26 days, but who's counting...

I've wanted to write a blog update for several days now but found if I procrastinated long enough, the feeling passed.  Heaven knows I've had sufficient time during this hospitalization to write the great American novel (and get it well on it's way to publication--at least it feels like.)

Every admission comes with it's own unique set of physical and mental challenges which ebb and flow over the course of the stay.  Sometimes you surprise yourself with how well you "handle" a certain event/setback one day and then shake your head over how something less significant or even trivial can completely derail you the next.  Knowing this fact to be true, I still inexplicably strive for the "perfect" stay--the one where you are always cheerful, patient, anxiety-free, hopeful, hungry, calm, motivated, and grateful despite annoyances, incompetence, illness, misunderstandings, side effects, sleep deprivation, scary moments, uncertainty, and tedium.  I know.  I know.  It's mental to set yourself up like that each time and come crashing down to reality when I'm not Polly Perfect Patient but rather Irene Irate Inmate.

I've experienced a myriad of different emotions over the course of the past 3+ weeks.  Ones I think I want to write about and share but then I stop short in doing so.  I don't know if seeing things in writing will somehow make what I can now classify as fleeting thoughts seem permanent and unchanging and I so desperately want the outcome of these thoughts to not be permanent.  Or that if I somehow find voice to these thoughts, then I will have to deal with them sooner rather than later and I want to put them off as long as humanly possible.  (Even now as I'm reading this, I see my my attempts to explain my feelings are still trying to veil those same feelings.  Hmmm.  I'm starting to think a good psychotherapist could have a hey day with me.)   I guess I will put deep thought sharing off til another day.

I was ready to be discharged on Friday (11-11-11 was supposed to be a lucky day after all) until I had a mutant mucus plug go rogue the night before in the same area as the pleural infusion I've been trying to eradicate.  So frustrating not to mention painful.  So I've been doing a few new things to try and dislodge this onery critter.  More moisture was ordered.  I felt like I was wearing a cone of shame.  It was annoying and my neck went stone cold after a while but the mucus was less than impressed.  RT brought in a new vibrator/percussor to supplement my vest and give a more focused delivery of percussion to the right lower lobe, but it has not succeeded in it's mission.  So in a mucus trifecta, the doctor decided to try the IPV (Intermittent Percussor Ventilation) system.  It's like a nebulizer that gives short bursts of positive pressure air into your lungs that shakes you from the inside out.  Kinda creepy because they said it can cause bleeding in people with bleeding tendencies--hello, "people" describes me.  So I was somewhat hesitant to try this one but it wasn't so bad and it made me cough up stuff...just not that darned plug.  Tonight we tried slanting my bed down (trendelenburg) while doing a breathing treatment and being vibrated on all at the same time.  I think that has been the best combination so far.  Still not cleared and I'm way past frustrated but I will prevail!

Me with my prednisone-induced double chin breathing mist though my cone of shame.

I've been here long enough to see the seasons change.  No, I'm not referring to the view outside my window. I'm talking about the change of seasons I've been able to experience through the Gift Shop. When you've witnessed Fall merchandise change to Halloween decor, then out parades Thanksgiving chotskies followed by  snowmen mugs and all things Christmas--you know you've been here way too long.  My goal is to get outta here before chubby cherubs and hearts make their grand appearance.  Curse those places of all things cute but pricey.

Witches hat to spook my Halloween visitors--courtesy of the gift shop!

Tigger  with his long legs.  He learned how to walk while I was here. 

Dinner in the cafeteria with Tinkerbell--she didn't want to put on her costume, again.

University of Colorado Hospital is building on a new addition--you can see part of it outside my 9th floor window.   One day they brought in a window vinyl to warn people about looking at the welding going on outside.  Funny thing was that as soon as anyone, including medical personnel, walked into my room and saw the sign, over to the window they went to look outside to see if they could see the welding!  The power of suggestion is alive and well.