The issue as of late had been food for Amanda. What they bring her or what she can order from the cafeteria is about it. She hadn’t felt good enough to go get anything in the last few days either. They changed her diet after the cath, when she was NPO. It’s been everything from regular low sodium to vegan, vegan low sodium, and now transplant, whatever that even is! It took forever to change it to vegan. During the NPO times, it’s gone back and forth. Just straight vegan is the best. That has a good stir fry, and she can get burgers and whatnot. The transpant vegan left her with a fruit plate, salad, and baked potato with a few crappy canned veggie sides. No pasta, no burger, no stir fry, it was ridiculous. I told Amanda to tell them she wasn’t eating with the current selections. They always ask about how your appetite is; they don’t want patients not eating because they need them to keep muscle for a better outcome after the transplant. I could write an entire post ranting about how unhealthy hospital food is in general, but could write a book on how bad plant based low sodium choices are from hospital menus. Especially how unhealthy Vanderbilt meals are, to top it off, they serve every meal with a sugary drink. I’ll save you from any more ranting, though!
Saturday, she still had blurry vision. It was not as bad as the previous day, but bad while sitting up. She was ok while lying, just not sitting straight up. Amanda’s opinion was that the new sleep med was the cause of all the problems, from low BP to blurry vision and lower rates. The blurry vision still kept improving. By the time I’d woke up in the early afternoon, they were giving her a Bumex drip, the drastic fluid retention had lit a fire under the new team’s you know what! When I first started talking to Amanda, I asked her where she was going because it sounded like a blinker in a car. It was her new Bumex IV pump chugging along! The few pounds she was up finally got them to consider the dopamine we know is the magic combo with the Bumex drip.
I had every intention of getting things together for a list to start the plumbing in our remodel and go get it. I’m getting old, I can’t go with no sleep like in use too! The 12-hour day of getting off at 3:30 am with a 2-hour drive home had whooped me, I was worn out! I slept till well past noon and woke up still tired. So I resorted to finding someone to swap with to get right back out on a train earlier than I was scheduled for instead of opting for manual labor on the house. I did get my list together to put an order in at Home Depot, at least. After talking with Amanda and surveying what I needed to get done, I had some dinner. I sent Amanda a pic of my dinner plants, telling her I wasn’t making anything fancy without her. I worked with what I had; my dinner consisted of a few falafel, some veggie egg rolls, and corn on the cob, all from the freezer!
After dinner, I talked with Amanda a bit. She hadn’t started peeing like they thought she should on the Bumex alone. They questioned if she felt like she needed to go. Even upon telling them no, they still wanted to do a bladder scan; of course, it was empty! I finally found a taker to swap so I could get out quicker, third time was a charm. I was lined up for late evening, so Tank and I were lights out before the sun went down. Being nighttime, I pushed it and took my call from home. It was much nicer to get my call while I was in bed. I get a 2-hour call, and Maps says it would take 2 hours and 16 minutes. I woke in a frenzy, hollering at Tank to get up to go potty; he was so confused. I threw my clothes on and was in the car in less than 5 minutes. Off to the races, I didn’t even drive fast, well faster than normal, and made it to the depot in a little under 2 hours, about 5 minutes late. It’s much better than sleeping in a rest area in the back of the Yukon on Tank’s bed!
When we finally stopped on the train to meet some other traffic, and I knew Amanda was up, I called. She had the Bumex aches, a product of shedding some retained fluid. They threw in dopamine the afternoon before, and she’d lost five pounds in a little over twelve hours. The PA said something about how well it worked, and when the doctor got there, she said, “Well, looks like you like the dopamine, and we can say the oral diuretics don’t work on you.” Amanda is a nice enough person not to say I told you so. On the other hand, I wouldn’t have been able to refrain! I think women doctors are more apt to listen to women about their bodies. In our experience, women don’t dismiss as much as men. There are plenty of men docs, Dr Nair included, who do listen, but the past few guys we’d had should have listened and used the dopamine. They knew best, though. The doctor coming on for next week is the one we saw for the evaluation, and we both liked her. She’s the one who said Amanda was too sick to stay out of the hospital, so I don’t think she will have any issues. Now, at least it will be charted that oral doesn’t work and the dopamine/Bumex drip combo is the ticket.
I had a long night at work. Most days on this run to Houston are 12 plus hours, today was no exception. We barely missed the rain. Getting in the Uber to the hotel just as it started pouring. The hotel felt more like my typical home away from home since I now have some everyday things I picked up on my last trip. The hotel is in a good area for food, there are multiple fast food places and a Cracker Barrel all right next door. However, I wanted none of them and drove to a nearby Olive Garden. Amanda and I both had Italian; her dinner was a plant based lasagna. She said it was really good. I had soup, salad, and breadsticks. I hadn’t had anything but a cold brew to help me stay awake in the wee hours of the morning, so I was hungry. I got my money’s worth out of the unlimited trio: three bowls of salad, three breadsticks, and three bowls of minestrone soup! I should have just eaten out of the big salad bowls instead of transferring to the small plates, but I was civilized!
Amanda has been in good spirits. She was getting a little frustrated with the food, but they finally fixed it for her, and she got two decent meals today. It makes it so much more complicated when I’m not there. She couldn’t go get anything last night or today since she was on the double drips. I think things are falling into place with the cardiologists finally realizing we knew what we were talking about and having some who will listen and not discount. We are heading in the right direction, I just hope we can stay with it as the doctors continue to change each week.