I guess
the surgery went well. The gallbladder was toast and had apparently been bad
for some time and was in the process of giving me another bad attack (blocking
the bile duct of the liver with a stone) on the day of surgery. And the hernia
of the small intestine turned out to be "quite a bit bigger than
originally thought," according to the doc, who mentioned this quite a few
times to stress the point. I have pictures but I am not going to post them--gross. I left the hospital "against medical
advice" because I felt like I was no longer improving and was gong to get
worse if I stayed. My blood oxygen level was dropping little by little and I
was having trouble breathing. As well as the stress of being there was keeping
my intestines locked up (in other words, I wasn't pooing yet) and the doc was
monitoring all output so I was not supposed to flush but after the first day no
one seemed to check on the little toilet hat thing until I would complain it
was about to overflow. Problem was is that my potassium was *very* low. The doc
prescribed me supplemental potassium and wanted me to come back in two days for
a check. The pharmacy didn't have the right stuff until the next day so I put
off the appointment for another day -- from my POV I was supposed to have a
full day on the potassium before having blood labs -- and got yelled at by the
doc for not coming in when she said. The potassium prescription didn't really
work, probably because I would just throw it back up. I was having a horrid
problem with that, throwing up that is. They couldn't figure out why I was
throwing up all the time, I think it was because of multiple reasons and that
it why it was so difficult to track down. Anyway, she pretty much convinced Ron
that I should go back into the hospital, I didn't agree but he was the one
driving and the doc threatened to fire me as a patient… so back into the
hospital. By this time though, my bowels were moving a little and there was
still a no flush order. Same as before, well monitored the first day but by the
second day the bathroom smelled a bit like an outhouse in summer. I hate
hospitals. I won't even begin about the stuff I was being served to ingest. I
was released after two days but I think I would have been better off if I would
have stayed home where I was less stressed and a lot more comfortable as well
as food that I could eat. I had to quit taking the potassium because it was the
last thing left making me throw up. I couldn't take it as prescribed anyway
because it had to be taken with food and I couldn't eat three times a day and
when I did take it I would just loose it and the food I ate. My potassium did
recover anyway; I think it was because I was able to eat, finally. That and
eating lots of creamy tomato soup.
It has
been just shy of six weeks now. I guess I am doing okay. Things are hardly
normal as far as my body goes, if I stand or walk for any length of time it
feels like my guts are going to fall out. I guess that is not too surprising
considering how much my belly has been cut into but I really hope it goes away.
Eating is much easier than it has been in a couple of years, honestly, but it
makes my belly hurt for about half an hour to 45 minutes. I am still achy and
slow but I guess that is normal at this point as I am still not supposed to
lift anything plus I was a bit malnourished to begin with. I am starting to get
anxious though.
In between
my hospital stays, I used my computer to pay bills. When I came out after the
second stay Ron said the computer wouldn't turn on. This happened before, late
last year, where I couldn't get tit to turn on for days; one light would come
on and that would be it. After a few days it came back on. So we waited and
hoped, it didn't come back on. Since it was getting close to bill time again it
was decided to find someone to look at it--not a promising endeavor in this
area. The person we took it to didn't know why it wasn't getting full power and
since it was so old (five years) he probably couldn't find parts. This was
better than claiming he could fix it and screwing it up (as the last computer
person we took it too did when it needed a new fan). He said he could transfer
the info from it to another computer though. Fine. I had some money left over
from a gift from my dad months ago in prep for this or another sudden need so I
got another computer. The guy said he would have it ready by the next morning.
He didn't answer his phone all the next day. Finally at about 5:30 pm he
finally "finished" it. None of the music file were transferred and
there are a couple other files I haven't found that had been on my desktop.
Other than that I guess it was worth the $40 we paid him, at least he didn't
try to steal the old computer (that happened at another computer repair place
around here). I do not like Windows 8 operating system. It is too focused on
social networking, videos, games and other such. We do not have the internet
speed for games or streaming videos and I do not do social networking and it is
hard to get to programs installed after the computer comes home. It has tablet
computers and smartphones in mind, not to mention fast internet speed. In the
time without the computer and getting used to the new one, I have gotten even
less into sitting in front of it. A lot of it is also, probably, is that I have
been pretty much an invalid and tend to avoid people and news and other things
when I am not feeling good. For instance, I started this blog almost a week ago
and got interrupted then just couldn't manage to get back to it until I forced
myself today.
