Home Again!
After a day and a half in the ER, I was finally released to go home! We were at a different hospital than where my surgery was. The first day the ER bed was so very uncomfortable. When the nurse came in to ask if I needed anything, I blurted out, "A better bed!" At that point, he said, "Let me look and see if I can find one for you." Not long after that they moved us to a different part of the ER that had much better beds. That's a huge blessing! That was super helpful for me because it's already hard enough to find a way to be comfortable sleeping with my "shark bite" stitches... I dare to say the bed was even more comfortable than the ones at the Community North Heart and Vascular Hospital. The two nurses in the evening were wonderful, from getting me moved into a better bed, to explaining things to me well and she was very chipper.
Once I had the procedure to remove fluids from the space between the lungs and the membranes, they took the oxygen off me which I had been on since I got there. I ate lunch and fared well without the oxygen. At that point I think they wanted to get rid of me as much as I wanted to go home. The other issue was my having bouts of low blood oxygen. They just had me take a very short walk while watching my pulse oxygen, which was good. Then they said I could go home! My pain has been less since the fluid was removed, so I'm hoping I can start limiting some of the meds and maybe I could have one good night's sleep after 11 nights of horrible sleeping! When we arrived home, my walking on the deck to the kitchen made me feel like I did when I knew I had low blood pressure at the hospital. I get dizzy and my ears ring super loud like cicadas. I sat down and had some electrolytes, which helped. My birth mother, surprised us by buying a blood pressure cuff, which arrived today! I do need that now!
It feels very good to be home. Where Joel and I can manage the pain together!
I started the above post earlier and didn't post. I did take a shower just now and the pain is flaring again. I'm still praying for a better night's sleep. After all, I don't have have the 500ml of fluid to add pressure to my wounds. I'm so thankful we found out about the fluid, even though I was sad at the moment they sent me to the hospital again!
~Ingrid
