Well, we almost it through yesterday without any pain meds. Late last night, just after making yesterday’s post, Amanda started having bad chest pain. It is controlled by IV pain meds, but it does make me feel easy about getting out of here. We’ll need to have this rate and pain under control before we can go anywhere.
The hospitalist came by this morning to chat with us. We’re under the transplant floor’s care. So, the ICU team doesn’t care about us, to a point! Amanda has been holding on to fluid since the ablation. They gave her IV diuretics, but it didn’t do the trick as they’d hoped. So, today, they added a double dose. It has started to work a little better.
I had hoped I would make it to at least midnight before a call would come for work, as I’d mentioned. That didn’t happen; I was called to work late in the morning and had to take off. I was out of sick days and planned to take FMLA, federally protected unpaid leave. I was denied because I was shy of the requirements. It’s a long story and too much to explain, but the benefit of being off with Amanda through this and for ministry work last year turned into a double-edged sword. The good news is everything with sick days starts over January 1, and today was the only day I needed the FMLA. The Lord also provided a way for the money I will lose from taking off long before we knew we would need it. I’ll make a praise post about that soon; it is too much of a God story not to share.
On my way back from getting coffee this morning, I was in the depths of the hospital. I rarely pass people down there, but I passed a doctor who held a door for me. He said Happy New Year, and it looks like you’re fixing to make someone happy with coffee. Well, yes, sir, as a matter of fact I am!
The nurse had mentioned we’d likely not get moved to the floor today. There were many more in front of us going up, too. Amanda wanted to walk, and I didn’t want to wait for the nurse to come to unhook her, so I just got the mobile unit loose myself, and we took off. No one freaked out, and our nurse didn’t even flinch. We made four laps this time, and I got her all hooked up and ran a blood pressure check myself. Her rate is still getting up and bothering her, but she didn’t need any pain meds right after.
We received a ton more cards and a couple of care packages as well this morning. We had Chipotle for lunch, and I ordered via the app. It was ready right when I got there. I grabbed it and was on my way back. About halfway back, my watch wanted to record a workout. I guess I was trucking along without having to wait to pick lunch up.
We made another walk, only two laps this time before her rate got up this time. It climbed into the 130s, and was really affecting her. She needed to lie down and get some morphine. We just aren’t making any headway with the rate. Any increase of 15-20 beats a minute causes her to have issues with pain.
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I needed to make a run to the store. Amanda wanted Sonic and some waffle fries. I also needed to make a run to Target to grab a few things. We needed some more healthy snacks; I’ve been eating too many unhealthy snacks so much so that I needed to grab a bigger belt to be a little more comfortable sitting around in all day!
When I returned, Amanda’s arm was wrapped and ready for an S-word. I almost used the word shower, but after two weeks without one and the leash comment, I didn’t want to push my luck! I had asked about her getting one earlier. But first, she had to have her emotional fry snack! I’m sure the nurses love me helping. All he had to do was take her monitor off and make the bed, and I took care of the rest.
I was worried Amanda would take too long and wear herself out. So, I’d warned her, no messing around, shower and out! She was kind of quick, but I was hurrying her along. The nurse had primitively parked a wheeled chair right outside the shower room. It was a good thing he did because Amanda needed a ride to the room afterward. She also needed a morphine dose. She was worn out, but more so, her chest was killing her.
We got Chinese from a vegan place we hadn’t been to, too. It was fabulous, and we were already talking about going and dining in on a trip back up. We had already planned on tightening up on our eating. 2024 has been a bad year for us, and eating out regulates a whole food plant-based lifestyle. We’ve had a lot of rough patches and just threw it out the window at times. So, after the first of the year, we’re cleaning our plates up a bit! We already had a date in mind to do a reset of sorts. We’ll typically do this, I’ll fast and Amanda will juice then we’ll come back with a really clean eating and lower calories for a while. It helps us stick to our guns and maintain.
Looks like we will be getting to the transplant floor sometime tonight or in the morning. I hope we can get somewhere with this rate issue, but with slight increases on a medication we know doesn’t have great effectiveness, we could be here for a while.