Tuesday, December 15, 2015

ER Visit, Bowel Blockage, and Hospital Stay

I started feeling sick on Sunday night. I just chalked it up to eating something new and thought nothing more of it. I took my normal meds and everything seemed fine. On Monday, I went and played racquetball in the evening and struggled. I was in pain and kept seeing stars but I pushed through and just attributed it to not eating more than a banana that day. On Tuesday, I woke up not feeling well but pushed through the day at work. I kept taking all my meds and I wasn’t able to eat because I was so nauseated. That night, I went home and tried to eat some soup but became sick very quick. I threw up for a few hours and was in a lot of pain. But I didn’t think anything of it, once again sometimes this is my normal so I just took a bunch of meds and went to bed to try and sleep it off. On Wednesday morning I woke up and was just in a little bit of pain and still nauseated. I went into work and was only able to make it a half day. I went home and took some Percocet and more Zofran and tried to just sleep it off. By the evening, I felt a little bit better and was able to eat some soup and keep it down. At this point, I thought it was the flu so I just went to bed. On Thursday I woke up and was in a lot of pain and at this point the pain meds I was taking were no longer helping. I went into work and called Dr. Frechs office. As the day went on, I was still very sick and in pain and hadn’t heard from the Dr’s office yet so I called Dr. Rasmussen’s office and let them know what was going on. They called back an hour later and told me to get a CT scan done. At this point, I was already on my way to the ER. I needed some sort of relief and I knew that there was something more serious going on.

In the ER. I wouldn't take off my boots in hopes of going home! Ha.


I checked in at the ER and was seen by Dr. Jemmett immediately. He ordered pain meds right away and also ordered an x-ray. He was immediately suspicious of a bowel blockage. They had given me morphine and Zofran and nothing was touching my pain. They also drew some blood for lab work and took a urine sample. I had the x-ray done and Dr. Jemmett came in to give me the bad news. Bowel blockage and intestinal dilation, just as he suspected. Then, if this wasn’t bad enough, he told me I would need to spend the night in the hospital to which I flat out refused. He explained the risk I would be taking if I went home and he highly suggested that I spend at least the night. He said he would page Dr. Rasmussen and if he said that I needed to stay the night as well, then I would agree to it and only if Dr. Rasmussen was the admitting Dr. and not a hospitalist. He also ordered dilaudid for the pain since the morphine wasn’t working that well. I also got a shot of bentyl in my hip and a shot of relastor in my shoulder. The bentyl was to help relax my intestines and the relastor was to counteract the opiates in blocking the receptors in my intestinal tract so they wouldn’t slow down the motility. After all this, Dr. Jemmett informed me that Dr. Rasmussen also said I needed to spend the night and he would be admitting me. I was admitted to the 7th floor later that evening. I will spare all the details of this lovely stay but this was by far the worst hospital stay I have ever had. Ever. I had to have enemas to try and clean out my colon and was given pain meds every 2 hours and fluids as well. Of course, you don’t sleep in the hospital so this only adds to the pain and misery. By morning, I wasn’t entirely cleaned out but had to get out of there. When Dr. Rasmussen came in, I told him he better sending me home and that I was fine (although not 100% the truth). He agreed to let me go and also let me know that my labs were still a little off and that my white blood cells indicated either an infection or something viral going on which was probably attributing to why I didn’t feel so good. I feel like the bowel blockage was just attributed to having crappy moving intestines and the combination of taking pain meds that just slow down the colon as well. 

This was the picture in my room. I thought it was funny because I felt like a prisoner there.

All my lovely bracelets!

The schedule board in my room!

So right now, I am still on all the normal medicines and have just increased the dosages of Miralax I take every day and have also added Milk of Magnesia to my daily regimen of laxatives. I am waiting to hear from Dr. Frech’s office to see what are the next steps we need to take. Nothing like a little weekend jaunt in the hospital! I know I should be grateful that I have good Dr.'s who take good care of me (and I am) but I am running out of patience with my health! 



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