rather give pain meds on a schedule and not have me remind you, or do you just like cleaning up all the vomit all over the place? I did have some great nurses though. One was a guy. I think he was the one who really liked cleaning up the vomit. I wanted Katie to be my nurse all the time. Of course, that can't happen in a hospital where there are shifts...no! They took her off my side of the floor and put her on the other side the next day...that was so unfair. She was great! She never forgot a time for dosings, blood sugar checks, meals, etc. I'll get to it in the next paragraph, but she stayed up with me all night when I had to have a blood transfusion. I'm so mad that she was switched to the other side of the floor when she came back to work. :(

So some of my labs came back funky. Apparently there's this thing called an H&H...hemoglobin and hematocrit. Hemoglobin has a normal value of 12-16 gm/dL in women, and hematocrit has a normal value of 37-48% in women. Mine were well below normal. I've put a call in to my doctor to find out the exact number since I don't remember, but as I said, they were well below. I needed a blood transfusion. 2 units. Thank you blood donors. :) The type and cross match on blood was funny since I know my blood type, MedicAlert knows my blood type, the Red Cross knows my blood type, but apparently the hospital can't take any of our words for it. Yet another 3 vials of blood gone, like I could spare any! Sheesh!

Getting someone else's blood pumped into you is an eery feeling. Really, you don't feel anything, but it makes your blood pressure drop. Who knew. So while they're pumping in the new blood, your vitals have to be tested every 15 minutes. There's this whole protocol. They have to have three nurses sign off that the blood you're getting is the blood that was sent to you. Then they have to sign off that they've inspected the blood. Like they have little microscopes to make sure that the tags were sewn into the cells properly...hahah. A little bloody humor.

Oh yeah, and I forgot to mention the best part! The hospital made me take off my insulin pump! Which was comical for them when I nearly went into DKA the next morning. If I recall correctly, I was +3 ketones and my sugar was 600+. I guess they forgot that if you need a pump and they take you off of it, then you *need* a basal insulin to replace what you're missing from your pump. Idiots. I got to put my pump back on after that. Yes, I did remind them about giving me a basal insulin, but they didn't get it ordered by a doctor. Stupid doctors.

All this, and I'm still dehydrated! Ugh. My mouth is dry, my eyes are dry, my skin is dry. I was released from the hospital last night. Guess what was the first thing I did as we drove away? I made Troy pull over so I could puke. Don't want that on my new car, you know? Also, my set for my heparin pump came out while I was getting dressed at the hospital, so I put a couple of gauze pieces on it and taped it pretty well. By the time I got home, I'd bled through that onto my clothes. As I write this, it's still bleeding and it's nearing 1PM! I look like I've been stabbed again, so does my bed. :( But hey, the baby is fine. :D

ETA: Finally got a call from my OB's office... my hemoglobin was 26% and my hematocrit was 9.1 gm/dL. As of yesterday at 8AM it was 31% and 10.3 mg/dL. I still feel like crap. :( Oh, it's 4:57PM on 3/19.