September 2010 - my month in the hospital

I haven't put up a blog post in quite a while. The main reason for that would be my hospitalization for much of the month of September. I've been having issues with a wound on my rear end for much of late last year and all of this year. I suddenly became feverish while watching the movie "Home Fries" on television on a random Saturday morning somewhere around August 20. I'd got myself checked out by a locum for my GP on August 23. I'd developed an abscess that had become infected. I was hospitalized the following day while seeing the locum for the Plastic surgeon that had been looking after a preexisting wound on my rear as well. I was rushed into emergency by the locum plastic surgeon. I was given an I.V. and given several antibiotics. I went into surgery by the Friday of that same week that I was admitted. Afterward I had to lay down on either side but never on my rear end directly. The worst part was that during the middle of September they had the brilliant idea of putting me on a rectal tube to siphon out my bowels rather than letting me do my usual of disempacting my bowels. After several days of giving me excessive amounts of laxatives and having the rectal tube repeatedly fall out it was decided to let my system get back into its usual constipated self. Around this time a VAC dressing was put onto this newly operated on area. The previous area that had been annoying me for the last who knows how long was closed. Luckily everything healed fairly quickly. The whole rectal tube section was really annoying because just prior to them starting me on it, along with excessive amounts of laxatives, my bowels had started to get back to normal. The rectal tube business slightly protracted my stay into a month in the hospital. The other thing that was really frustrating is that I barely saw my main doctor, a plastic surgeon, during the whole time I was in. We had to file a complaint before he started to give proper attention & spent some time answering my parents' questions regarding what I'd need to facilitate a return home. The nursing staff during my stay was generally awesome. I ended up getting pretty friendly with quite a few of them because of the length of my stay. Were some of them attractive. I'd be lying if I said no. OK, enough of that side track. Basically once I was off the rectal tube and my bowels started to go back to constipated I was able to start walking around the hospital. I increased distances pretty much every time I got up. There were a few episodes of vertigo during the month but I'm not going to discuss those near fainting spells.

What did I do mostly while in the hospital. Read magazines, daily newspapers, watch DVDs on a portable player, play DS games, eat and drink hospital food and assorted goodies that friends & family brought for me.

All I have to say about the hospital food is that I was there long enough to notice their food rotations. It broke down into three categories: Something creamy, Something with Brown Gravy, and Something with Red Sauce. Soups of Vegetable, Beef, Chicken, or Turkey broth that all got less appealing as my stay in the hospital extended. Oh, and deserts that were generally much too thick for proper nutrition. Anything else, one fight with a hospitalist (hospital general practitioner) about him making assumptions about my eating habits because he saw some Tim Horton's doughnuts on my hospital table.

There was also an infectious disease doctor that was pretty good that was put on my case, for some reason taken off, and put back on my case. This whole episode was also part of why we lodged a complaint. They took him off my case before I had finished all the IV antibiotics he wanted me on. After he was put back on my case I had a few short rounds on the IV along with several scans of the area that was operated on to make sure the infection is fully cleared.

That's about it. I'm still annoyed that being in the hospital made me miss a show by my favorite singer on youtube Kina Grannis in Vancouver on September 19. I guess my health is more important. *shrug*

I think I'll put up another post at some point about things I watched, read, played, ate, and drank to fill up my time in the hospital.