Friday, May 17, 2013

Time to get up, get ready, and get home

So after the horrible day I had previously described I was determined to get over this and get myself up moving and ready to get out of here and go home. The day after that they came in my room in the morning to check my vitals and give me my meds like normal. This nurse said "ok Zach, we are taking the catheter back out and want you to try going on your own again today." This time, no fear, I was turning it all around. As unpleasant as it was to have it taken out again I immediately got up and did a few laps around the floor. Came back to my room, asked my nurse to get everything ready for me to get washed up, but this time I wanted to do it on my own I said, and that's exactly what I did. Got all cleaned up, Mom brought me my electric razor so I shaved my face too, was feeling great!! I remember they brought my lunch in and I was thinking ok I'll even try and eat this. Yeah, that lasted until I lifted the cover off of the food and smelled it. No thanks! I stuck with the protein shakes.  Had a few visitors come and see me that day which was nice and of course Mom and Sis were there for awhile. I took a nap a little after lunchtime and then I woke up randomly from and odd feeling...I had to go to the bathroom!! Woohoo! Went in did my thing called the nurse in they measured liquid then did the bladder scan and confirmed that I emptied my bladder out pretty much completely, success! If I had the energy to do a victory dance I think I would have done it at this point. I stayed with the positive thoughts and had a pretty good rest of the day. I was ready for the next day to find out when I could go home.  I got a really good night sleep that night, barely remember waking up at all. It was now Saturday morning and I knew the surgeon would be in to see me in the morning and hopefully give me some good news. Sure enough he came in with his team, they asked how I was feeling and all the normal questions I got. Then he smiled at me and said "Ok, lets get you home tomorrow." Yesssssssssss! Relief! I was so pumped up, this was by far the best I felt the whole time I was in the hospital. He also said that someone would be in to take one of the drains out of my side. Someone came and prepped my stuff for me to wash up again, then a nurse came in and said the guy would be in to take the drain out. I got myself situated and layed in bed and started watching some TV. Then there was a knock on the door and a man came in that I've never seen before. He told me he was here to take the one drain out, I perked up and smiled and said ok lets get this done. He got all the things ready he needed and said "ok, now try not to move, this is going to feel very uncomfortable and hurt a little." (Gulp) Ok! what the heck here goes nothing. I said go ahead and held my breath...holy shit did that hurt!! Probably the most painful experience for me to date being in there. I remember him looking at me and saying "You kind of moved a little" in my head I was thinking yeah, no shit I moved! You just pulled a plastic tube through my side I guess that was supposed to tickle?! So after that I was in a lot of pain coming mainly from my side, buzzed my nurse in asked her to help me get comfortable and gave me my pain meds and I feel asleep for a few hours. That afternoon was pretty relaxed, I was glad because they finally moved Ed up to my floor and out of the ICU. We were actually neighbors which was awesome!! I went and saw him as soon as he got settled in. I had a few more visitors come see me after that, which was nice. Mom and Sis stayed pretty late, around dinner they brought my food in. It was supposed to be a "chicken fajita salad" yeah I don't think so, gross!! I gave the tray to my mom and said make it look like I tried eating this. She threw some out and mixed the left over stuff around and shook it up. My nurse came in and said how was the food? I said, it was god awful and I'm not eating anymore of it. I said can you find out if I'm allowed to get food from the cafeteria. I heard the food from there was much better. She came in and said yes you can, you can have anything you want really. I was happier then a kid on Xmas. I looked at my sister and said get down there and get me some food please, call me when you are there and tell me what they have. She called a few minutes later and went through a list of different things. I stopped her on chicken fingers, get them and a bag if chips...Ok...what do you want to drink she said.? Do they have Mountain Dew....Yes....Done!! I was ecstatic about food for the first time in awhile. My nurse came in and said you look pretty happy..I replied "I can't wait eat!" He said I have to put a new IV in your arm. Ok, no big deal, this was nothing compared to everything else. After about I'd say his 6th attempt to stick my arm, I said that kinda hurts man. He said I'm not really good at this I'm going to get someone else to come do it. Ok, fair enough, he returned and said since your going home tomorrow I don't need to give you a new one I can just flush the one that's in your arm out now. Great flush it, I want to eat!!  She brought it up and I think I ate about 3 chicken fingers and I was full. But I was totally content and happy with that. I remember telling Mom and Chels to head home it was getting late and I was going home tomorrow so I was going to try and get some sleep tonight and get ready for tomorrow. A good friend of mine's Dad came up to visit after Mom and Chels left. I remember being very excited to see him. He had been like a father to me, since mine lived 10 hrs away this was a great thing to have. Me and him watched some of the hockey game that was on and just talked for awhile and caught up on things. I told him the things I had been going through and what progress I was making. We had a really great conversation (as we usually did) which was a great way to end my last night there. I remember getting a little sleepy and I think he was picking up on that and said he was going to get going at that point. I got up with him and walked with him over to the elevator and told him how glad I was that he came and saw me. I watched him get on the elevator, then I walked slowly back to my room with a big grin on my face. I was just about to talk in my door and then I thought I would go say goodnight to Ed. So I walked in his room (which was hotter then hell) he has the heat cranked up, but he had lost a lot of weight so I knew he was probably cold a lot of the time. Had a couple words with him, shook his hand and told him to get some rest. At this point I think I had sweat dripping from my head. I walked back to my room (which I had pretty damn cold) got in bed and went to sleep. Tomorrow was a big day and I couldn't wait for it to be here.

                                      Took this right before I feel asleep that night...ready to go home :)


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