i finally arrive in LA a week and half ago when a few days later BAM!!! i’m so sick (fever, nausea, pain-to-the-point-of-cutting-my-stomach-open cramping, vomiting, diarrhea, headache from hell, body aches) that i can't even keep water down let alone take my life-saving medications. having to take 40+ pills is daunting as it is but try doing it while nauseous and you are seriously praying to every god there is while bent over the porcelain-"thrown" (as i was "throwing" EVERYTHING up including my reproductive system). i even promised to stop swearing if the pain went away....unluckily (or luckily) the pain continued so i can still friggin’ swear all the hell i want…especially while i’m in pain. :-)
i finally gave in after a day of hell and went to the ER of my hospital (cedars sinai). you know that you’ve been to a hospital too often when as i roll into the ER unit and the docs and nurses call me out like Norm on Cheers. JayLOoooo!! for once the JLO worked to my advantage as it got me an ER bed almost immediately. my moaning, rocking and the gray cast to my face might've helped as well.
after stabbing me repeatedly trying to find a vein to get the IV started, the ER folks finally got the nausea and cramping under control. next, they send me to ICU as my immune system had been severely compromised by not being able to take my meds for over a day…and there were WAY too many sick people around me.
ok….next i have 1001 docs checking me out (not THAT way) asking me the same frickin’ questions over and over (have you visited any foreign countries? did you eat any tomatoes or raw fish? na-duh! hello! isn’t in my chart that i’m anal and follow the rules as the nuns of sacred hearts academy taught me! i know i can no longer eat raw fish or meat and have to wash all fruits and veggies. it’s ingrained in my brain now, med-folks.). they all wanted to test me (kidney doc, spleen doc, cardiac doc, intestinal doc, center for disease and control doc, hair doc, doc for my big toe, etc) but were vague on the details of the actual tests. they would say “we wanna do a CT scan and take some samples” and my interpretation to this was a basic CT scan where i lie down and get scanned with a big machine which would take 15 minutes max; and then take some blood samples. BUT NOOOOOOOO!!! i assumed incorrectly. bad jen….bad bad jen.
by now i’m severely dehydrated from the past day and half of losing liquid from all open orifices of my body. i was not allowed to drink anything at the hospital 'cause they weren't sure what was causing my issues. BUT i was given an orange solution with ice to drink that was "contrast" so when they did the CT scan my innards would light up. i was grateful for finally getting something to drink even though it tasted like crap, as the IV fluids were doing nothing for my dry mouth and throat.
i get wheeled into the CT scan room and proceed to switch myself from my rolling bed to the scanning bed. i’ve done this so many times that i practically levitate myself from bed to bed with no effort at all and no loss of gown either. once i got situated the voice from above (intercom dude who gives you directions on breathing and such during the scan) tells me to please turn on to my left side. wow….that's different from my usual chest scans but thought maybe they wanna see my intestines from all sides.
all i can say is that i was thankful for the morphine they had given me to prior to the scan ‘cause the next thing that i knew some asian dude nurse with no sense of humor tells me not to push out. i’m like “push what out?” and then the next thing i know i’m getting something shoved into my rectum…yep…my rectum. so, of course not being prepared for this i start pushing out and the dude-nurse is yelling at me in a heavy vietnamese accent not to push out. i tell him “sorry but it sort of hurts and i wasn’t prepared.” he tells me “good.”
good? good??!! what the hell does that mean? then he tells me i’ll start feeling some discomfort as the enema starts up. WHAT?!! WHAT FRIGGIN’ ENEMA??!!!!!!! before i could even ask what the hell he was talking about…the enema starts and the “some discomfort” was majorly understated. i couldn’t even breathe. i started panting like i was in labor…and then the cramping started. it was so bad that the morphine was wiped out of my system immediately. i mention to whoever could hear me that i’m cramping painfully…and again i get the “good” as well as “it won’t be long. about 5-10 minutes” (use heavy vietnamese accent at those quotes). bullsh*t! not long is 1-2 minutes. then they tell me i can lie on my back. AND PUSH THE BIG-ASS DEVICE FURTHER IN ME?! nuh-uh!!! i tell them i don’t think that’s gonna happen but asian nurse-dude is persistent and pushes me on my back. ooooooh, I would’ve smacked his vietnamese a** back to
and then the scan begins…and ends eons later. i was actually grateful to the nurse dude by then for removing the item from my behind. as they wheeled me out i suggested they should warn a person before violating them….or at least give them a higher dosage of pain meds.
