I'm still TBE with an infection!
After coming home from the Kingston hospital on Monday afternoon, I was feeling very very rough, which continued on into Tuesday. I thought maybe my body is just bothered from moving around so much after on the ride home. The 2 hour drive home also turned into a 4.5 hour drive also as there was an accident on the highway. The whole way home I felt nauseous and could just not wait to get home and rest. On the way home, I was laying in the back seat of the truck, and I was so sore that I just cried which created even more pain. This was a moment where I just really felt the effects of everything that had gone on. My body was definitely feeling pretty beat up.
In the early hours of Tuesday morning, I started getting extreme hot flashes- to the point where I was sweating so much that I looked like I just had a shower or jumped in a pool. And the next minute, I was freezing cold- my body was shaking uncontrollably. So my way to sort this out was to have a fan on me along with a heating blanket on me. It actually made my body feel like a normal temperature. I know that most of you are thinking why would you not go to the hospital or call your doctor. But my thoughts on this were that I really just did not want to go back to the hospital because being in the hospital means being poked with needles every few hours, nurses waking you up for vitals every 2 hours, countless nurses and doctors asking what your pain level is on a scale of 1-10 (I hate this question), and just missing the comfort of being at home. I also did lose an ovary which means my hormones are all crazy, meaning I could have been experiencing temporary menopause.. my oncologist said this could happen. So I was waiting to see if the feeling would go away at all.
But it didn't. I felt horrible. I have never felt so horrible in my life. I felt extremely nauseous, dizzy, shaky, and just not good. I could feel my body getting weaker and weaker. I could barely walk without getting tired and everything going black for a moment. I knew something was wrong but I was fighting it. Having visitors is one of my favourite things, because it helps make me smile, keeps me busy, and it's just nice having someone to talk about rather than watching tv or listening to music all of the time. However, I really struggled with having visitors all of this week. A few times just after having a nap, I was good because I had a bit of energy. But having people over to visit took a lot of energy out of me, which stunk because I just wanted to see people and was hoping that I could get back to my 'normal'.
When I had a friend over visiting Wednesday evening, I was feeling a bit different, and not in a good way. I kept having the feeling that I was about to throw up. It sucked, I just wanted so badly to not feel this way. By the time Thursday came, it had gotten a lot worse. I had barely eaten for 3 days because I felt so nauseous and shaky and thought I would be sick if I ate something, so I just didn't eat. I also have a fear of throwing up so I was trying to avoid it. Thursday evening, my fever was spiking pretty high and the hot/cold flashes and nausea still would not go away. Yet I still did not go to the hospital. How could I be neglecting my body right now after everything!! The body is so fragile and needs every bit of love we have to give. If I could go back in time, I would have been seeking medical help sooner in the week.
Friday morning, I gave in. I knew that I was definently not getting better. I tried to eat that morning, and it just came right back up. My fever was higher, hot and cold flashes still present, nausea, and no desire to even move. My body was so weak that I could barely walk on my own. So, we called an ambulance. An ambulance showed up about 30 minutes later and they came inside, and did some vitals, in which they didn't like the numbers that showed. My heart rate was at 140, my BP at 145/123, and high fever. So back to the hospital I head! woo! haha. On my walk down the stairs with the paramedics, I accidentally said I have the worst wedgie of life right now... I totally thought I was only thinking that. Embarrassing! haha. The paramedics I got were too funny though, the guy that was sitting with me in the back kept cracking jokes and he really thought that I had no humour because I was trying not to laugh as it hurt to laugh. Don't worry, I let him know that I thought he was funny.
So I got to the hospital, and I was triaged immediately, and sent to the red zone in like 5 minutes time! I got to put on those beauty hospital gowns again too! yahoo! My nurses came in and put an IV in me, after 2 veins were blown(joys of being sick means your veins pretty much suck and just hate needles). They started pumping some fluids into me, and came and took some blood to test. Do I even have any blood left! haha, you'd never know that I used to be terrified of needles.. and I mean full on fainting when I see a needle scared) However, they took like 5 vials of blood and 2 big bottles to test my sepsis level. They also had a ECG done just to make sure my heart was okay as my BP was too high for me. When my emerge doctor came in, he said that something is definently not right. He predicted that it was either a mass growing or an abscess. I was like if its a mass, I will just run away. Lol.. I actually prayed for it to be an abscess, as weird as that is. By this time, the blood test results were back showing that everything was elevated, which meant surgical infection. And I had not gone septic! yay. So my doctor put me on 2 different IV antibiotics. He also sent me for a CT scan to see what the size of the infection is and how deep it had gone.
