February bleed

Well I had a pretty severe upper GI bleed last week. I went to the ER Sunday morning after vomiting up bright red blood (actually it was coffee ground type the first time then bright red) and having some bad epigastric pain.

Got taken back pretty quickly, NG tube went in which immediately started sucking out bloods. (mind you you are not sedated when they put that tube in, its very uncomfortable and seems to get caught on anything and yanks portions of it out of your nostril.

The ER doc was giving me Morphine 5mg for pain, but it wasn’t really helping. Eventually around 18:00 that evening the doctor for my group who does admissions came and talked to me, we got my pain meds changed over to Dilaudid which helped my pain a great deal.

“Slept” in the ER over night, my GI doc showed up Monday morning for a consult, he wanted to do an endoscopy since he saw the bright red blood. Around 16:30 we started the endoscopy, they thankfully removed my NG tube while I was under a little bit of sedation, I remember all that though so it wasn’t that bad. He didn’t find a source of the bleeding unfortunately. I see him Thursday morning to followup and see what else we can do. He mentioned the pill cam endoscopy but that’s expensive but would help to show if there’s bleeding down in my small bowel.  My hospitalist wants me to talk to him about colonoscopy since I am at high risk for colon cancer, have a previous history of polyps, etc. I am past due on my colonoscopy though anyway, I’ll bring it up to him but will have to tell him I have no way to pay for the procedure up from, which isn’t usually a problem with that group as he and my primary doc are in the same group so I pay that bill monthly. The hospital on the other hand wants $500 upfront to be able to have your procedure there. Its actually cheaper than doing that at the outpatient center.

I was transferred to the ICS (Intensive Care Stepdown) unit for a day, where I ended up receiving 2 units of O+ blood as my hemoglobin dropped down to 8-8.3. After awhile I was transported to a normal floor for HMG patients and finally got out on Thursday. The Hospitalist doc discharged me home with a few Dilaudid pills as they were helping my abdominal pain quite well when my Percocets wouldn’t. I found Dilaudid to be a much cleaner drugs in regards to the side effects. I had little sedation, no itching, nausea, etc unlike with Oxycodone or others. I think it might be something to look into having a few of those each month too  for those migraines that would take me to the ER I could take one of those and be done without a costly $500 fee.

My right arm is hurt. One of the sites that an IV was in and where they did numerous sticks for bloodwork has gotten VERY swollen. At first it was just a half dollar sized lump inside the elbow area, but now it has grown down and up, its up into my bicep now. So bending my arm out or picking things up, etc causes a great amount of pain.

I’m also sick now. I started feeling under the weather yesterday afternoon. Laid down for awhile after my brother went downstairs and noticed the body aches and my head felt like it wain a vise. Then I started to feel hot to touch and sure enough a low grade fever. Now I’m hanging around 102.5F. Though it likes to hang around 100.x, I’ll test it and it’ll be 100.4F, then seems to go away then retest when I notice fever again and its like 100.9. Just keeps growing every time it comes back.

My PCP is going to try to make time to work me into his schedule to see me about my arm and illness. Hes just a great doctor, very friendly, genuine concern, will do what it takes to help his patients.

Cory’s been sick as well, hes been congested and nauseous I think. Hopefully he’ll feel better soon. Greg hurt his shoulder so hopefully that’ll heal up soon also.

Okay that’s enough, my arm is killing me, making me cry especially if I accidentally straighten it out. Gotta be up early anyway.

Good night!

Choices

Well its 05:00, always a nice time to try to end the day.

A lot has happened the past few weeks. Ended up in the ER a bunch several days last week due to 1 migraine and then a GI bleed that wouldn’t stop.

Migraine went as they usually do. Go in, wait in my darkened room, talk to the doctor or PA. They check me out. Call my mom to come get me. Get my shot of dilaudid and phenergan. Wait 20 minutes (more like 40 in some cases, though I have been able to leave before 20 minutes a few times). Leave. Then home to bed.

