Still same day, still waiting

This has been one very long day. Kim went into surgery at 5:45ish. It is now 10:00 and they are still not done. The OR nurse has come out and updated twice, both times saying that things were going well, but it was going to be a while yet. The last update was about 45 minutes ago and they said it would be at least another hour.
All of the other families have now left the waiting room one by one and we are the only ones left. To pass the time we've laughed, cried, and looked for a lost Jolly Rancher. Everyone's dumb joke supply is exhausted--except Bob's whose knows no limit. The epitome of exhaustion was realized when began quoting Shakesphere and Edgar Allen Poe. This surgery better be finished quickly or we may find ourselves thinking it is ok to impersonate medical staff and start visiting patients. I, for one, think it sounds like fun.

OK...so they just called again. They were able to remove the clot, BUT she'll be in surgery for at least ANOTHER hour. Things are going well, though. I've gotta go. I need to find me some scrubs....

Same day, different waiting room.

As I update now, we are sitting in the surgical waiting room. Kim is in surgery to extract the clot and remove some of the pressure on the artery. Without this, the only option would be to amputate her lower leg. Bob and Evelyn are here, as well as their pastor and a couple of Kim's friends. Craig is en route back from Des Moines with Madison, and Rob and Jeni are flying in tomorrow afternoon--it was the earliest flight that they could get.
Bob and Evelyn are exhausted, but holding strong. Evelyn "slept" in the waiting room at the hospital last night while Bob, Craig, and I went back to their house to try to get a good nights rest.
They were able to remove about 2 liters of extra fluid from Kim today, so she doesn't have quite the facial swelling that she had last night. She still has not regained any consciousness.
As of now, things are looking pretty bleak. The biggest concern is still that we know that her brain was without oxygen for some time, and that that kind of brain damage is permanant. We don't know the extent of that injury. The docs say that in the next couple of days as she stabalizes more they'll pursue more testing.
I think that's all for now. I'll keep updating new developments. Sorry if some of this is repetative. I've sat down to write so many times that I can't remember what made it to print. Oh the brain mush!

OK, so here's the latest. Kim's vitals remain stable. Her blood pressure is a little higher than the docs want it to be, so they are going to pull off a little more fluid with the CVVHD today to try to lower the pressure.
The nephrologist talked with Bob, Eve, and I this afternoon regarding his concerns about brain damage since they had to work so hard to get her back.
I'll have to finish this post quickly...Eve and I had just come back to the house for a bit so she could eat and get some rest, but Bob called and said that they need to make an incision in Kim's let to try to relieve pressure and extract a blood clot in an artery in her left calf. We don't know what this involves, but do know how her sick little body is tolerating any medications right now. I'll update again when we get back to the hospital...

Kim

Yesterday Craig's sister went to the hospital for what was supposed to be a same day surgery to place a new dialysis fistula, but things went horribly wrong. Just before the procedure started, she became very anxious and then went into cardiac arrest. The staff were able to revive her, but she was down for about 15 minutes before they could get her back. She is on a ventilator and is nonresponsive. They're running CVVHD to clear the anesthetic from her system. Her vitals are good. Her blood pressure was low yesterday, but the dopamine was off by the time we got here around 9 pm and she held it on her own through the night. Hopefully today we'll get some more answers, but with those answers tough decisions may have to be made. I'll update more later....we're off to the hospital again.

Winter Blues.

The sun'll come out TOMORROW! I heard it on the news. I can't wait. Acutally the sun is out now, but it is colder than (insert something REALLY cold here, like snow, or ice, or frozen peas). I thought earlier that, since it's sunny, I didn't need a coat when I went out to get the garbage and recycling bins, but boy was I wrong. Fresh air that doesn't freeze your lungs when you take a deep breath is really in order here. For the last few weeks I have been in a little of a funk, and I think what I really need is a nice long walk outside. Ahhh. The thought makes me smile a little inside.
During this long and rather chilly winter, I have accomplished a few things.
1. The basement has been downsized. Well, not the basement itsself, but everything in it. Craig and I drug a whole load of crap to the curb yesterday and my friend the garbage man took it to its new home. (actually when I said "Craig and I" here, I really meant just "Craig." I supervised, but you may have already assumed that).
2. I have organized a committee for a class reunion and tracked down all of my old classmates. It has been fun finding everyone and finding out what they've been up to. Thank God for facebook.
3. I cleaned my house. Yippee! It may not look like it now, but once this winter my house was truly clean. I think that the cat liked it too, because it didn't puke on the floor for like 2 days after the big clean.
4. I baked cookies for Craig to take to his office for his 5 year workiversary. 8 dozen of them. Chocolate chip and sugar. AND delivered them. yep. What a good wife.
5. #5 is a really exciting one but I cannot share it just yet. Maybe later. No, I'm not pregnant.
6. I've joined a couple more committees at work. Why? I'm asking myself the same thing.
7. I did laundry! One day I woke up and had to dig through the guest room closet for a clean uniform. Only the ones I don't like are in there. I also had to go through the mix-matched sock basket for a pair. I won't let it go that long again...I hope.
8. I matted and framed the print that Mom and Dad gave me for Christmas. I am proud that I didn't leave it between the sheets of cardboard behind the couch for more than a month. Yay!
9. I went on Prednisone for my ear condition, went absolutely crazy for a while, and bounced back. Not crazy in the way that you all may or may not have known me to be, but that kind of "happy one minute bawling the next I may just start going off on you for no reason" kind of crazy. It was not fun. Craig will back me up on that.
10. I stubbed my left pinky toe so hard that the end of my toe split open and the nail bent back on itsself...and I refrained from using words that shouldn't be in my vocabulary. I know that this is not exciting, and not necessarily an accomplishment, but I thought you should know.

