Best Dream Of My LIFE!!

       I just got up from a nap...during which I dreamt that I was a singer, performing one of my favorite songs by my all-time favorite singer, with her! And crushed it!

      Who knew I could have such an amazing sleep, when I feel so un-amazing? The surgery went well, except for the uncontrollable shakes I had despite actually being happy to be getting it. I was hungry and cold, so that might be it. They removed my stent. But then, they put in another; and this one has to come out in two days, not two weeks. Seems almost pointless... And they said I could pull it out myself, and oh by the way it's about the length of my arm.

      I said hell no, I'm letting the pros do it. They said "Call the office today and book your appointment," but uh-oh, they aren't open 'til Monday. Again. Don't they know their hours?

      But this new stent, man. Fuck. I guess I'd gotten used to the first one, and the replacement is going to be hell all over again. Here I am, peeing every two minutes again. I literally came this close to having an accident, twice! And, ugh, I was advised to drink a tall glass of water every hour. Can I just not? I feel like a lake! Damn!

Dreams....And Seams

       My surgery was finally scheduled for tomorrow. Pretty last-minute, but, kept getting a machine. Anyway, I'm just glad to be making progress. Hopefully they can ablate the rest of the stone, and I should really ask about my blood type while I'm there. Maybe a diabetes test, because I am always tired. It could be the depression, but it could be something else, too.

      So I have until midnight to eat what I want, and until 7 AM to drink even water. Ohmigosh, I'm so excited! Hopefully they can patch me up good as new, wouldn't that be great?

      In other news, I have been having very strange dreams, and I guess it started with the one where I was a prisoner. In a hospital-like setting, I guess because that was the most exciting thing to have happened to me all year. Small, curtained spaces. Toilets in every one, but there were fences in every hallway. The floor was dirt, with holes where the prisoners were brought through. So I'm trying to climb out...actually, in retrospect I think I was wearing the same outfit I wore in the hospital, greasy ponytail and all. But I get to the outside, and I walk for a very long time, finally get to where the "owners" work, and I see this spinning light. It's green, but then it turns red and an electronic voice blares out that I've been located in the building. Then these guards ambush me―and I wake up.

      Then I dreamt I lived in this incredible castle. Gorgeous. Except for all the toilets in open spaces; I think I can blame the stent. But I really need to go, and every toilet I try, people walk into the room. Apparently my castle is open to tourists, or maybe it's part-hospital. So I go into my bedroom, which has a huge window on the inside, like at patient admitting. Except I'm home, in my bedroom, and I need privacy. So I close the window even though there are people trying to talk to me about, well, fashion and other unimportant stuff. I close the window and before I can even get to the toilet, my sister barges in. Apparently with all that space, all those bedrooms, we still share a room. Yeah, no offense, but that wouldn't happen; if it's my castle, we're all getting our own floor, okey-dokes?

      So finally I decide to go up to the top floor, thinking I won't be barged in on (is that correct?). There are so, so, so, so, so many staircases and they are all so, so, so, so, so long. Naturally I wake up before I can get there.

      Then there's a dream about a kitchen fire, but then.... There's an old man. Climbing fences. Inside hallways. And an alarm goes off, blaring out that he's been located in the building.

      What? I mean, what? Seriously! 😂

      I love my brain, but I don't understand it. It's not the first time a dream has repeated itself and I'm sure it won't be the last. But I'd love to understand it. Or kill it. Just that teeny, tiny portion of the brain that dreams. Well, okay, that's a big portion of the brain, damn near all of it, but okay, I can consent to being sedated every night. No problem here.

      I have to get moving. Five hours to eat and counting.

Between Surgeries

       So I have to go in for another surgery, which I was supposed to book days ago, but I haven't been able to get in touch with them. My mother tried and got a "Maybe we can do it on the 26th, we'll call you back," and that was the last we heard. That was this morning.

      Hopefully I can get the stent out before it's "too late." I've never wondered before if these things can poison you. I did learn that some patients receive a stent with a string, and whatever you do, you're supposed to not pull it. At all, otherwise it could cause internal damage, pain, etc. But my brother made this joke about wind-up toys... He's weird like that.

      I'm also a couple days behind on my meds, one of which I actually can take. Well, three of which, if we count the Gravol and the Restoralax. I'm no longer nauseous or plugged, but I'm definitely going to be saving them until they expire. Just in case.