Well that night I had been feeling pretty nauseous and had some abdominal pain over the stomach (more so than I had been with the migraine, which I hadn’t had any vomiting with, just nausea). It intensified a bit and I ran off to the bathroom and produced quite a bit of blood. I went to throw on some clothes and get to the ER across the street. Managed to find a cup which came in handy to vomit in (proof even). Got in there fairly quick and taken back. I saw a PA I had seen back in March of last year when something like this had happened (with much less blood). He got me checked out some, gave me some pain and nausea meds and had me do some orthostatic vitals. (Thats where they take your bp/pulse/o2 sat laying down, sitting up, standing up). My pressure was low and pulse was low laying down, on sitting up, pressure dropped a little and HR increased, standing up made me pretty dizzy and BP dropped a lot and HR went up to about 138.
Laid back down and waited some more, he came back in and did a rectal exam to check for blood there, and pressed on my abdomen some to check for tenderness, etc. Pain had increased quite a bit so got me some more pain meds and a big helping of zofran for the nausea. Anyway the doctor over that PA came in and talked to me (I had seen him back in September for my last bleed which got me admitted) said he was gonna let me go home (As my nurse is coming in with the fluids the PA had ordered) but told me to return if I vomited any more blood, felt weaker, anything like that. Came home and slept since I hadn’t slept any and when I got up was still bleeding so went back in. This time they put me in the Fast Track area (for cases such as headaches, colds, back pain, things that aren’t too serious at present). The PA that examined me just didn’t seem like he knew what to do. He said he would get me some protonix for the pain, and some zofran for my nausea. Okay, well the protonix never came and I finally got my Zofran when I was leaving. They did another H&H on me, my hemoglobin and such had dropped some since that morning. He did a rectal exam as well, he seemed nervous about it, more so than I was. He was nice about it all though just seemed like he was afraid of those things (can’t blame him in some cases haha). But got discharged and said to make an appointment with my doctor. Well I see him on Tuesday but the bleeding finally stopped, I can tell I lost a bit of blood due to the weakness and I’m sure my HGB is low low low.

I got to watch Cory play some music today! Was pretty cool, he used his webcam and some site to stream it to live. Hes pretty awesome!

I’ve been considering a career lately. Its actually something I’ve wanted to do for most of my life. Joining the military. I’ve wanted to be a Marine as far back as I can remember, but I don’t think I could make it through their training at this point. I’ve been looking into the Army Reserve. This would allow me to be able to work and to also serve if called upon. Maybe even go fulltime if I like it well enough. I’m not going to jump right into it just yet though. I have a lot of thinking to do on it. I have some stuff I want to see how it turns out first, and depending on the result, then I can proceed forward or stick with the other stuff.

Ok time for sleep..

Bleh head pain

Well not a whole lot has happened the past few days. It’s been snowing though, which, is super awesome! Its not as much snow as we had the weekend before Christmas but its still out there and more is on the way I heard.

I had to visit the ED Thursday afternoon for a migraine. It had started Wednesday and none of my meds were helping it so I went over there and got checked out and given 1mg of Dilaudid and 12.5mg of Phenergan. That stuff usually helps my headache, it doesn’t make it go away but it makes it much much more tolerable, enough to where I can actually sleep. They gave me half the normal doses I get (2mg Dilaudid, 25mg Phenergan) so the pain and nausea was still hanging around after the shot but not as bad but not a huge improvement that I probably would’ve had with the higher dosing.

I slept for awhile after coming home from there and got back up around 21:00. Cory had sent me a message so I tried to talk to him some. I was really hungover groggy and stuff so couldn’t really concentrate that well to talk as much as I usually do.

I managed to get up at a decent time today, got woke up around 07:30 then off to sleep again, then up around 8something then 10 and finally got up around 11. Pretty tired now too, since I didn’t nap or anything at all today.

I played some Spirit Tracks today, I beat the Fire Temple, the boss there Cragma (I think that’s his name) is a neat boss, hes pretty easy compared to some of the others. I’m getting close to the end, but I will be doing all the side quests too since I enjoy those.

I guess that’s all for tonight, got more to talk about but am just too tired to go on.

Cactuar!

Cactuar!

Originally uploaded by Vaprotan

Well my Sabotender hat arrived Tuesday! I went by my moms to pick it up and it fit just right on my head, even covers my ears really well. It’s got these pompom things hanging down from each side, while they are nice, they do get in the way sometimes.

