Tuesday, May 04, 2010

Nothing by Mouth....

I told you in my post last night a little bit about what happened to me over the weekend -with the pain, hospitals, tests and such, but there were a few other things that happened too involving all this that were a bit funny -well, to me anyway -and yet, at the time, well maybe not so humorous either.

Or maybe I just have an offbeat way of looking at things too.

So I decided I'll break down some of the events and try -though for me, as you all know, it's pretty difficult for me to stay on topic so I decided I'll try to do these little bits in short increments to see if I can stay more on topic. How's that for an attempt at change? We'll see how it works, so here goes!

First off, Saturday morning, at the local hospital, after having been sick to my stomach a total of seven times before I got to the emergency room and then, having a cat scan and waiting and waiting to find out the results of that test, my mouth was quite naturally, extremely dry. As a matter of fact, it felt like my tongue must have been hanging out and I was like a dog, panting, wanting a cool drink.

Now I've been in and around hospitals under emergency conditions enough times in my life that I knew while they were trying to determine what to do with me, whether I would be sent home or on to another facility, whether I might possibly need emergency surgery, that no way would they even consider giving me a full drink of anything. But I got Mandy to go ask the emergency room doctor if it might be possible for me to have at least a cup with some ice chips to kind of soothe my dry mouth and throat a bit.

Thankfully, the doctor there said it would be okay and he brought me a cup of ice chips. Wow, what a huge relief that was too.

However, they also decided that I had to be transferred to the facility in Pittsburgh and when I arrived there -thirsty as all get out again -I had to cajole the nurse there into letting me have some more ice chips. So, around 1 p.m. I got my second cup of ice chips that day.

By 2 p.m., my cup was empty but I was also feeling the after effects of no sleep the night before plus having had an injection at the emergency room of a wonderful pain killer -demerol -(is that the right spelling? I dunno but I figure you all know what I'm referring to there) and I couldn't stay awake, so I kept drifting off to sleep all afternoon.

Around 6:30 or so, I woke up and again, was really thirsty so I asked the nurse for some more ice chips. She brought me a cup of ice and as she sat it down on my bed tray, somehow or other, she managed to bump the cup and the ice -that beautiful cold, refreshing ice -went flying all over the darned tray. She hurried and got some towels and such and wiped up the spillage and I figured she would also bring me another cup of ice chips then to replace the one she spilled however, I waited and waited and no ice was forth coming.

By this time there was a shift change and the incoming nurse flat out refused to grant me a cup of ice because she said my chart said "Nothing by mouth" and baby, she really was taking that order completely to heart, ya know!

The way she acted about the idea of giving me ice chips was like it was akin to giving me some Lipofuze or some stuff along those lines ya know!

So there I was until Sunday morning when finally I got my "breakfast tray" of foods they allowed me to have since I was then considered to be on a strictly liquid diet!

That little bit of jello, the tiny cup of juice, a little half-pint of white milk and a cup of coffee never looked so darned good to me! And my lunch and supper -which consisted of pretty much the same things except for those meals I also was allowed a bowl of some kind of cream soup that had been very well strained to remove any trace of whatever was the main element of the soup too also looked decent to my starving stomach by that time as well!

Okay -it really wasn't as bad as that may sound and ultimately that plus some of the meds they gave me there too somehow worked on the issues in my small intestine to allow the item(s) that were creating the blockage there to loosen up and begin to release and pass through.

Now I have to warn you here too that this might be a bit too graphic a description of things for some but it's what happens when you have a colostomy you see. Having one of those things gives you an opportunity to really see, kind of up close and personal, some things you may have eaten in the past couple of days too.

And when things began to function a bit again for me, that's when at one point I saw something that passed through me. A single kernel of corn! Can you believe that? Well, it's true but it had me thinking too, trying to remember when I had eaten corn in the past so many days and then I recalled that yes, I had added some corn to some fried rice I'd fixed for our supper last Tuesday night. Fried rice with corn you're probably thinking but I didn't realize when I started to make that dish that I didn't have any peas and carrots -which the recipe actually calls for -but I did have a little corn, so I figured heck, it wasn't much and I'd add that.

Keep in mind here I have avoided corn like the plague for the past 7-8 years because, much as I do love that vegetable, it does some not very nice things to my intestinal system and creates its own particular brand of havoc to me!

So, when Mandy called me that day, I mentioned this to her that I thought that might have been the culprit in my current medical dilemma then. She then told me that when she got home Saturday morning and removed the plastic container I had taken with me when we drove over to the E.R. -just to be on the safe side on the off chance I might get sick to my stomach again and that way, I'd have a container to use ya know (and that did happen to me in the car too) well, when she went to dump the contents then, she had noticed 2 or 3 kernels of corn in there too.

Mystery solved then, we figured.

Well Sunday afternoon a very good friend of mine called Mandy to inquire what had happened to me as by that time she had heard via the good old grapevine ya know that I was sick, in the hospital, etc. So Mandy explained the situation to her and then, my friend asked if we knew what had caused the problem to begin with and Mandy told her that we figured the culprit might have been corn.

My friend's response to that was "Well, ain't that some s**t though?"

Yep, that was it exactly!

Mandy and I are still chuckling over my friend's comment!

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