You might want to grab a snack. This is a long one.

Friday, March 21st: See here

Saturday, March 22nd:
Afternoon: Jon got up and took medicine for his back pain several times.
5:00pm: I went to eat Easter dinner with Jon's family
8:00pm: I came back home and he was sleeping.
9:00pm: Jon got up and took a shower
9:20pm: Jon came in and told me to call the medical exchange to get hold of his doctor because he had the worst headache he's ever had. (This had been a potential side effect of the lumbar puncture. It was a spinal headache rather than a migraine.)
9:40pm: Called the medical exchange again after not hearing back from the doctor.
9:50pm: Called Candice, Jon's sister, who is a nurse. She said go to the hospital.
9:55pm: Called Jon's parents because Jon couldn't make it down the stairs alone and I sure the heck couldn't carry him.
10:10pm: Jon's parents showed up and we decided to call an ambulance instead.
10:20pm: The ambulance got stuck at the closed gate to our apartment and then when they went through scraped the side of their vehicle. Oops.
10:45pm: Arrived at the emergency room and was taken immediately to a room.
11:30pm: A doctor finally came in and examined him for all random things such as a stroke, not listening to me trying to tell him what we know the problem is.

Sunday, March 23rd:
12:30am: Jon FINALLY got some medicine to help the headache. It didn't really help.
12:30am-2:00am: Hospital tried to page Jon's neurologist at least 5 times, the one who didn't ever call back earlier, and he still didn't call back. Meanwhile, Jon still wasn't feeling much better.
3:00am: We were told that no anesthesiologists would be available to do a blood patch, the procedure needed to get rid of the headache, until Monday morning. What?! He also finally got something that started to help the pain around this time.
4:00am: The hospital finally got hold of a doctor who would admit him.
4:45am: He got the only open room in the hospital. In oncology. We were welcomed by my good friend, Touchdown Jesus:

5:15am: I went back to our apartment to take a really quick shower and grab some stuff for two nights.
6:15am: I got back to the hospital.
6:30am: I curled up on a kind of wide chair with another chair pulled up to it to try to sleep.
10:00am: Jon woke up so I woke up. Or more accurately, sat up, since I wasn't very much asleep.
10:15am: Jon's mom called to check on us. She asked if that chair folded out into a bed and I told her I hadn't thought about it. It did.
10:30am: I had a muffin and milk from the best room in the hospital: the Nourishment Room. This is a wonderful place (entered only by entering a secert code on the keypad) on the oncology floor with free food and drinks whenever you want them. I partook often. That muffin and milk were one of those meals that feel like it's the best thing you've ever eaten since it's been so long since you ate.
Throughout the day: The paramedics had put his IV in a weird place and any time he moved his arm from being straight by his side, the alarm went off because it wasn't flowing right and I had to reset it. (After 4-5 times of the nurses having to come in to reset it, I asked them to show me how and I'm really glad they did.)
1:00pm: I got a to-go cup of soup from the cafeteria. It was alright.
1:30pm: Jon's family showed up to visit and brought real food!
5:00pm: Jon's family left and he finally got some medicine that actually put him to sleep. He'd had enough to put a horse to sleep but it hadn't worked yet.
6:00pm: I watched the awesome movie of my childhood Flight of the Navigator on tv.
10:30: My hair was completely disgusting but I hadn't brought anything to wash it with, so I used this horrific stuff:

My head itched, my hair was completely dried out, it smelled bad, and I was pretty sure all of my hair was all going to fall out in my sleep.
11:00pm: I turned off the tv to go to sleep. This chair bed thing was basically the most uncomfortable, slightly U shaped thing I've ever had to try to sleep on. Also, Jon, who hadn't set off the IV alarm in 6 hours of sleeping, started moving some different way and setting it off every few minutes.
11:30pm: The tech nurse came in for the 7,000th time in the day to take his blood pressure and temperature. I woke him up enough to get him to lay with his arm out. When she grabbed it to put on the arm band, he jerked away, almost punched her and snuggled himself back under the sheets. It was really funny. Then I kind of held him down and she got it.
All night long: He moved very frequently, setting off the alarm which I had to sit up and reset every time.

Monday, March 24th:
9:00am: Hair? Still in my head! I went to ask the nurse (who wasn't as cordial as all of the other nurses we'd dealt with) if they knew when his blood patch would be this morning. She told us it hadn't been scheduled yet. What?!
9:30am: They came in to pick him up to take him to get the blood patch. Wait. What?!
9:45am: Blood patch happens. From what I understand (Kristen, you can probably correct me on this...) they took some of his blood and inserted it into the place they had done the lumbar puncture on Friday because spinal fluid was leaking and causing the horrible headache that took us to the hospital.
11:30am: Jon was feeling better and his headache was almost completely gone finally. He watched tv and ate this initially unrecognizable and pretty disgusting looking meat product:

1:00pm: The doctor finally came in to see us and told him that as soon as he got up and walked around without getting sick, we could go home.
2:15pm: I went to ask the nurse when the doctor was coming back and she said "Oh. You can go. Let me fill out the paperwork." Moron.
3:00pm: They said the transport service (i.e. Guy Pushing a Wheelchair) was on its way up.
3:30pm: Guy Pushing a Wheelchair showed up.
4:00pm: After stopping at Chick-Fil-A for some lunch for Jon, we made it back home. His back still really hurt, so he took some medicine and went to sleep.

Other points:
Things I'm Most Glad I Remembered to Bring: My huge warm blanket and pajama pants
Most Important Thing I Forgot: Face cleaner
Thing I Didn't Think I'd Need But I Did: Shampoo
Number of Awesome Nurses We Had: 3 (1 ER and 2 oncology)
Number of Not Awesome Nurses We Had: 1
Number of Times I Went Into The Nourishment Room: About 10
Number of Funny Signs I Saw: 3 (Actually more, but I didn't have my camera when I saw them.)

I'm completely confused by the replacement word.

This was in our room. I'm most confused by the hyphens.
FYI: I saw nobody foam-in or foam-out the whole time we were there.

This was on the ceiling above the bathroom door. No clue.

Posted in: funny things, hospital visit, husb on Monday, March 24, 2008 at at 8:13 PM