Wednesday, November 21, 2007

IV soreness

I've been a pretty healthy person my entire life. While I'm not physically the picture of perfect health, I have not been sickly, never broken any bones, never been in the hospital, don't have to go to the doctor often. *knock on wood* That is a good thing, because all of the above make me very nervous. It's mostly a huge fear of needles that lead me to prefer to stay away from all things medical related. Just ask my grandmother and mom - they'll tell you about the time a nurse chased me around a 9x9 room at the doctor's office when I was a child. Shots are not my friend.

So imagine my surprise when I had to make a trip to the ER last week on Monday night. It was for a bleeding problem that I'll not go into, but let's just say that it resulted in a colonoscopy which I was so fortunate to have yesterday. You can put the pieces together. I'll go ahead and say that all is fine and I will find out the pathology results on the polyps they removed yesterday in 2 weeks.

I said all that to say this....IVs suck. At the ER the nurse put an IV port so that if she needed to draw blood multiple times she's already have access. It turned out to be a good decision because she drew blood twice, but she put the IV thing in the bend of my elbow, which was awkward. It didn't really hurt the next day though. The nurse yesterday morning put the IV on top of my hand....and that hurts. It's puffy and a little bit bruised and sore. I was not the least bit happy about having a foreign object stuck in my hand and DH commented several times on how I was not a very good patient. Oh well. I wasn't made for this stuff.

Have you ever had to drink that stuff to clear your system out? It's the most unpleasant experience I have had to date. Drink 8 ounces every 10 minutes until the entire half-gallon is gone. I was in tears by the time I got down to the last couple of 8 ounce glasses I had to drink. I hope it's several years before I ever have to do that again. I'll probably have a breakdown of some kind if it's sooner.

On a happy note, we are leaving work today at noon and I'm going home to cook some yummy stuff for tomorrow. I need to go by the grocery store...which I am not looking forward to. The stuff I need to buy isn't even for tomorrow though; it's for Friday. My brother and his wife are coming to stay with us Friday night and we're having BBQ chicken. I figure we'll all be sick of turkey by then. Maybe I should go Friday morning. Hmmmmm.

2 comments:

Ann Marie said...

Ouch! :-( I'm glad you're out, and I will say some prayers for the pathology report!!!

I have a severe thing about blood--I can see it, just fine, no problem, even big wounds, just fine, no problems--but thinking about it, inside me---ooooooh makes me go all wobbly. hate that.

My practicum this semester is at a hospital, and those ports are blessings, especially for kids! Although I think they are definitely annoying in a totally different way. I hate getting stuck, too--the nurses can never find my veins. :-(

{S} said...

I hope and pray everything is okay!! ((((hugs)))