Patty's epic adventure

  7/30/24 - Tuesday  I was pretty tired today and slept quite a bit. Last night my temperature got down to 95.5 and I was sweating. It went back up to normal after a while, but it fell back down again this evening for a couple of hours. Home health came today and said they would be coming every week for a while. They gave me a bunch of information, took my vitals, and left me with the phone numbers. They said it would probably be several weeks before I bounce back. Just too much piled on at the same time. For a senior citizen. They couldn’t leave that part out. David is not feeling very well, but he tested negative for Covid. Maybe it’s just a cold. So, a husband with a cold equates to a near death experience for him. So, I have no Nurse now. Men are weenies. My blood pressure is back to normal, so that is good. However, my heart rate is still way too high and my oxygen is too low. I can’t wait till things start to even out. My primary care doctor can’t see me until Monday. Sh...

  7/28/24 Sunday  So nice to be able to get online whenever I want now. The hospital server was not secure, so I could not post. I remember when I got to the hospital and I told the doctor I went to get my newspaper and my heart rate went up to 124 beats a minute, and my normal heart rate is in the mid 50s. He said my heart is running a marathon now. Now, I’ve decided that was only a half marathon. Taking a sit down shower this morning raised my pulse to 137. Now, that’s a marathon. This is how I’m going to get my exercise. This is my new weight loss plan. I finally got some sleep last night for the first time in several days I coughed quite a bit, but it was so nice sleeping in my own bed.  I’m having a bit of trouble with my eyes. I was told I might. It’s hard to read, so I hope this doesn’t last for long. I can’t see to pluck my eyebrows, so I could look like a gorilla by now, and would not know it. I am just sitting in my recliner with a blanket on, chilling. I feel l...

  7/27/24 - Saturday The doctor came in this morning and told me I could go home today.  They stopped giving me shots in my stomach and switched me to a high dose of Eloquis to see if I could tolerate it before I went home on a weekend.  So far, so good.  I have all the drugs in pill form now and they even got me a better cough medicine.  Finally!  I had to walk with them for awhile to see if my oxygen level would be good enough so I didn't have to take it home.  I coughed the entire time, so that kept it up.  It kept my heart rate up,  too, so I was worried about that, but they didn't seem to care.  The nurse came in and told me all about my new drugs and gave me a novel to read that she had printed out for me with all the information.  I will be able to use it as a step stool in the kitchen when I'm done reading all of it.  David came to get me and I took the cough medicine and promptly fell asleep in my own bed and slept abo...

  7/26/24 - Friday I had an echo of my heart today.  Showed only a few little things that no one seemed concerned about.  When they did my legs, I was slimed from here to infinity and beyond.  My heart was just as bad.  The slime is cold and they haphazardly wipe it away with a towel and call it good.  Now, I'm laying in my bed with slime oozing everywhere.  Feels great.  If I want to get up and and go wash, I'm gonna need a clean gown.  That'll take an hour to get and then I have to hook up all these cords again.  After just a few minutes disconnected from me, the BP thingy has to be reset, so when I get back into bed, the alarm will sound until a nurse comes in to do that.  I contemplate the prose and cons and end up just laying there in slime.  I have no bathroom.  There is a toilet at the foot of my bed - in full view for the spectators in the center nurses station.  When I go pee, I position my designer gown arou...

  7/25/24 - Thursday I think I got some of my dates mixed up, but can't be sure.  Sorry. So now it’s Thursday and I get poked and scanned all day. Messages keep coming in from MyChart all day with test results, half of which I didn’t understand.  There was a steady stream of doctors from every department and several from my oncology office. They were all very nice and they all had the same questions. I answered the best I could.  One thing they all DID say was that I was very, very lucky. 50% of embolisms result in stroke or death.  I have had 8. One doctor told me I should go to Paris to the Olympics  and enter the race for embolisms.  I would be certain to win.  He was a hoot.  Now I’m getting shots in my stomach twice a day to dissolve my clots.  I’m on antibiotics via my IV drip and am taking steroids via IV. They are giving me cough medicine that seems practically worthless because my coughing is now at an extreme level. My head fee...

 7/25/24 - Thursday So, we got to the ER and the place was absolutely packed. Receptionist said that was the busiest day they had an a very long time. Great. Just great. They kept taking me back and sucking blood out of me, but we sat in that waiting room for five hours. Was so very tired and was having difficulty with the breathing.  When it was my turn to go back, the doctor said I looked worse than when I first got there. No kidding. She sent me for a CAT scan and it showed three Pulmonary embolism, and pneumonia.  I had a Covid test there and results were positive. So, it shows that I have issue upon issue upon issue. That made it a little more difficult. When I got my ER room, the doctor came in and talked to me. He said he was going to give me something for my headache and I waited for the nurse to come back. She put it in my IV and about 30 seconds later my legs started to go to bonkers. Terrible understatement.  Restless legs on steroids from hell. Then it mo...

7/24/24 Wednesday  Last week I was in Maui, Hawaii, with my entire family. It was a wonderful 10 days. The first day I got in the ocean, I swam and treaded water for about a 1/2  hour before I tuckered out. I had to walk through the very deep, loose sand getting back to the car, and I was struggling to breathe. My chest hurt and I was just hoping it was a strained muscle from the unusual activity. Turns out, I was wrong. I had a pulmonary embolism. Actually, I got three. I didn’t know it at the time, but that night I was in a world of hurt, and David wanted to take me to the local ER. I did not want to go and ruin everyone’s vacation, so we kind of kept it to ourselves. I was in pain, but I still managed. I even went snorkeling two more days. I was in the water about an hour each jump, for a total of three hours. To be honest, it was hard to hear anyone talk to me over the sound of my own breathing, so I tried to discreetly stay away from people so no one would tell me to get ...