It’s difficult to see the face and the points at the top due to the angle and the color, but let me assure you, it’s awesome. 😀

I’ll be working on my About page on my blog to try to add some of the info I had on my old blog and some new stuff, so check it out sometime.

Not got to talk to Cory lately, I think I’m catching him right as he’s logging or such as he logs not long after I send a message, so hopefully its just that and he’s not mad or such. Gonna try to talk to him some tomorrow and see how it goes.

I’m still not feeling too great. My body is still achy, nose is stopped up some, nausea, etc. Now I’ve got a migraine brewing to add to it all. If migraine is still going  tomorrow I might end up at the ER D: Since they can usually help me when my home meds have failed me. ; ;

Been playing Spirit Tracks more, was up pretty late last night so used that time to play some. Finished playing the game around 04:30 then I think I fell asleep around 05:40 or something, then kept waking up. Finally got out of bed around 11:45 or so. I did lay back down around 14:20 and got back up around 16:50, though between those times the phone rang a few times and woke me.

Well time for sleep I hope, took Ambien a while ago, so it should still be working.

Cold Weather is Cold!

Well its 14F outside right now, so it’s pretty dang cold. It had been flurrying some last night and I saw a tad this morning but not much. I was really hoping for snow again. 😦 No one else seems to want the snow for some reason or another. Most of them don’t give a reason, so bleh!

The Cactuar hat was ordered from YesAnimation.com (no longer in business as of November 2019 it seems), they have some pretty nice items on there, although some prices are a bit higher than at other places I shop at. I do see a few things they have I want to pick up (Silent Hill Save Point Necklace for one.)

Not really a lot been going on here. I’m not feeling too good lately as mentioned before. Today I had some body aches, some chills, headache, and such going on. Feeling a bit better now but am really tired since it is 4am now. I napped around 13:00-15:00, then woke up covered in sweat as usual. Thomas came over around 8ish and we made it to this new game store in the mall, they sell and trade used games, consoles, accessories, etc. VHS/DVDs also, and resurface discs. Pretty nice place. Seems they have a few different places like that around in Knoxville and in-between there and here. I’m considering asking them for a job, I HATE the mall, I hated working there when I did, I hate all the stupid annoying kids in there. But it’d be a job and the geeks would be in there mostly so I can get along with them okay I think.

Played Spirit Tracks more, beat the Ocean Temple. Did some side quests. Think I’m almost all caught up on bunnies now. Gotta transport some townfolk around and a few other things then I can continue on to the next dungeon and all that.

Well time for bed.

Happy New Year!

Well today has had its ups and downs. I’ve ran low, almost out of a medication I have taken every day for a long time. Stopping said medication causes withdrawal effects and the like. I have other weaker meds to help with that some. So just been really stressed out about it all. I’d prefer to just stick with the first med but not sure if that’ll be a possibility or not.

Let me first say, Happy New Year! I hope everyone was playing it safe and not drinking and driving or other things drinking can cause. Hopefully this year will be a bit better than the last.

I played some Spirit Tracks today, ended up beating the Snow Ice whatever temple today, which was nice. Captured some rabbits and other side quests things. Got some treasures to get from this one tower before I go and hunt the map piece to unlock the path to the Ocean Realm. Probably gonna go play some battle Zelda with Adam for a bit tomorrow sometime.

I was hoping to get to talk to Cory today some but didn’t see him around when I was awake, he had gotten on while I was napping but was gone when I got up so I had to leave.

Ended up picking up Harold since he moved back we’ve been hanging out some. Thomas got back in town tonight as well so we all three hung out. I was driving so got those two going back and forth and being crazy then having to watch for cops and checkpoints and stuff. Nervous wreck. ; ; Had fun though I think. Tomorrow just me and Thomas hanging out so should be much calmer, we’re going to try to watch Public Enemies again since he’s been wanting to watch it. But I do enjoy staying in rather than out driving up all my gas (which isn’t very much anymore). Maybe Cory will be around tomorrow to talk some. What better way to spend the first day of the year than hanging out with/talking to your two best friends? 😀

Looks like my mom got that hat ordered from Yes Anime or something like that, I checked out a site I found when Googling that but am unsure if that’s the same site as I did not see the hat on there (Though they did have an awesome Silent Hill save point cosplay necklace). I’ll have to find out tomorrow. I’ll post a review of how that experience with that company went when the Sabotender hat arrives and is on my head.

