The Long Way Home

I got to go home yesterday! HOORAY… well, in theory anyway. The trip home started off bad and ended that way. I got a noon time visit from Dr. Lane who authorized my discharge. The nurse took about two hours doing something else before she came in with discharge instructions… for the RNY, a procedure I didn’t have. When I alerted her to this she said “well, some things will apply to you and some things won’t.” She, of course, failed to notify me of which things those might be. Meanwhile my IV had been removed and my pain was rising to a 6… a 7… an 8… First, the nurse told me she was not able to give me injectable pain medication because my IV was removed. I told her to put it back in… after stabbing me several times with the new IV needle she admitted defeat and left to go get help. She returned not with a help, but with an excuse that she couldn’t place the IV because I had been discharged. By this time the pain was so immense that I was crying. The nurse then told me that there was no such thing as an intramuscular pain injection. My mother then stepped in and called Dr. Lane who authorized an intramuscular pain injection, you know, the ones that don’t exist. In addition the nurse applied a pain patch for the long term. Before she applied the patch she asked “where do you put these” and then swabbed my arm with alcohol, a practice that later I read was warned against. A warning that said failure to follow may result in death! Finally, I got out of the hospital. The ride home was a little painful but not horrible. When I got home I went upstairs to my room immediately. There my family, one of whom is a nurse, helped give me crushed up Vicodin. This caused me to vomit what little my stomach contained. The pain and fear were great and my energy fell through the floor. I spent the rest of the night in a dark room hoping I would be knocked out soon. Sleep finally came… amen and amen.