Hospital Stay

This is going to take awhile because I'm still not good at typing. But I want to write some things before I forget them.  Most of you know from Keith's posts a little of what happened.  But you don't know everything.  I absolutely hated the hospital stay which lasted almost 2 weeks, 2 days shy.  Fortunately I begged the doctors and they surprisingly let me go! I was so happy!!! I don't remember my first 5 days in the hospital at all because I was sedated, so it was definitely a surprise to wake up and find out it was Sunday.

A few days later I lost control of my legs for about 3 days. This was terrible!  I wasn't sleeping much and my legs were exhausted and sore.  They wouldn't stop kicking and thrashing.  Keith would have to hold them almost constantly, and without sleep he was very tired as well.  I had to see a Neurologist and after a priesthood blessing I was given some medicine for them that got them to rest.  It was wonderful! This is after pulling an IV out and almost kicking my chest tube box, which scared the poop out of me! I got my first 3 chest tubes out pretty fast but the last one didn't come out as soon as I would have liked.  I actually got very angry with my doctors, I wanted to be flown to Primary Children's Hospital and I wanted Janeen to come out and help get my legs under control because I thought my doctors weren't doing enough to help me. I at one point thought I was addicted to my meds even. And of course I wanted my last chest tube removed and I thought they wanted to torture me and not take it out, crazy train anyone? So yeah, I had a little anxiety in the hospital to say the least. Funny thing is the med I'm on for my involuntary movement is most commonly used for people who have schizophrenia.  Also, the Neurologist wanted me to have a MRI, those are not fun at all. And it definitely didn't help that I had my pacemaker turned off for 2 hours. What we found out from that was during one of my surgeries I had a mini-stroke. That is what caused me to lose control of my legs. I actually thought I'd broken my foot because in the hospital I was given moon-boots, very padded boots for my feet and I kicked one off and I heard something pop.  My one foot was very sore for a couple of weeks (fortunately it was a bruised tendon).

Now my hands and legs twitch, and my speech isn't that great. But I'm in physical, occupational, and speech therapy and I'm improving fast they say, not fast enough for me though.

After getting out of the hospital about a week I went to the doctor and had a temperature and found I had pneumonia and had to take a trip to Milwaukee.  They were also afraid of infection in my blood so I had to get blood cultures, again not fun.  Doesn't help I HATE needles.

Going into surgery I wanted the Ross Procedure but during the surgery my surgeon, Dr. Twedell, decided I could never go through another surgery like that because of all of the scar tissue so he decided to put a Mechanical valve in. Which means blood thinners for the rest of my life. :( good thing is I will never have to go through that again which I'm thankful for! Bad thing is I can hear it clicking and blood thinners!

So there it is, some things I'm proud of in therapy to let you have an idea of what a pathetic state I'm in are: skipping, balancing on one leg for 40 seconds, jumping on a mini-trampoline and getting air, playing ping pong (loved that), tight-rope walk, grapevine/braid, and my speech sucks still, but I'm trying to stay positive and know I'm improving. I sound like a 5-yr old, and write like one too! But my typing is up to 32 wpm! Please continue praying this will pass and I'll get better asap! I have no patience:)