Friday, February 6, 2009

Next Wed (Feb 11) I have knee surgery. Had to have a pre-op yesterday and my Immunologist wanted to speak to the anesthetist because going under can kill a person with Mastocytosis (didn't realize we had an official diagnosis yet? Just three opinions that I do; and one opinion that I don't). So, they can't use the usual knock-out cocktail and I need to have benadryl, rantidine & steroids intravenously before and during the procedure. They will intubate me as soon as I'm under, and have Epi on hand in case something shitty occurs. The Anesthetist said, if all goes well you'll wake up in recovery with a painful knee and a really sore throat; if not, you'll wake up in ICU.

Am recovering from an anaphylactic reaction on Wed. NO IDEA what caused it. I've been fighting with reaction-symptoms for about 2 weeks, and a couple of times it looked like I needed Epi but I used my arsenal of meds instead, waited, prayed, meditated (with my husband holding my hands going 'ohhhhhmmmmmmmmmm' for me and coaching me through the pain/constrictedness and asking intermittently if he needed to stab me), tried to breathe and it eventually got better not worse, so didn't use it. But Wednesday, shortly after writing the last blog entry, it all blew up bigger than I could handle and my throat closed in. I thought I was going to die. It really upset me. So the anxiety component was massive.

The Paramedics and First Responders were awesome. But at the hospital, because the Epi worked, and the swelling had all gone down, I was breathing, my O2 saturation was 100% and just had a bit of flushing on the face and neck left...they treated me like I wasn't there. Then, the doctor started asking me if I'd been treated for anxiety before? Ugh. This was after 4 hours of being there, and me telling them that they needed to call my Immunologist so that he can explain to them what's going on, and what they need to do in case I rebound (which I did...) They ignored me and THEN came in at 4:45 pm to tell me that my Immunologist's office closed at 4:30 pm. I know. That's why I told you over 2 hours ago to ring him, and I told you that this is the time the office closes.

My Immunologist says my hospital are getting complacent. He says that they are now so used to my responding well to Epinephrine, and seeing me fine by the time I get to them (sometimes an hour, because of where we live) that they're no longer on alert for me rebounding. Despite knowing that I have a history of rebounding, I was pretty much ignored. When I was rebounding, they all ignored my coughs, splutters and calls for help (which were barely inaudible as I was having trouble). When the doctor finally came in, he remarked, "OH! oh dear, you're rebounding!" and called for a nurse. No shit Sherlock. He then said he could hear me coughing and was waiting to see if it would get better on it's own, or if...maybe I was just feeling anxious. THIS is one reason I hate using Epi and having to go to Emerg. It's when I get treated like this is all in my head, and nothing is going on that I want to crawl into a hole and suffer on my own. Oh wait, I WAS suffering on my own.

They also left my poor husband in the waiting room for over 4 hours. He says this has never happened before, and he thought something really awful was going on because he wasn't allowed in. No, we were just being ignored.

I'm chewing on whether I should write a letter of complaint.

Anyway, as usual, post-reaction, I feel like I've been run over by a lorry/truck and am exhausted. So, I'm off to lie down with my usual post-reaction cocktail of meds. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

1 comment:

Kevin said...

Hi Fiona,

I'm so sorry to hear about your latest attack, it SUCKS I know. I hope you are doing well, you've encouraged me to continue with my blog. I really did not know if my post had helped anyone until I saw your post and Amy's. Hang in there we still have allot of life left in us.