      And I have a new appreciation for, well, pretty much everything. Hospitals, a laxative given as a gift, even that calorie-measurement thing my sister-in-law does, which I thought was "over the top." I wasn't rude about it before, just confused and clueless, as is my default. I think I should contact her and ask her to help me do that.

      There are so many things I didn't want to be. So many things I thought I never would. I've never been wrong on so many counts before.

      Today was a good day, though. I didn't think it would be, because I was much too sore to get any sleep. Turned out I just needed a BM. I took Tylenol at noon and haven't taken any since! And I got to the bank. I passed up a much-desired lunch offer at Tim Horton's, but I know I need to take it easy. And maybe not just until my next surgery, but probably forever. Sadly I'm not getting any younger. I just wish I'd gone to the hospital when I first felt something was wrong. Future note; dark and infrequent urination coupled with crippling pain, no bueno.

      I'm afraid I might be in actual kidney failure.

      I don't even drink.

SURGERY

       So...I had a CT scan booked for today. So effing glad they didn't make me wait! I was in the most pain and discomfort I have ever been in, more than I thought was possible. Puking and sweating and shaking so hard. I'm sure I made a lot of people feel uncomfortable, especially when I did that screaming thing when I was retching. Ew. But yeah, I don't know if I was screaming because of the effort, because of the pain, or because that's just how people puke. I don't do it a lot.

      But on Friday, I think, I was hospitalized a third time. Ugh. This time the doctors actually conversed about my X-rays and started wondering if it was a kidney stone. No hesitation, they get on the phone and arrange for me to have my CT scan that same day; next thing I know...well, I'm still in the same uncomfortable chair puking and trying not to cry, but after that I'm flying down hallway after hallway in a wheelchair by the most amazing hospital transfer guy. I'm wearing a nightie, and I'm afraid it'll fly up, that's how fast he was going. That or he just had really long legs...everybody's tall to me.

      A couple more hours of pure torture later, I'm in the CT with a needle in my hand (which was in there for 2 days straight, thank you very much!) feeling this dye, this incredibly warm dye, spreading through my entire body. I was transferred by wheelchair and I'm still sitting in the wheelchair in the waiting room, trying not to watch this overly-affectionate couple; I mean, she was all over him, kissing him all the bloody time. You're in a loving relationship, great! Time and place, people.

      Then I get wheeled off to a waiting room, where I get to my feet because unfortunately, Transfer Guy has to leave. He was awesome; very skillful in maneuvering me, and he played good music. So there I sit, in a haze of unbelievable pain and nausea, trying to converse with a receptionist who clearly thinks I'm stupid, because she was scoffing and rolling her eyes at me when I couldn't recite my mother's new phone number without looking. Anyway, the bitch takes me to another waiting room, though not before holding up traffic so she can gab to someone. Dumps me in a narrow curtained space with about six chairs in it and fucks off.

      At least twelve hours go by. Twelve hours of puking, shaking, sweating, and listening to this poor guy with fluid in his lungs; I hope he got in by now. Jeez. A nurse comes along, finally. Fiddles with my IV, fucks off. More time goes by. More nurses come and go, but they're not mine. Finally a nurse comes back to me and I ask her to check my IV, to make sure it's in correctly because it looks like it's coming out. Doesn't even turn her head, just says, "It's in correctly," like every-body there is infallible (luckily the bitch was right, but I was in such a bad mood that when she left, I mimicked her words and muttered, "Fucking turn your head." I was so miserable I didn't care, but I think I made the guy beside me laugh. Small wins, right?)

      Guy beside me eventually goes in for kidney stone surgery. I don't see him again. Boom, doctor comes up to me, I have to go in for kidney stone surgery. What was it, the kidney stone waiting room? I don't care, I'm just so happy to finally be going somewhere; I wanted surgery days ago. I think I was a highly cooperative patient. I put up with three enemas that did nothing, used the commode a bunch of times because at least they are not embarrassed, and didn't hesitate at all to have a medical device go up past my urethra. But when I woke up...oh my god. No more pain! I could think. I could breathe! I almost cried again.

      But they inserted something that does stretch you out a little down there, so things can pass, including stones. It makes me want to pee, like, all the time. I'm looking forward to getting it out in two weeks, but I also want it to stay in. Apparently I'm too narrow. I don't want this to happen again. I wouldn't wish this on my enemy.

