Friday, August 21, 2009

The drain is out!!!

So today I had my appointment with trauma. The attending was in surgery so the intern was just talking to him on the phone. He came back into the room and told me he was going to pull the drain. I questioned him as I had just been to interventional radiology on Wed, the ones that put it in, and they didnt want to pull it because they wanted the drainage to be less than 20ml per day and it had only been like that for 1 day. Trauma however said they pull it if it is less than 50ml. I made the intern call the attending back and tell him that IR didnt want to pull it on Wed so was he sure he wanted to pull it and he said he was. I got no happy juice for him to pull it, he just went ahead and pull. Oh yeah, need I mention it was stuck on something which I think was my pancreas. He kept pulling and I felt like my insides were going to come out of the whole. I could feel it coming from my back and then I felt a rip and it came out. Didnt actually hurt that bad but felt incredibly weird. I did ask him how many of these he had done before. I know how it is like to be the intern and need experience but I wasnt about to be a guinea pig without an attending there watching but he assured me he had done several of these. I am suppose to call if I have any pain, which I do now but it was just pulled so I am expecting some pain and it is tolerable. I will call if it gets worse or lasts all weekend. Hopefully everything heals up nicely. On a good note, I have been off my anxiety meds for a week now and also off my strong pain meds for 4 days. I am only on tylenol now. I have had a headache all week since Sunday that has not been touched by tylenol, advil, or even Percocet. I told trauma about it and they want to send me to neurology. I will go but I also decided to try a chiropracter today since I figured something may have been twisted in my neck from the fall to the concrete. I told her she was not to touch my back which she highly agreed, and even took x-rays of my neck first before touching my neck to make sure there were no fractures. My headache starts small in the morning and usually by 6pm it is kinda bad. I am happy to report that it is still minimal at this time and I havent taken tylenol in a while so I am hoping a couploe tylenol will nix it. She also has this new technique that she uses these tools to get under scars and break them up. I said I was all for that, anything to try to get my hand back I will try. She did a little today but was hesitent to do too much without seeing the x-rays and knowing what was under it so I signed a form to reloease my x-rays to her and will return on Tuesday. All in all I had a very busy day. Time to relax now.

5 comments:

Heather said...

WOW!! YAY for the drain being out!! Hopefully this will be another large leap forward and you will continue to heal!!

Love YA!! See you next weekend!!

Anonymous said...

Lindsay, you are such a strong woman! Everything you have been through sounds so incredibly painful! Congrats on the tube being pulled! That is huge! Hopefully the chiropractor will help your headaches! I see one monthly and have frequent headaches and it helps seeing them. Well, continue to take care of yourself! Take care and God bless!

Tammy Shivers

wegs8 said...

did you keep your tube? if not can I have it because I have such fond memories of it..... HA! so glad its out!!!! wahoooooooo :) calling you today :)

Anonymous said...

Glad you are feeling better. I actually saw you at a stop light the other day...was going to wave but I didn't want to honk & freak you out while you were driving. :-)

Where are you going to the chiro? I go to Bakeris Family Chiropractic in C'ville (next to Gus's off of 965) and love them. They are awesome.

Amy

vrazz said...

Lindsay,
Glad to hear things are going well for you at last.

Any thoughts on the possibility of rebound HA? You seem to have been cutting back on your pain meds, and analgesic rebound HA can be a lot like a caffiene HA...Neurology would be able to sort it out for sure.
Good luck and keep your chin up.
Vita