Tag: hospital

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Day 96 – October 27

Last night I again did not feel well. I was in bed and woke up at 11.00PM. I had shivers all over again. I really did not feel well, do not ask what it exactly felt like, but my only thoughts were that I needed to go to the hospital again, this just is not all right..

I did sleep some and somehow got through the night until I asked Bram what time it was. He said: “It is 05.30AM”. I was happy, the night was over.Now we are going to call a doctor first because it sure did not feel good, I’m not going through this again.

We were unable to speak to somebody, only 911 was available but I did not want an ambulance pick me up and take me to another hospital. I felt at home at Florida Hospital and they know me they have everything on file so I wanted to go back there. We grabbed everything we needed and some clothing, just in case I needed to stay.

shivers

At the emergency we got out of the car and signed in at the reception. Within 30 minutes I had a room again. Blood pressure was too high again!

I got an infuse with medicine to take my blood pressure down and some pills. It took some time but eventually my blood pressure lowered.

I also had to undergo dome more tests:

X-ray of my chest
CAT scan with and without fluids
Blood test
Pregnancy test

At 11.30AM I was taken to Cardio and got my own room again, this time on the 7th floor in stead of the 9th as we had last time when at Neurology.

I also got a Doppler Ultras Sound test later in the afternoon to test both of my legs.

At 08.00PM a second infuse was placed in my arm, a thicker one and it did hurt when placed. This was needed for another test they wanted to do on me.

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And what do you do the entire day, wait, wait and wait. Camy playing her iPad.

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And Bram also had to wait, wait and wait, good thing they have some pretty good chairs.

Night, night, I’m at the right place here so we will not go home before they now what’s wrong with me and why I am feeling the way I feel!

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Day 87 – October 18

First day back home, after spending the last couple of days in Florida Hospital, feels so good. Since the mailbox was not emptied for a couple of days I just checked it and see what I found.

mailbox

Three more birthday cards from Holland, still feels a little like a small party, thank you all!

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And two more from France, thank you very much!

For the remainder of the day we did not too much, getting well is the main priority, so we slept some.
We will share the good times and pictures soon, but for now I need to get back in shape first and take my time to do so…

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Day 86 – October 17

I woke up in the middle of the night, not feeling to well, warm and cold at the same time and my entire body was shivering. The nurses thought I was in shock and wanted to calm me down with some medicines. I was not scared at all (in my head) but maybe it was just my body letting me know what all I went through the last couple of days. I did not want to take the meds and that is when Bram put his hand on my back and just eased me down. The shivering got less and less and after 30 minutes I was back to normal and fell asleep.

shivering

When morning came around a physiotherapist visited me, he had me do some tests and I had to walk the hallway. That was something I had not done for the last four days. I was able to walk to the bathroom but that was it. The physiotherapist told me that all functioned as it should and that I should be moving around a little more than the last couple of days. So we had breakfast out of bed for the first time, took a little walk to the restaurant. Just trying to widen your borders again, something I had been waiting for.

After I was back in my room a nurse came to measure my muscle tension and told me all was normal, that your arms and legs do feel a little funny. It is part of what happened and will be less and less. Glad to hear all was good because in the end what is normal and what is not, what is it suppose to feel like. After all your body has taken a hit from everything that it went through and is getting back in shape now.

For just sat around for the remainder of the day and did some walking and stayed out of bed, and that went well.

At around 5.00PM the doctor walked in and had a proposition, they had a chip ready to be implanted, next to my heart, so they were able to monitor it for the next three years. But since my heart is in good condition they do not really want to do this unless I insisted. Since we did not feel like it and did not find it necessary since the heart looked good on all tests we decided not to do it.

After all this was discussed there was not really anything the doctors could do for me, so they started talking about my dismissal. Yeah, that is what I wanted, just go back to my normal routine even tough life in a hospital is sound and safe. Yes hard to decide, you want to go home but yet I am scared to be there all by myself, no medical help. Nothing will happen again….right?!

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At 8.20PM while in a wheelchair we left the hospital. All sorts of information and paperwork were given to us and headed home with it. On the parking lot one last glance of at room, which it was for the last 5 days.

Since I have to take care of myself now we needed to pick up some medicines at Walgreens. We went through the drive-thru (it is not only fast-food restaurants that have a drive thru) everything waiting for me, well taken care of! The hospital informed them we were on our way.

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By 10.00PM we were home again and went to bed right away, pff what did I all go through? Good to be home, hopefully to stay!

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Day 83 – October 14

After all that happened yesterday I did get some sleep but it has not sunk in yet all that has happened, all went so quick. And ooh did I feel miserable, there was no pain but I felt that my body had to work real hard to keep up with all.

My blood pressure was high and that caused a small TIA that is what the doctor told me this morning. We knew I had a blood pressure that was high, I am taking pills for that for over 15 years now but we never realized that it could cause something like this, we never could imagine that. For now I’m just waiting for all the scores of the different test that I took yesterday, see what they decide to do and where we go next.

The infusion has been placed into my arm and from now on they take blood every day.

Medicines I’m getting now are: cholesterol, aspirins and B12, for now no medicine to lower my blood pressure, those are on hold for now.

miserable

The nurse tells me I can eat some so she hands me a menu card. Wow, it looks like a restaurant, you can order anything you want, burgers, pizza, salads and soup. I did not really feel hungry so I only ordered some fruit and yoghurt.

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This whiteboard in my room tells me what day and date it is, who your nurse is for today and what the goal is to achieve today. The goal they set for me today: safety, rest, sleep! Sounds like a perfect goal. To tell you the truth I’m kind of scared, I do not want this to happen again,a TIA….

At around 9.00PM the doctor asked me wether or not I wanted to take a TEE scan, a test which allows them to take a look at the back of my heart with a camera. Since all the other tests were positive they wanted to make sure they did not miss anything and wanted to exclude all possible causes of what caused the actual TIA.

To undergo this test, a tube will be inserted into your throat and that is not exactly what I was waiting for. However the upside is the opportunity to really have me checked out and enables me to leave the hospital in good shape and feel healthy again.

All right, we will do it! As from midnight I can not have anything to eat so we can proceed and have the test taken the next morning. They do enter the esophagus and when you are not sober not the best way to do it.

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At 9.30PM they informed me that I will be taken from the observation room (a room shared with 5 others) to my private room on the 9th floor with a view.

Too bad Bram and Camy had just left for home, this room has room for the three of us so they were able to spent the night. Well they can stay tomorrow when I can not leave the hospital, which would be awesome. Going through this with the three of us would really help me! It is still some 45 minutes from home. Well it is time to get some sleep while I can, they wake me at midnight and at 4.00AM, just to check up on me.