Meet Crabby

I've decided that I am going to be crabby all day long today...except for a few hours from about 1:45 to 3:45. I woke up this morning still tired--perhaps due to the fact that kitty declared me his pillow for the night. Knowing that I was meeting with some friends in Oskaloosa today to discuss plans for a class reunion made me rationalize that it was OK to skip church so I could get there earlier and maybe stop to see my nieces on the way. I asked Craig to return my library books. "The one in my purse and the one on the desk." He managed to find the ONE book in our entire house that I haven't read and couldn't wait to start. Now I have no books for the week. Grrrgggrrr. (yes, that was a double grr--the second was even a little more angry sounding).
On the way to Oskaloosa Craig returned my hasty call from the book incident. He called just as I was approaching my exit and I drove right by it. He just can't win today. I'm beginning to wonder if anyone around me can, either. Craig later, rather hesitantly, returned my call from the missing the exit incident. He offered to do laundry this afternoon. My mood lifted a bit. "OK...I need a uniform to wear to work tomorrow, and a long sleeve white shirt to go under it...and some socks...maybe a pair of underwear or two, I think I'm getting low." That should get me through the day tomorrow. "Don't forget to not lay any dirty clothes on the basement floor," lest kitty get another untamable urge to mark. ( a WHOLE 'nother issue!!). On a brighter note, I did successfully parallel park today!
Wow. What's with me? Needless to say there will be no autographs from this princess today.

Memorable moments as a nurse.

In my 12 years of being a nurse I have found myself in many situations that make me say "That did NOT just happen." Here are some examples.
1. I was once urinated on by a deceased man. The funeral director and I were moving him from his hospital bed to a guerney. As we rolled him to his side to place the slider board under him I felt a little trickle down my leg. Hmmm that's weird...what is that? Why is the front of his gown wet? Oh. I always thought that hearing was the last thing to go when someone dies, but now I know it is the kidneys!
2. I once allowed a mental health patient to escape from a locked unit. Oops. Nor did I didn't have any keys on me to get myself out to go after her. As the other nurse rushed past and unlocked the door my patient stripped off her shirt. Nice. She wasn't hard to find...just follow the trail of clothes to, of all places, the pediatric unit! Stark naked and fighting with everything in her, she went back to Behavioral health. I don't remember working there after that.
3. I once completely lost a patient. He was elderly and had brain cancer...very unpredictable. He was in his bed on minute and the next thing I knew...gone!! After a few minutes of intense searching he was found--naked--in front of the fish tank. It still makes me laugh, remembering him standing there in his birthday suit just watching the fish.
4. This didn't happen to me, but to someone I was working with on an ortho floor. An elderly man had just had hip surgery, was gorked on pain meds and had underlying confusion. The nurse went in to give him some pills and offered him water but he didn't want to take them with water, he wanted to take them with the apple juice that was sitting on his bedside table. Can you see where this is going? It wasn't apple juice, it just looked like it. The patient drank the whole dang glass and didn't say a word. How someone could drink their own pee? Don't know.
5. I think that this has happened in some form to about every nurse I know but when it happens, one must still question how. My patient just had a prostate resection. He was set up with bladder irrigation where (for you non-nurses) there is a bag of fluid irrigating fluid into the bladder and a catheter removing it. Occasionally a patient will develop a clot that prevents the drainage catheter from working. I had noticed that the poor mister had a large amount of fluid in and barely anything out...obviously a clot. I get the supplies to fix it but the only thing that I could find was a crappy bulb syringe--not ideal but I've seen it work, so here we go. I squeezed most the fluid in with no problem, pulled back, got some fluid/blood/urine mix out, but no clot, and went to push it back in when the syringe became disconnected and sprayed the mix ALL over myself, him, and the walls. I eventually extracted a huge clot, but have changed my technique a bit!
6. Once a young man's telemetry monitor alarmed V-Tach (often a precurser to a heart attack). I learned that night that these alarms are sometimes sensitive to outside influences. This guy found out, too when his room filled with nurses during what was intended to be a personal moment. That's all I'm sayin'.
7. The Tin Man. A patient was admitted for cardiac reasons after huffing. His inhalation of choice? Silver spray paint. His face was completely discolored from the paint. He was dubbed The Tin Man...even by the docs.