Mission | Ah, What a day

10 Weeks of Hell - Surgery and more

Sun, 19 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I have been thinking about writing about this for over a month. This morning I woke up and decided it was time to get it out in the air. To set the scene for this, imagine you are in severe pain with no way to understand what is happening.

What started it all

November 10, I woke up with severe pain from another intestinal blockage. This was after I went to bed on November 9th with no problems. I felt a little bad, but it was nothing abnormal. When I realized what was happening I called 911 to get transported to the hospital. They were able to get me partially easy, but after a few days, it wasn’t resolving itself. This wasn’t the normal case of these episodes, but a surgeon promised me that he would be able to fix what was happening. He told me that he was going to do it through laparoscopically, but after he got into the surgery, he had to open me up fully with a 5-6 inch vertical cut. The surgeon described my gut was in a bad state, and described the adhesions that he found as a ‘cobb-web of cobb-webs’.

Healing Journey

I woke up in severe pain on November 13th, and the only thing that really helped was Fentanyl. This was the only thing that would mostly get me at ease. While the side- effects of this drug are horrid, it got me somewhat easy. A few days later I was trying to get up and move, and I was able to make some progress with pain medications. They had me on foods within a few days as well, and everything seemed to be working ok. Little did I know that my intestinal tract was traumatized from the surgery, and when the intestinal tract is traumatized, it’s common for it to become ‘stunned’. This lasted until the first part of January, and I was in and out of hospitals from November 10th till January 17th. During this time, I was in Mission Hospital, Advent Health, CMC Main, and Mercy. I want to go into details about each of these experiences, and I will get to that later. Eventually, my intestines started working again, and my body would have changed beyond my own belief. During this time, I lost 80 lbs, and my diet was changed pretty dramatically. I’m now on mostly soft and liquidy foods.

Mission Hospital experience

While this hospital is the biggest hospital in Asheville, we need a better hospital here. The general surgery team was made up of multiple doctors, and it amazes me that some of them are very arrogant. I was on a track to get my body back to a working order, and the doctor on-call changed to the ‘head’ surgeon. This is when things went down hill fast. Soon as he got in charge again, he changed the method of treatment. While the prior surgeon had me on a path of recovery, he threw that out the window and went on his own path. This resulted in me having more issues, and the recovery was prolonged.

Advent Health

After my experiences at Mission hospital, I decided I needed to try another hospital. When I got there, they were able to get me in some sort of less pain state, and I saw the surgeon that did my surgery 16 years ago. He stated that the situation with me was to complicated, and I was needing better medical treatment than they could provide there. That’s when they were looking for another hospital that would accept me. After a few days, they said I was being transported back to Mission. This wasn’t going to happen cause I refused to go, but I had to sign out of the hospital against medical advice (AMA) if I didn’t want to go to Mission. This was a decision forced by the hospital staff at Advent Health. This is when mom was informed, and she drove from Charlotte to Advent Health to take me to Mercy hospital in Charlotte. When I signed out AMA, they rolled me out in a wheel chair without a mask to protect me from COVID into the lobby where there were COVID patients waiting for treatment. I was given 2 hours before they were going to leave me in the lobby waiting for a ride. In my opinion, this was the worst treatment I had during this time.

Mercy Hospital

When I got to Mercy, I was in severe pain, and they were able to get me back pretty quick due to all of the symptoms my body was exhibiting. I was given pain meds to get me somewhat easy, and then they started doing diagnosing of what exactly was happening. They admitted me within a few hours, and I was in a room 8-10 hours after I got to the ER. They done pretty much the same thing that Mission done; NG Tube then they done pain meds to combat the pain. Once I was able to eat again, it was pretty much the same thing that Mission did, clear liquids ramping up to solid foods. This was done a few times, and each time I seemed to handle it ok. When I got to mom’s house, things would go south quickly to where I would end up in the ER again. This happened until I was put on TPN and just a liquid diet. This allowed me to stay at my mom’s for several days. The first cleaning of the PICC line, it got infected. I ended back up in the ER with a high grade fever, and they administered several days of antibiotics. They kept me on TPN for a few days, and started me on a soft bite size diet which seemed to agree with me. They kept me until we made sure I was able to handle a few days of soft bite size meals.

