Stop Laughing
New Member
Oh, what a week... (note: not for the very squeamish)
I'm sorta in the midst of at least 11 straight days off of work, from last Friday through Memorial Day. Started good, as Friday our new dishwasher and oven/range were delivered, but the washer couldn't be hooked up because the water valve was frozen shut and requires a plumber, and it turns out we were wrong and don't have a gas hookup, so both the washer and dryer will have to be installed later. Saturday I had a coworker over to install my new garbage disposal and finish connecting the dishwasher through it (turned out the dishwasher wouldn't have hooked up without the disposal and would've required extra parts anyways). Sunday was a cleanup day and laundry day as I was out of clean clothes, but late that night, it got painful. My cat, Dusty, likes to sit on my bedroom's windowsill (it has a screen so he can't possibly fall and he loves being up there and growl at birds and squirrels), and at 11:30 that night he was growling louder than usual, I sat up in my bed to look out and see what he was growling at: another cat strutting around on the sidewalk. I was right behind him, he got startled by me and bit my left hand, real hard, four puncture holes between my thumb and index finger. I bandaged it up and went to sleep after taking some pain meds. Monday, I woke up and it was really swollen, and I tried to go to work and the pharmacist finally talked me into going to the ER, and I got there at about 10 AM. I was in the ER for quite a while, and having not eaten or drank anything all day I nearly passed out until I got lunch at about 3, and after I demanded food the doc came in and scolded me for doing that because he said I'd need surgery on my hand because it was infected and needed draining. They finally admitted me to the hospital (a first for me, first of many firsts) after struggling with my insurance info and giving me a run around. Since I ate at 3, they couldn't operate until later that night, and drained the pus and gas from my hand through the wound holes, and I was only out for half an hour. He put gauze into the wounds while I was under and wrapped up my hand and told me it should stay in for about 48 hours. It's quite dull in the hospital, spent most of my Tuesday getting my vitals checked, peeing into a bottle (which was nearly hourly because of my IV antibiotics, and extra pungent too) or sudoku puzzle books, which saved my sanity from daytime TV. At least I had my own room, until Wednesday. First, in the morning they traded my bed cause they said someone else needed one with the soft/hard controls. After breakfast, I became light-headed and vomited. They did a good job helping me clean up, and they were thankful I was able to make it across the room to the wastebasket. Later, they came asking me if was ready for something, then realized they had the wrong person. By early afternoon, after lunch went better than breakfast, they came in again and said I had to change rooms cause they had to do some repairs in there, which was probably true because the wall looked pretty beaten up from beds and tables hitting it, I'm assuming. I now shared a room with another guy about my age who was in for headaches that even morphine didn't seem to help relieve much. Later, the nurse and infection specialist came in to cut out the gauze the hand surgeon put in Monday night. They didn't realize that he had put it through my hand from front to back and thought that they were 4 separate pieces, so when they yanked that first one I nearly screamed my head off. Then they realized it, cut one of the tied ends on each piece, and it came out much more easily; still quite painful, but not window-breaking screaming bad. They cleaned, bandaged and wrapped it up after that without a problem. After that when dinner came I got light headed again, barely touched my dinner, and when the hand surgeon came in to visit me, I greeted him by vomiting. I had a handy tub by this time, thankfully. He just wanted to make sure that the gauze came out OK, which it kinda did, and the swelling was much lower than before, and told me that I'll have I'd probably leave the next day and have to visit him Friday to see how my hand is doing in general. After all that at about 11 or so (I don't remember the time as the clock in that room was stuck on 2:30, even though the second hand was still going) they told me I was moving again cause someone needed a heart monitor setup, so I was on the move again. At least the new room was to myself again, but it didn't have a phone, and when they put in a phone, it was dead. By the time I got a working phone, it was well past midnight and too late to let anyone else know I changed rooms again. It was also the room next to the psych ward, and when someone in there walked into the door, the alarm would sound for at least 2 minutes, and this happened twice within 24 hours. I finally got out today and am now on oral antibiotics, Augmentin 875, for 2 weeks and have 3 docs to follow up with, starting with the hand surgeon tomorrow. While I was there for 4 days, my store put together a get well package together with many items, mostly junk food, and some gag items too, including a Spider-Man coloring book and crayons and a bottle of bubbles.
In the meantime, Dusty was taken to the vet, and by county law has to be locked up (kitty jail?) for 10 days away from human contact, (we couldn't have avoided it because if we didn't have him taken to the vet, the hospital would've filed the report instead) and the vet kinda shrugged the incident off and wrote it up as 'misdirected aggresion', and will get his shots updated while he's there. Since my left hand is wrapped up tight and typing with 1.5 hands is tough, I won't reply to anything else until at least tomorrow. I have to change my dressing once a day with saline and betadine, and even though I saw how to do it twice I don't really trust myself with this stuff, but I don't have much choice.
