Resting As Much As Possible

It's been a long day, difficult and tiring. This being perpetually ill nonsense takes so much out of me. Even now my left butt cheek is sore; I think I might be developing a pressure sore down there somewhere. I'm not real sure, but then again, these days I am not sure of any health factor. I'm not sure how long I will be in here, but it feels like I might be in for a long haul.

The issue is that I have presented with multiple complaints, some of which might be linked to others, some of which might be the outcome of others. It seems my blood work is "a mess" according to the doctor supervising my care. She tells me my white cell count is too high, my red cell count is too low, and there is some sort of bacteria in my blood. On top of that, they are no longer so certain about c-difficile, even though I have all the right symptoms. In other words, they are not certain what is wrong with me, and getting less certain as time goes by.

Today began at 4:00 AM when I was awoken in ER to be told I had a bed. It's upstairs, in the Cardiac Ward. Perhaps this is appropriate as they have been monitoring my heart quite closely. They even had potassium in my IV overnight, working to keep my heart rate steady and to replenish the potassium lost through diarrhea and general illness. They were filling me with water, so much so that attaching an external catheter seems to be the best way to push water out of my system.

As soon as they got me upstairs, I noticed swelling in my left arm. The nursing team suspected that the potassium had impacted my arm, irritating the vein with the IV in it, causing the fluid from the IV to go into my muscles instead of my heart. So they pulled the IV and decided not to put another one in. Part of this decision was based on the fact that I am a "hard poke", meaning its tough to find a workable vein on me. Each IV generally requires three or four pokes to work.

The rest of my day I rested, at least when nursing staff weren't taking vital signs or asking me the same questions I have answered a dozen times already. My friend Albert brought me Timmies and a couple of Honey Crullers for coffee this afternoon. Then Tonny brought me an A&W Burger with both poutine and onion rings for dinner. It was so much better than the stuff they call food here at the hospital.

For now it's a "wait and see" game while the doctors try to figure out how to treat my various symptoms. We don't want more antibiotics with the situation in my gut. There is very little they can do about the vertigo except wait for it to go away. So I will likely be in here longer than hoped for. This is not a bad thing, the decision being that it would be better to treat me here rather than send me home and ask me to go the lab every day for tests. The vertigo shuts that down. So here I will stay, until at least we have some sort of treatment plan. And here I will rest, as much as possible.