CMC Main

I ended up going to this ER one time. This was an experience which was not pretty or fun. I was put in the ER triage, and ended up vomiting a lot of liquid up. Once again, I was given pain meds for the pain level I was under, and then I went through a series of waiting areas. We (mom and I) both caught COVID from this experience. This ultimately spread through mom’s house hold, my sick grandmother was there, and once they decided I was going to be admitted, I was transported back to Mercy. I ended up having COVID over Christmas, and this was the worst case of COVID I had. Ended up vomiting and diarrhea EVERYWHERE, and I ultimately ended up getting dehydrated due to all of the symptoms. I was then put in a room and wasn’t allowed to leave. Each time someone came into a room, they were covered head to toe with protective gear. This made me feel all sorts of dirty. It was amazing how that feeling spread through my mind and body. I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone.

Final Thoughts

While this experience was horrible and terrifying, it has changed me. When you are faced with what I went through, it makes you appreciate a lot of things differently. I have been told by several people that they didn’t think I was going to make it through this, which is odd to hear. While I understand where they are coming from, it’s still a shock. I have spared a lot of details of this, just to make things a bit easier to be heard. I sincerely hope that no one ever goes through what I have been through.

I will be writing another post soon about what is happening post hospital stays. With some details of what they have identified me of having.

Challenging times

Sun, 18 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

As some of you know, my nephew was in a car wreck a few weeks ago. He was travelling back home from dropping a co-worker off at Ingles on Merrimon Ave. Michael, my nephew, has been through the ringer since this, and I wanted to talk a bit about what has happened and is happening. I will also share somethings that has been bothering me. I have also setup a GoFundMe fundraiser for Michael’s expenses currently and after his discharge. You will see it attached to every page of mine at the bottom.

Michael’s accident

As I said before, he was travelling back home when he came across a hill near Beaver lake on Merrimon Ave, and he remembers that he saw headlights, then nothing else. Turns out he was in a head-on collision, and the driver of the other car was a drunk CNA. He woke up with blood everywhere, and he was in an extreme amount of pain. He had to be cut out of his car, and the first responders were surprised he was still alive and conscious of his surroundings. He was able to tell them to call his dad and his girlfriend. I haven’t been told much more about this, but just thinking about this type of situation that happened to my nephew, breaks my heart.

Michael’s recovery

While Michael has been going through multiple surgeries, and now he’s going through physical therapy. I often wonder how he’s going to be after everything is said and done. While his spirits are normally high, there are low times. I have sat with him a few times for assisting him and keeping him company, but there is a double edge sword to that, I will explain later. Last time I was up there, he was not able to get the pain medication to keep him easy, and this has been an on-going issue. While I understand that they don’t want him hooked on it, it’s still something that would help the over-arching goal of getting him better. I’m not going to say all of the bones, ligaments, and joints that were damaged, but I will say that he has a long road ahead of him. One thing that I keep my mind on, he’s going to be able to walk again, and this is a HUGE blessing.

Double edge sword

When I have stayed with Michael for multiple hours (4-5), my body doesn’t like it. When I say my body doesn’t like it, let me explain. When I get away from the room, and the situation, my body starts doing the whole pins and needles type of sensation. This is due to the amount of stress I’m putting my body through when I’m up there, I think, and then on top of the situational stress, PTSD. You are probably asking, why PTSD in a hospital. I’ve been in and out of the hospital for the last 16 years with my GI issues. A lot of these stays were alone, and I was in a lot of pain.

Hospital Staff and Skill levels

Up until 2019, the stays weren’t horrific, but since the stays are down right scary due to the lack of empathy and skills of the staff. Last I heard, the number of nurses that are travelling nurses is as high as 95% of the nurses in the hospital, and one of the nurses was complaining about how much the travelling nurses are focused on the money aspect instead of the patient aspect. This is what you get when you have a hospital that doesn’t give two shits about the level of care as to the bottom line. The last stay I had, I had to explain to them how to insert an NG Tube. This is something that should be common knowledge with nurses, and then to top it off, she wasn’t able to secure the tube to my nose. It ended up falling out, and then I had to get another one inserted. Keep in mind, the first nurses were travelling nurses, and the second NG tube was done by a regular RN. The second nurse knew how to do it, and it wasn’t nearly as painful as the first.

Conclusion

While I have ranted on about my experiences with this whole thing. I don’t want to diminish the impacts this has had on our whole family. My brother has Covid, and the rest of us has at least been exposed to Covid. This means we will not really be able to go around Michael until we are all cleared. We all haven’t sleep good since the wreck.

HCA/Mission Hospital

HCA has turned a hospital into a nightmare for healthcare. There are on-going legal actions for over-charging and monopolizing the health care of Asheville/Buncombe County. We should have some other fashion of health care that actually cares about our health.