Well its 04:00, time for sleep.. I hope.

Cold day

Today has been mostly uneventful. It’s been in the 30s most of the day. I finally walked around 5pm or so. Got a few nice pictures of the sunset/moonrise and the pretty colored sky as well as a few nice shots of trees against the sky that look pretty cool.

I’m still not feeling that great. Today I vomited not long after I got up, been nauseous all day. I was sitting here and started to notice the room going back and forth also, not really sure what that was. I laid down around 1pm and could feel the room moving with my eyes closed even.

I watched Public Enemies this evening. I thought it was pretty good. Might have to watch it again with Thomas when he returns. I’m watching some Super Troopers right now but will probably turn it off shortly since I’ll be going to bed.  I’m considering watching The Dark Knight later today. I rented it around this time last year but never did get to watch it, now’s my chance.

Didn’t get to talk to Cory today. Been wondering if he got my Christmas card I sent. I was planning to get his package mailed today but with the vomiting and dizziness I couldn’t make it. 😦

Thomas called earlier but didn’t do much talking. He never seems to when he calls while they’re out of town. Usually just laughs at stuff or makes a huh or hmm noise, leaving me to try to come up with stuff to talk about.

Didn’t hear any news on my MIA Cactuar hat, my mom called yesterday about it but they were closed still, hopefully it’ll arrive soon. I’m not mad about it or such (as she is), since it was around the holiday time and the store isn’t some large operations, I’m sure they got flooded and things run late when that happens. I’ve had great service from them every time I ordered.

Played a little Spirit Tracks today. I’ve collected 5 bunnies in the side game and earned my heart container. Need to get 10 more I think now for some other awesome goodie. I need to get started on the snow temple too soon.

That’s all for tonight.

Edit: Well looks like the canceled the hat order from Toys N Joys. They’ve written and called several times with no one contacting them back. Its a shame that such a good company has seemed to gone downhill so much. I hope they’ll get things back to how they used to be (they seem to have some other complaints out there now even) as there’s some stuff I’d love to order from them again. Then again there’s always HLJ or GKWorld or the like I guess.

Flurries again!

Well I said I’d start blogging again, so here I am.

I enabled a feature on WordPress to allow more choices in fonts. Check out typekit, its pretty neat. I’m just having a difficult time deciding on which font to use on the blogs entry typeface. Currently I’m using Terfens for the entry test and GoodDog for the entry title.

Not much has happened today. Cory and I talked some, he’s getting some Christmas money soon, and my gift card was just a small amount to help him to get a PS3, but with that money he should be able to get it without the card, makes me sad. Wanted to be a part of him being able to buy the console. ; ;
Maybe he’ll be able to buy a game or something with it though. :]

I feel miserable today. My head, body, everything feels bad. It’s like that ache you get when you have the flu or a cold or something. Ended up napping some this afternoon but couldn’t really sleep due to the phone ringing off the hook.

I watched Night at the Museum 2 tonight and really enjoyed it. I ended up downloading the first one as well but now I remember I have the dvd already. Both are good movies I think. Many good actors along wil the mannerisms of Ben Stiller make it even funnier.

It started to flurry around midnight tonight, maybe we’ll have some snow drop by for a few days again.

Played some Spirit Tracks today. Didn’t get very far,  just captured some rabbits and now need to get to the Snow Temple. I tried to kill the guardian in the tunnel on the way there but I failed so just turned it off since its late and I’m tired.

So now off to bed, need to write these more before I take my Ambien rather than after. Good night.

Biting wind!

Well today was pretty cold. It wasn’t really the temperature as much as it was the wind. One one of my many walks when the wind started to blow, you’d start freezing. It’s supposed to snow tomorrow (Monday). I’m hoping it will, that last snow storm we just had has me all excited for another one of those.

