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 around me to try and conceal what I can.  Dignity has gone out the window at this point.  I try and do things fast so I can get back into bed to connect the BP wire before the time runs out.  The bed is too high for me to turn around at sit on it when getting in.  I couldn't have anything that simple - no.  I have to crawl into bed like a 2 year old.  It's fine, except my gown is simply falling down to the bed before my body, offering little or no coverage.  I guess they get what they pay for in the spectator stands.  The worst part are all the wires.  Now, they're scattered all over the place and it appears I'm laying on 1/2 of them.  Are you getting a mental image of this?  

The respiratory therapist comes in with her apparatus from Hell that I need to breathe into - at least every hour.  Oh, joy.  I did it two times while she was there, made a very poor score and pretty much just coughed the whole time.  At least now I only have to worry about one lung, and not two.  I'm pretty sure I hacked up one of them already.

My doctor came in and told me he was going to move me to a regular room.  I wouldn't have to have so many things hooked up to me and it would be a much larger room - and quieter.  Sweet!  That was around 3 p.m., so I didn't get much rest that day, either.  After I was in the hospital, I got approximately 4-1/2 hours of sleep out of the last 60.  People, tests, noise, coughing.  Lost battle.  They couldn't get any more blood out of my arm.  My veins had all collapsed.  My IV was good and I told them just to take it out of there and quit sticking me.  Oh, noooooo.  We can't do that.  Only a nurse can.  Well, what the Hell?!?  There are nurses all over here!  Get one!  Oh, nooooo.  We're not allowed to do that.  Ok, then, well, just go away.  Really?  Yep.  This is stupid.  They left and never came back.  Now, why didn't I think of that earlier!?!  Drugs.  I was on drugs.

My new room was lovely.  It was like going from Motel 6 to the Hilton.  And, drum roll, please.... I had a bathroom right next to my bed.  I could get up and pee and not disconnect any wires because they were long ones.  My heart monitor didn't even have external wires.  It was grand.  I figured I would sleep like a baby that night.  I figured wrong. Same people coming in all night, same crap.  It was very quiet, tho, except for the sound of my constant coughing.  All.  Friggin'.  Night. 

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