the wait for the results now begins. the docs had no idea what was wrong with me but there was talk of removing my appendix, which thankfully i had a scar to prove that it was removed since they had no record of it at this hospital (got it done in
then there was talk of removing my spleen or maybe the top half of my colon. wtf!!! i was trying not to freak out as they still hadn't finished all the tests yet. how the hell can they even think about operating when they have no idea where to go. i blame the bad economic situation that has made these docs desperate for income. compared to 2nd and 3rd world countries…americans are pretty healthy. so any operation they can get away with...i guess they'll try to do. i say this only because there really was no reason for the removal of my appendix when it was removed; and because i've received bills from doctors i have never seen but apparenly have read my chart and wrote it in. thank goodness my regular docs and specialists (raissi, czar, shirvani and schwartz) aren't money-grabbing medical whores (MGMW) and at least come to visit me or answer my call for help IMMEDIATELY. i at least wanna see the docs to know whose kids i'm putting through college.
now after the MGMW visit, in comes a bunch of nurses who are now gonna take some samples that the MGMW ordered. i get my arms ready (it helps to flex your muscles just before they attempt to draw blood. makes your veins stand out and makes it easier for the nurses to not jab you a gazillion times.). they take my blood and the next thing i know they are asking me to turn on my side. HUH? WHAH? hamadahamda. flash back to paragraph 5. what the hell is going on? i’ve learned my lesson and asked them why they want me to turn. they cheerful said they need an anal swab. freakin’ great. whimpering quietly to myself, i turn to my side...and i can’t even describe that bit of fun. so onward.
two days go by with negative results from most of the tests when finally i got a positive hit: salmonella poisoning. See this site for further info: http://www.cdc.gov/nczved/dfbmd/disease_listing%20/salmonellosis_gi.html
at least we had an answer and now they can focus on giving me one antibiotic instead of the 50+ they were dosing me with by the hour. they don’t have clue on how i got this infection but it warrant severe treatment since my immune system is so compromised. if the infection had gotten into my blood stream it would have caused my new heart to start rejecting and i would need another transplant. the docs and i went round and round on what i ate since i arrived in LA and what i had in
they move me down to the cardiac unit so that MY docs (raissi, czar, shirvani and schwartz) can have more control over my care rather than the ICU MGMW. apparently, hospitals work just like the government. my docs would have to get permission with the supervisors of the ICU before they can do anything to help me which caused a lot of delays. the nurses really understood my frustration as well as my docs since the residents were all brand new in ICU and were writing up tests for me that i was not allowed to have because of my dissection. AND they wanted to put more IV lines in me that would hinder any further cardiac exam in the next month. not good.
oooohhhhh…those dumba** residents (DAR) were asking for a smack down. they would come into my room and would say “tell me your story.” i would look at them and say where do you want me to start. their response would be from the beginning. i was so tempted to pull a "Goonies" and the "Jerk", and respond with “i was born in 1970 to a poor portagee family in
i finally get on the cardiac unit floor which reunited me with nurses that took care of me during my recover post-transplant. talk about PAR-TAY!!! not really but it was good to see them and be able to thank them for all their hard work last year. one of the nurses fell in love with my PEBL cell phone last year, she had her hubby get a pink one for her. she had fun showing it to me.
it was even good to see the filipina nurse i had last year that i could never understand. she has a really really heavy accent and i grew up in Kalihi where tagalog and ilicano was the first language. thankfully, she understood me when i said i was in pain...and that's all that mattered.
i am now back in chino hills at my friend's home recuperating. talk about wipe-out. this is NOT a diet plan i would recommend. i would rather have my chest reopened than have salmonella again. so...wash your fruits and veggies and cook your food thoroughly!
