FRUSTRATION!

Here is the bracelet that I finished yesterday.  See? Like a Peacock!

Now a rant.

I have to have 2 bags of IV fluids administered every other day in order to keep hydrated.  They are doing their job... for the past couple of days, I've had the feeling that we are finally getting ahead of the curve.  Of course, I have been getting regular IVs now for almost two months, two weeks of which were done 24 hours a day as hospital time.  I'm really tired of them, but if I stop, I am definitely going to go back to the dehydration of before, and that's not an acceptable mode of life.  I'm barely getting by as it is.


This evening, I had the nurse by and the first bag was started at about 6pm.  It flowed slowly, and it was not done until 9pm.  I went to change the line to the 2nd bag, something that I do regularly on my own.  There is nothing wrong with the line coming out of the bag, but my vein blew.  IT BLEW.  AGAIN.

I don't know how much more of this I can stand.  I think it's going to be another 30 days before I start the Clinical Trial, and I will have to continue with this routine until then.  Immediately after the vein blew, Sunny came to me, looked at me without even a question on his face, and then peed on the floor.  Again.  So I had to clean up the floor while dragging an IV pole through the mess, and the IV was not even working.

When I finished, I called the nurse.  Now it's 9:30.  "Do you want me to come back and start another line?" she asks.  Well, actually, no.  I'm sick to death of this stupid routine, but if I didn't need the line started and the 2nd bag of fluids, do you think I'd be calling you?  Keep in mind that this nurse is actually pretty good; it's my own attitude that is getting to me.

She can be here in 40 minutes.  That means that she will not be here until about 10:15.  By the time the new line is established, it will be 10:30.  2 more hours before the bag is complete and I can take out the line and go to bed.

In the meantime, I have an appointment with Dr. V- tomorrow morning at 9:30 am.  NINE-FUCKING-THIRTY!  When they gave me that time, I begged for something later.  Getting to Cedars Sinai from the San Fernando Valley at that time of the morning is pretty-much impossible with rush hour traffic.  And I am not feeling well and mornings are far worse than afternoons.  But NOOOOOO, this is the only time they would be willing to see me.  This is my post-hospitalization appointment.  It should have happened last week.  I got the end of this.  I cannot delay it any longer.

So this means that I have to stay up very late tonight waiting for the fucking bag to finish draining into me, then disconnect, take my sleeping and pain pills (I don't want to take them before I remove the line for obvious reasons), and then go to bed and wait to fall asleep.  ONly to have to wake up very early in the morning, and I mean VERY early to make it to a fucking appointment that should have been scheduled last week or early this or at least later in the day so that I had a bat's chance in hell to make it on time. 

I have clean clothes, but they are not ironed which means that I will ahve to do that in the morning before getting dressing for the appointment too.  This is a Beverly Hills Hospital; I may go in looking schlumpy, but I will not go in un-ironed.  That's taking it a step too far.

I'm sick to death of living like this, I'm sick to death, and as I said to my Therapist yesterday, I know where this is all going anyway.  Why do we have to drag this out like this?  Other people get to have short illnesses before they go; but no, I get to be tortured for years and years and years and years and years and years.  With no respite.  With no relief.  And without even a decent vein to insert an IV line in so that I can get two bags in a single session.

By the way, I was famous in my last hospital stay too.  They were starting new lines on me three times a day.  THREE TIMES A DAY.

The nurse is here.  I'm done.