So, what's all up with you guys?
I'm sorta in the midst of at least 11 straight days off of work, from last Friday through Memorial Day. Started good, as Friday our new dishwasher and oven/range were delivered, but the washer couldn't be hooked up because the water valve was frozen shut and requires a plumber, and it turns out we were wrong and don't have a gas hookup, so both the washer and dryer will have to be installed later. Saturday I had a coworker over to install my new garbage disposal and finish connecting the dishwasher through it (turned out the dishwasher wouldn't have hooked up without the disposal and would've required extra parts anyways). Sunday was a cleanup day and laundry day as I was out of clean clothes, but late that night, it got painful. My cat, Dusty, likes to sit on my bedroom's windowsill (it has a screen so he can't possibly fall and he loves being up there and growl at birds and squirrels), and at 11:30 that night he was growling louder than usual, I sat up in my bed to look out and see what he was growling at: another cat strutting around on the sidewalk. I was right behind him, he got startled by me and bit my left hand, real hard, four puncture holes between my thumb and index finger. I bandaged it up and went to sleep after taking some pain meds. Monday, I woke up and it was really swollen, and I tried to go to work and the pharmacist finally talked me into going to the ER, and I got there at about 10 AM. I was in the ER for quite a while, and having not eaten or drank anything all day I nearly passed out until I got lunch at about 3, and after I demanded food the doc came in and scolded me for doing that because he said I'd need surgery on my hand because it was infected and needed draining. They finally admitted me to the hospital (a first for me, first of many firsts) after struggling with my insurance info and giving me a run around. Since I ate at 3, they couldn't operate until later that night, and drained the pus and gas from my hand through the wound holes, and I was only out for half an hour. He put gauze into the wounds while I was under and wrapped up my hand and told me it should stay in for about 48 hours. It's quite dull in the hospital, spent most of my Tuesday getting my vitals checked, peeing into a bottle (which was nearly hourly because of my IV antibiotics, and extra pungent too) or sudoku puzzle books, which saved my sanity from daytime TV. At least I had my own room, until Wednesday. First, in the morning they traded my bed cause they said someone else needed one with the soft/hard controls. After breakfast, I became light-headed and vomited. They did a good job helping me clean up, and they were thankful I was able to make it across the room to the wastebasket. Later, they came asking me if was ready for something, then realized they had the wrong person. By early afternoon, after lunch went better than breakfast, they came in again and said I had to change rooms cause they had to do some repairs in there, which was probably true because the wall looked pretty beaten up from beds and tables hitting it, I'm assuming. I now shared a room with another guy about my age who was in for headaches that even morphine didn't seem to help relieve much. Later, the nurse and infection specialist came in to cut out the gauze the hand surgeon put in Monday night. They didn't realize that he had put it through my hand from front to back and thought that they were 4 separate pieces, so when they yanked that first one I nearly screamed my head off. Then they realized it, cut one of the tied ends on each piece, and it came out much more easily; still quite painful, but not window-breaking screaming bad. They cleaned, bandaged and wrapped it up after that without a problem. After that when dinner came I got light headed again, barely touched my dinner, and when the hand surgeon came in to visit me, I greeted him by vomiting. I had a handy tub by this time, thankfully. He just wanted to make sure that the gauze came out OK, which it kinda did, and the swelling was much lower than before, and told me that I'll have I'd probably leave the next day and have to visit him Friday to see how my hand is doing in general. After all that at about 11 or so (I don't remember the time as the clock in that room was stuck on 2:30, even though the second hand was still going) they told me I was moving again cause someone needed a heart monitor setup, so I was on the move again. At least the new room was to myself again, but it didn't have a phone, and when they put in a phone, it was dead. By the time I got a working phone, it was well past midnight and too late to let anyone else know I changed rooms again. It was also the room next to the psych ward, and when someone in there walked into the door, the alarm would sound for at least 2 minutes, and this happened twice within 24 hours. I finally got out today and am now on oral antibiotics, Augmentin 875, for 2 weeks and have 3 docs to follow up with, starting with the hand surgeon tomorrow. While I was there for 4 days, my store put together a get well package together with many items, mostly junk food, and some gag items too, including a Spider-Man coloring book and crayons and a bottle of bubbles.
In the meantime, Dusty was taken to the vet, and by county law has to be locked up (kitty jail?) for 10 days away from human contact, (we couldn't have avoided it because if we didn't have him taken to the vet, the hospital would've filed the report instead) and the vet kinda shrugged the incident off and wrote it up as 'misdirected aggresion', and will get his shots updated while he's there. Since my left hand is wrapped up tight and typing with 1.5 hands is tough, I won't reply to anything else until at least tomorrow. I have to change my dressing once a day with saline and betadine, and even though I saw how to do it twice I don't really trust myself with this stuff, but I don't have much choice.So, what's all up with you guys?