      But yeah, my doctors and nurses... Man, if I was religious, I'd have called them all angels. And you know what? Tylenol keeps the pain away. Oh, right, the stent they put in me can cause pain, which is the same pain I had before my surgery. So that sucks, but at least there's Tylenol. And I am now on four different prescription meds... Well, we'll see. Two of them are these gigantic pills that I'm not sure I can do, because they don't want me crushing them or breaking them. Something I have always done, because I choke easy. I'm trying them out soon, unfortunately, and if I can't, well, then I just won't. In two more weeks I'll have another surgery to get everything nice and wide down there, and hopefully the stone will be no more.

      I just wish I could remember that nurse's laugh. I know it was beautiful. I remember one of them saying I had "stellar" blood pressure, which is shocking, because I've been under the impression it was high. You know, after someone told me it was. And today, my mother's friend said I "looked good"...which is also shocking.

      Anyway, this has all been slowly escalating over the course of a month, probably brought on by that whole big thing with my neighbor. And I haven't slept very much this whole time, so I think I'm going to try to choke down my meds and lie down. Not like there's a bloody point. Even feeling this good, I'm still uncomfortable. I think I can feel that thing in me. Fun fact; people sometimes remove it at home!

      No thanks. I'm gonna let the pros do this. You know, I have had some horrifying, traumatizing stuff happen to me in hospitals; but over the course of the past four days (or whatever), I'm just not afraid anymore. The doctors and the nurses treated me so well, I actually dreaded coming home. I mean, I can't get the help I need here! What if the stone shifts? What if I'm allergic to these pills?

      Now I hate it here. I feel so unsafe now. I know stress might be a factor in kidney stones and I'm trying to be calm, but... I never have been. People think I am, because I don't express it, but I am always so anxious. Hello, I used to be a shut-in who called her mother if she heard sirens. I don't think my family remembers that. I tried taking my life when I was a child; don't think they remember that!

      A doctor told me there are so many factors to stones that they don't even know the leading one. They don't even know, and I'm supposed to be calm. Knowing I can feel like this again. Seven years from now, a month from now, tomorrow!

      I just want them to make me like a foot wide down there. Okey-dokes? Pretty please? It's not like I'm ever going to be using my womb, so let's just swap it out! Use it for experiments or something. Try to impregnate an animal, or see if a shoe fits in there. Use it as a planter, I don't care, but make me wide.

      I can't even sleep now without dreaming of hospitals and doctors. Which is fine, until I wake up and realize how helpless and alone and without a clue I am.

Hospitalized Again

       And this time, stuff was coming up. I also stayed for 12 hours this time. I also heard people calling for a Sharon and an Allison, so....small wins.
      My god, I'm tired. I did nothing but puke. Here's hoping the same medicine that made me vomit so hard at the hospital doesn't effect me now!

Hospitalized After Loud Retching (I Really Hate THIS Title!)

       Okay, well, worst night of my life since that horrific pain in my foot, which was similar to that unbelievable pain in my back. One minute I'm trying to go to the washroom, thinking it's another boring night, and the next I'm bent over the bathtub retching so loud, I'm practically screaming down the drain. Luckily no one heard me.... 😒
      But I came out and did something brave; said I had to go to the hospital. Bam, forty-five minutes later the ambulance arrives. Six more hours later I'm back, with a diagnosis that I won't publicize, just in case somebody in the whole wide world is reading this.

      Really not the night out I wanted, I'll tell you that much. Coolest part in all that was how many names I heard who were also characters in various medical dramas; Will, James, even an Archer, and you don't expect to hear that.

      Anyway, got my diagnosis, got my prescription, and now I just...wait for morning to get it filled. But tonight, I am absolutely refusing to sleep. It gets so bloody hot in my room and I'm not going there. I am not puking myself awake. Again.

      When I was a kid, I puked all the time. Thought I'd gotten used to it. Oh, I had a couple bites of popcorn? Blagh! I was just playing with my friends? Blagh! I was...sleeping... Blaaaaaghhh!

      I hate my life, I hate my life, I hate my life. Now I'm just sitting here, severely uncomfortable and very afraid of retching again. Every burp I feel coming is nightmare fuel.

      I've felt nasty for about a month, but tonight it just got so bad, so fast. I'd rather die than feel like this anymore.