My doctor just got a verbal report so he was able to get the results right away. I had an abscess under my incision that was 18 cm long and 6.4 cm deep.. so a pretty big abscess, therefore making me feel like poop. It would have never gotten better had I not gone to the hospital, it would have just gotten worse. I'm thankful I ended up at the hospital for this reason. This part is a bit gross- so sorry in advance if you don't like this kind of stuff. When I got back to my room after the CT scan, the abscess which is full of gross stinky stuff started to seep through my incision as it needed to find a way out! Good thing is that this meant my antibiotics were working. At first, I felt something wet and smelt something horrible and I was like WTF... what is happening. I called my nurse in and she got excited because it was working! My emerge doctor then got orders from my gynaecologist to cut me open to drain the abscess. Yes.. when I was awake. I think my eyes flew out of my face. I was like what the heck do you mean you're gonna cut me open.. while awake! I was so scared and so not prepared for this. Thankfully, I don't really have much feeling around my incision from being cut through the nerves twice before! However, I still didn't want to watch him cut an opening in my stomach. I think I almost broke my moms hand because I was squeezing it so hard. My doctor cut me open about 2 inches and the abscess literally started to drain out like a river. It smelt so bad!! LOL. I said to my doctor.. you must really love helping people because I can't believe you don't even have a mask on right now. Side note- doctors are amazing. I've been lucky to have so many great medical help along the way. The compassion, comfort, and help they give amazes me. My doctor was pushing so hard on my stomach to help the drainage come out, and let me tell yah it did not feel nice- but I knew that it would be over soon so I just kept pushing through!
After that, the packing came. I truly never knew this was a thing. They stuffed like 4.5 ft of gauze inside my wound? Weird! and uncomfortable, but hey.. if it helps, all the power to it! haha. I was still not feeling great, and just wanted some rest as it felt like a busy day with no naps!
I finally was admitted and went up to a room on A6 (baby floor.. so much cuteness!) around 11 pm. I was sharing with another old lady... but this one didn't snore and fart all night at least :)
I woke up the next morning, Saturday, feeling good! my antibiotics were for sure helping. I had a good day Saturday and some visitors. Sunday I started to feel nauseous again, I had an allergic reaction to my antibiotic and had red hives all over my body and my head was ridiculously itchy. So they gave me some meds to help me clear that up. I was in the hospital for 6 days and couldn't wait to go home and not have to have hospital food anymore!! That stuff is literally dog food! lol. I did get moved into a private room after the first night though because they didn't want me to catch anything else so that was awesome! But sometimes I got so bored that I would count dots on the ceiling, or do the face swap with animal pictures on my phone. (I need a life)
Thanks to my wonderful, favourite nurse, Deborah, I was allowed to have a shower... being very careful of course as I couldn't get my open wound wet at all! I have never been more excited to shower in my whole life. It had been a bit haha. She was amazing, she kept saying that she hoped she didn't see me the next day, in hopes that I would get to go back home! and it kept getting delayed because they wanted me to stay on the IV antibiotics as they are much stronger. Oh well, no complains if I feel better soon :). Deb was amazing. She always treated me so well, helped me with anything and everything, was so gentle with the packing, needles and just an overall amazing nurse! I was so happy to get her as a nurse everyday! She always knew when I wasn't feeling to great and helped. I love nice nurses!! Just after I was told that I could go home after this last bag of antibiotics, my IV went interstitial but I didn't even tell my nurse! I knew that if I told my nurse that afternoon she would have to put a new IV in and I just wanted to get home now. Even if that meant my arm was a bit swollen where the IV was! haha. So I got to go home that night and I was so excited. Also, thank goodness that those hot and cold flashes had disappeared!
Also... I have created a team for Relay For Life this year! Please take a few extra minutes if you can, and read about why I relay and find it in your hearts to donate a few bucks so we can conquer cancer together! Heres the link to my page..
Thanks everyone for reading! Sorry if I grossed anyone out! Cheers!:)
Nic xoox
Message of the day: We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey. :)