The Friday night from Hell!
In Part 3, I left you with this thought; “You can NEVER rest in the hospital.”
Let me explore and expound upon this thought.
From the moment that I arrived back into my room, there were nurses coming and going about every 20 minutes, They would come in and take my temperature, take my pulse, check my left groin, monitor the bruising that occurred there, check my catheter, and dump the fluid out of it as needed.
Now most of those activities are ok. However, when the nurses check your catheter tube and its connections, that is somewhat degrading. More emphatically, when they pull down the sheets and check the bruising that is in you left groin and pubic region, embarrassment doesn’t really cover the feeling very well. Moreover, when the nurse is trying very hard not “to bust a gut” and break out laughing, demoralized comes close to how you feel! I know it is only the hospital, it shouldn’t bother you. Oh yeah, right I forgot!
Anyway, I digress. After four hours in surgery and three hours in the recovery room, I get to my room and all I want to do is grab some much needed sleep. My family leaves my room about 9 pm, I am thinking that now I can get some rest and sleep this long day off. I am not prescribed any pain medication everything in my mind tells me that with the door closed I can really get some good sleep!
Oh contrare my friend!
From 9 pm Friday night until 1:20 am Saturday morning the nurses were in my room every 20 minutes taking my blood pressure, temperature, and checking right and left groin and pubic region, keeping a close watch on the spreading bruise that I have there! From 1:20 am until 3 am I was able to sleep uninterrupted, one whole hour and forty minutes!
The calm and quietness of my room ended at 3 am when the phlebotomist comes into my room, flips on the light switch, and announces that she has to draw some blood. At 3 am they have to draw some of my blood, you really got to be sh#%!ing me? “Why 3 am, couldn’t this wait for a more civilized time, like say 7 or 8 am”, I inquired? “No doctor’s orders,” was the response! Dude!!! So out comes the foot long needle and she drew out, what seemed to be, a gallon of my beloved blood!
Now that this ordeal is over, surely I can sleep the rest of the morning? Yeah right! As the “Dracula Nurse” was leaving, in came the morning nurse to take my blood pressure, pulse, temperature, and she pulls back the covers to get a better look at the old groin and pubic area to check the status of my bruising again. Dude !!
It is now about 3:30 am and this old boy is getting very tired of my hospital care! I hoping that this is the last interruption so that I can at least get a couple of hours sleep before the sun rises. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, I was oh so wrong! At 5 am the nurse once again enters the room and turns on the high intensity lights for another round of……..blood pressure, pulse, temperature, additionally she gave me a pneumonia shot, and of course checking out my groin and pubic region for bruising!!
I was starting to feel paranoid. I think that the word was out and all the nursing staff had to cop a view!! For sure I knew something was up when the nurses started bringing a magnifying glass with them when they entered my room! Dude!!
Well so much for sleeping at night in the hospital. There was nonstop interruptions throughout the night in my room! The high intensity lights in my room felt like searchlights each and every time the light switch was turned on!
It was truly the “Night From Hell”!
Stay tuned for checking out and going to my sister’s house in Part 5..
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