[Counts]
WBC: 27.9
HCT: 26.1
Platelets: 36,000
[5:28pm]
Too much complaining; don't read.
I'm in a foul mood. Well, more accurately, I've been in a foul mood... for what seems like days now.
Right now, I'm playing Runebound with Liz -- so I'm definitely happy. (She's in the lead at the moment, but we shall see...)
Anyhow, back to negative vibes...grrrrrr.
So, there's just been too many minor annoyances, too consistently, and for too long now. So now I have to sleep with oxygen on? Ok, no prob. So now I have to be plugged into an O2 meter at all times -- yet another thing to be unplugged when you go to the bathroom. Ok... So now I have to have my PICC line removed because you think it might be the thing causing my low fevers? Argh! Now I have to go back to IV?!?!? After all this effort getting 4 different lines installed? Plus, my veins are all in hiding now -- how are they going to find them? Poke and play?
Then, of course, there's the myriad of side effects from the BMT. But you've heard all about those... except, I'm just about to go crazy because of this mouth pain! It's terrible! My global mouth pain is pretty much gone -- which is nice, but it didn't account for more than 10% of my mouth pain. I got this thing to the base of the left side of the tongue. It is PROFOUND how much pain can be registered in such a small space.
So, I can't talk more than a few words at a time, and always at a cost of pain...
I want to TALK! It's extremely frustrating to be around the people you love the most in the world and feeling like you can't have fun/be fun around them because you have to optimize your words to a caveman level. I like to employ wit and scarcasm -- I can't do that if the pain is too rough!
Then there's sleep. I need sleep! The nurses waking you up every 30 minutes is fine; the alarms on the IV pole every 60 minutes is a bit rough (because the nurses take 10-30minutes to get there); the alarms on the O2 meter every time you need to go to the bathroom is doable... but being extremely tired, falling to blissful slumber and waking up in under 5 minutes EVERY TIME to
mouth pain is enough to drive one mad.
I also want to EAT! I haven't eaten in forever! I want a bacon double cheeseburger, and, unlike most patients here, actually relish the thought of eating it. If I didn't have the pain, I'd eat it now!
All this... is enough to make one depressed and quite frustrated.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
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3 comments:
I suggested this before, but let me do so again. Ask someone to go to the Walgreens in the other wing and buy a tube of Orajel. It is available as a mouth rinse too. Please try it. I don't see why it would not give you some relief for the pain. I have had terrible mouth sores before and it worked for me, at the cost of a rather numb mouth. If nothing else, it might make it possible to get to sleep.
Austin,
Every single thing that you are complaining about sucks. Totally sucks. Any one of them is bad on its own, so the whole bunch of them together is horrible. And having dealt with them for so long now, it must feel like an eternity. sUcKs!
Dude, I hear you on the side of your tongue hurting. I wear braces and I got a teeny tiny cut on the side of my tongue a few weeks back. Oh my gosh! That itty bitty cut hurt like CRAZY! I felt like such a wimp, but man, it really did hurt.
I do see a bit of silver lining. Reading your rant, I get the distinct impression that your energy, spirit, wit, and strength are coming back BIG TIME! Those nurses better look out.
And doesn't everyone agree that a bacon crazing is a very good sign?
Well your foul mood can easily be explained away!!! Sleep deprivation and pain have to be the 2 worst mood makers!
This WILL pass relatively quickly (not quickly enough, I'm sure!) and you'll be back to talking everyone's ears off and everyone will look back at the time you were QUIET!
Keep counting the days - you're nearly there...........Vx
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