For the hospital, I packed sanitary pads for the
diarrhea, baby wipes - because they are just so handy for everything, two
knitted hats to cover the bald head, sweatpants and t-shirts. I didn’t know
whether to pack pajamas or not. I decided to leave them. I would just wear a
t-shirt and sweatpants to bed. I thought of my time in hospital as kind of a
university dorm situation. But I didn’t know if that was smart. I had no idea
if I was packing the right things. I was told by the transplant nurse to use
“natural” shampoo and soap. This was to avoid perfumes or additives that could
cause an adverse reaction. Alex and I had a brief look in a chemist, but
natural products were horrendously expensive. It seemed the more you left out,
the more overpriced the product was. Mom sent me a travel pack with lotion,
body wash and shampoo in it which was made with goat’s milk. I packed and just
hoped goats were allergen free. For entertainment I packed a few magazines,
books and an iPad with a prepay internet account. FYI the haematology ward in
the hospital has no free wifi.
In the week
before my transplant, I made sure I did everything I could to make Alex’s life
as easy as possible if I died in hospital. I paid all the bills, my will, which
I had never made before, was now up to date and witnessed. I picked up, dusted,
vacuumed and went food shopping. The house would be in good shape for
entertaining friends who wanted to come in person and tell Alex how sorry they
were for his loss. It was the only power I had in this situation. The rest was
up to the staff at the hospital. Whichever way it went, I just wanted it to be
all over with.
Day minus
3- July 10th was a simple blood test. Day minus two was the PICC
line procedure. It was a lot less traumatic then I feared with my useless
veins. I was worried they wouldn’t be able to get the line in my vein and I
would suffer another central venous catheter in my neck. But the staff was
professional, astute and confident. The feat was accomplished in no time. I was
given a local anesthetic and a needle was inserted into the inside of my left
arm, about 3cm (an inch) above my elbow. I felt the nurse pushing the line in
my arm at first but I was waiting for much more pushing and discomfort when she
consulted the monitor and said it was in place. I was so happy that it was so
easy. She put a sterile bandage over the hole in my arm. As this puncture point
would stay open for the next three weeks with the PICC line hanging out of it,
it was a worrying site for infection. It had to be kept extremely clean and
watched closely. I thanked the team and was headed off to my next appointment.
This time
it was for a chest x-ray. The little
dark room with a large white x-ray machine hanging off one wall was like
entering the Bat Cave. There was a booth with glass windows that sat half-way
above the room where the technicians could oversee the procedures. Three women
who looked like supermodels were giggling in the booth. One of the women
confirmed who I was and gave an order.
“Go in the
changing room and take your top off and put the gown on. Knock when you’re
finished.”
I wondered why I had to knock. I changed and tried the
door handle. It was locked from the outside. I found that rather odd. I knocked
a few times and was let out. I stood against the machine while a technician
took snapshots of my insides. It only took a few moments. After my x-rays I
went back into the changing room. I put my clothes back on and knocked again.
No one came to the door.
“Hello?”
I knocked two more times.
“Hello?”
I was just about to have a claustrophobic episode when
I spun around and saw another door behind me in the cubicle. I tried the
handle. This one opened and led into the hospital hallway. I escaped and peaked
back into the x-ray room. I don’t know why, maybe to explain why there was so
much knocking going on, or to tell the beauty queens that a little more
information about the changing room might be nice. But the x-ray room was
completely dark. The booth was empty and the lights were out. The models had
all left without a word. That was a little weird I thought.
I got lost
looking for the place to get my ECG. The electro cardiogram was a heart test. I
told the technician I couldn’t find the testing room and she nodded knowingly.
Most of the signs for departments in the hospital were bright blue and hanging
overhead. For some reason their sign was on a white placard on the floor, the
type you see outside a café. I never looked down because I expected the sign to
be above my head.
“I know,”
the cheerful woman said. “We’ve wanted a new sign for years.”
I was
thinking the most useful thing in my will might be leaving them money for a
sign.
After lunch
it was time for a pentamidine nebulizer. It was awful. If I was given a grade
on how I dealt with it, it would have been an “F”. The nurse explained how to
put the plastic mask over my face which led to a nebulizer tube. The nebulizer
was plugged into a spout on the wall. The idea was that water particles would
mix with hot air and condense into airborne water droplets that could be
inhaled. The pentamadine drug was put into the tube to be inhaled in the water
droplets which bubbled at the bottom of the tube. The nurse told me that when
the bubbles finished, I was to turn the machine off at the wall, leave the
equipment on the bed and shut the door on my way out. She told me she didn’t
want to be sucking in copious amounts of the drug all day so she didn’t stay
with her patients. She then opened a window and scuttled from the room leaving
me alone. It was a little disconcerting but I got started. Unfortunately I was
like a novice smoking a bong. My first hit sent me into spasms of coughing and
the drug-filled steam that should have gone down my lungs, floated away into
the room. My next attempts were no better. I coughed and coughed and although I
tried to shut my mouth tight and keep in the steam, I let most of the drug
escape. Eventually I found a way to suck in without choking. I clamped my mouth
around the tube and sucked in slowly between my clenched teeth. I hoped I
rescued enough of the drug into my lungs to make it work.
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