I talked to Cory today some. He mainly talked about some of the football games going on and keeping me updated with certain team’s scores. 😀 Then got to talking about DNS some and how his iMac had some grayed out IPs listed along with the ones he entered. I’m not that familiar with OSX or any of that stuff so did some Googling around and send him the links to some forum posts I found.
I picked him up some Christmas gifts yesterday (bit late), but now his feet shall be all comfy and warm and he’s getting a gift card as well. He wanted that from Wal-mart so that he could use it toward the purchase of a PS3. I hope he gets it soon 😀
I really hope we get to meet soon, he is my best friend either way but would just love to meet him in person and be able to hang out with him and do stuff. Maybe it’ll come to happen soon. He’s a really great friend to me and I love it.
Anyway got his presents packaged up and ready to go, even has a pretty mailing label with a Final Fantasy character on it that I think he’ll enjoy. :]

Hung out with Thomas some tonight, he’s going back up north with his mom tomorrow for a few days. We ended up going to China Star so I could eat really quick then we stopped by Wal-Mart and he got some items and then we went outside and talked to Harold for a few minutes while he took a breather from pushing all those carts around.

We finally made it to the house again and I had to take one of my shots and we were going to watch the Blues Brothers but it was too long (he had to leave early cause of them leaving so early in the morning) so instead we watched Harold and Kumar go to White Castle since we had watched the 2nd one last night figured we might as well watch the 1st as well.

We got to do a short walk this evening (I do my longer walks in the daytime as it’s usually warmer then, so  I can be out walking longer without having to freeze to death and such). but only to the helipad and back to his car.

I’ve  done a bit of photography lately in the neighborhood and near the Greenbelt and creek. I’ve been having trouble out of the Hospital security guards when I’m near there with my camera out. But that’s a long story for another time (maybe tomorrow). I ended up with some nice photos, ducks, trees, the creek, all sorts of stuff. I’ll get some of them uploaded soon I hope and will post link.

Well I got my Ambien filled the other night, cost me $60.. also got some new deodorant Cory recommended (Old Spice Invisible Solid, Aqua Reef), I love that stuff, doesn’t break me out or such and smells really nice. But I paid $4.75 or such for it, this was at a CVS, which from the looks of it have raised their prices to way more than others. (Cory mentioned he got a 2 pack of that from Walgreens for a pretty decent price). I got all of it on Christmas Day so wasn’t sure who all was open and I had to get my meds there so just got the deodorant there as well. Now I smell good again.

Well it looks like it’s time for me to pass out, possibly literally. I took my Ambien about 2 hours ago and got busy fixing up iPod and some stuff. So now I keep nodding off thanks to that and my pain meds. :[

I’ll try to start posting more again soon. Just been a rough month with a few bad occurrences.

Night.

Woot! Snow!

It snowed today! Not that little shower of snow where it melts when it hits or shortly after it snows, but the snow that pours down, sticks, and while its sticking more snow piles up on it. Last time I checked on the sidewalk it was 4″, while the yard came up to around 5″!
It was still fluttering out some but had mostly stopped, but they are calling for more snow Saturday and Sunday! In case you haven’t figured it out yet, I love the snow. I just need to get used to driving in it, since I need to hit up the Shell station but it will have to wait til the day time after the roads have been used a bit more.

Apparently the power lines around here do not like snow. There was some major arcing on the lines below the house, causing me some power problems (losing power for just a moment, to over an hour). It lit up the sky though this awesome green and blue colors. The noise is nice too. (You can check out a video I made of the same lines arcing from a year or two ago on my  YouTube.)

The hospital had to go on generator as they lost their power (Not sure on that one, I thought I saw/heard a transformer go boom), they were on emergency power for awhile and may still be. The local papers site was/is down so haven’t been able to get much of an update.

For your viewing pleasure, I have uploaded some pictures from the early part of the snow storm on my Picasa gallery. I took a few more pictures since then (camera is acting up now, hopefully it might’ve just been the water and has dried out and will work again). Leave some comments on here letting me know what you think of my pictures.

Walking earlier when it hadn’t been snowing too long, was nice. That snowy crunch under my feet, my ability to slide and skate around and freak passerbys. I tried a little walk (to get some night time pictures) but it was fairly difficult to walk and snow was going into my shoes too much for comfort. I need to find my boots (several military issue/police style) so I can walk without snow and junk getting in there.

I suppose that’s all. I’m still sick. Been nauseous pretty much 24/7 lately thanks to my GERD. I’ve also have been having some really bad headaches off and on (though some last a few days). I’ m so fed up with being sick anymore…

Time for sleep…