Lack of warnings - heading off to MRI any moment.
 

Just got notice transport is on way any time now (no wait like last night) to have me in a MRI. These fuckers take about 2 hours to perform in a cold room. I hate the cold. At least there are no eating or drinking issues, just concerns if you have metal or magnetic in your body. Which I only have or perhaps still have a BB in my calf from when I was 9 and shot myself with a BB gun.

Got some extra drugs, well not extra just loaded up on doses that I have the option of taking every 4 hours and they were available. I hope they have access to warm blankets at very least. Also wonder if I will have access to my PCA to give myself drugs as needed.

Well this is great. When does Friday the 13th end?
Screaming room mate who also likes to switch to other language and is a compulsive button clicker for pain. He says his pain level is only a 7 out of 10 though for him. Plus he has a fucking epidermal in.
Surprise MRI that will be in a cold room, on a hard fucking table (ass injury) with no padding, and the MRI makes lots of noise to boot. Plus I am unsure if I get to have my PCA next to me since it is both electronic and metal parts.
Cat Scan today around 11am. They did cut me off of non clear liquids and all foods not that late last night though (midnight). Though they only need 3 hours of that before hand. Did I mention they have a cold room too. Plus the OR which is next door had ran out of warm blankets so I got none. The pain due to laying on the hard table though caused an instant coating of sweat to cover my chest. That got me even colder. It only took 30 minutes total though.
Oh they installed a pick line today in my arm. They missed the first time, which almost never happens. Reason they installed that is the Central lines (3 IV ports) in my neck all failed to give back blood today. Normally not that important but they need to check my levels every 6 hours to make sure I do not have to high of lidocaine levels in it.
Lastly since the pick line takes about an hour to put in, plus an X-ray of the cord that goes into your chest, then if that is good the pick nurse comes back and sews it in place. Total time is about 2 hours. Well they really needed that blood so they started sticking me again, 9 blood draw attempts before I asked them to check the small vein in my pinky. That worked out.

OK I do not believe in such superstitions. Though I do think Murphy does exist and really like to play with me.

I will hang until they arrive, then see some of you in a few hours.
Sorry if you are getting sick of my medical ramblings. Just need an outlet or I will go crazy.

best wishes....

I'm so sorry to hear this. Just be polite but be very vocal to make sure they take care of you right. Let them know right away you need the hook up on the warm blankets. Every MRI I have gotten done in a hospital has been very close to the ER, and the ER always seems to be on point with warm blankets. If they are sending you to an imaging center it's hit or miss. Imaging centers seem to suck. I doubt they will keep the PCA. Even when it's not running the MRI really pulls at metal.

Good luck with everything. You've been through quite the shit storm but you've been weathering it very well. I think I would have lost my mind. :thumbsup:thumbsup

best wishes buddy

good luck

Hope you're back home fast! I hate going to the hospital! :(

wow.. good luck

Wont be home anytime soon.
Thanks everyone for the well wishes.

I fucking forgot how bad those things suck.

You have to wear ear plugs which do not help much.
You are strapped into a tight ass sled with your arms at your side.
Your face and sides are about 3-4 inches from the walls and roof of the machine.
You have a heavy camera I think they called it laying on top of you, which goes from your chest to below your knees.
Then the sounds start which are VERY loud. Imagine every stupid ass tone you may have ever heard come out of a Atari, Intellivision, pinball game, and every video game especially during the 80's going off rapidly. This will go on for the full 2 hours for the most part, with small breaks.
You then have to hold your breath or they will have to redo that part of several parts. Holding your breath takes up about half of the event time. The least time you hold your breath is 18 seconds, and the longest is 35 seconds. These breath holding sessions are in groups of the same type. Like 4-5 35 second breath holding sessions in a row. I recall 18 seconds, 22 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, and 35 seconds for the times possible.
Near the end and before the final 10 minutes of more not breathing, they inject the contrast. Unlike the CT scan contrast which makes you flush with a warm feeling, theres makes you feel cold.

Oh yeah fuck wearing any warm blanket. You are wrapped like a mummy in one sheet and strapped in.
They do at least have fresh but cold air blowing on you which helps some with any feelings of claustrophobia. I just do not see how anyone could do it if they did have it. I felt like I was in a big round plastic coffin.

you have got some serious fucking fortitude man.

bro, are your central lines plugged up ? how often do they flush them ?

My bad it is me. let me leave edit.
My lines are fine though, why ya ask?
I also get them flushed every time they do anything with them. Which is about every 6 hours.

My central lines go in fine. Meaning they flush fine, run fluids fine. You just can not draw blood from them. Pretty sure the line is near either a valve or a turn in my body. So liquid coming out is fine, when we try sucking blood out though it grabs the wall or valve.

i had a triple line for 18 months when i had leukemia..it was a godsend for drawing blood and for taking fluids/chemo/blood/platelets etc... but they have to be flushed very often..
i got pretty good at drawing my own blood ;)

I agree with the often flushes. Anytime they give me anything it gets flushed. Longest I waited is 6 hours. Most often it would be more often as I get push IV pain meds to as often as every 4 hours, anti nausea meds as often as every four hours, neither of which would ever be on same schedule really. I just can take when I want as long as it is 4 hours from my last dose.

Plus no damn real reason even with very little flushing that it would be messed up in less than a week. Got put it late Saturday night and it went bad on Friday morning.

Damnit bro, get better bud. If I can be of help emial or you have the phone number! Im going to bed now its 330 am yawns but will be up later on and im here for you dude!

Best of luck to you, man.

Best of luck ASM, thanks for filling us in :)

These are just stupid tests as the assorted teams come up with "ideas". Sort of think how they show on the TV show House, but with several different teams in different departments. I am dealing with general surgery, plastic surgery, orthopedic surgery, pain medicine, oncology, nuclear medicine, and I think that is it. Besides units in physical therapy, & massage therapy.

The main units are on my case trying to work together and apart to come up with the best laid plan to get me fixed.

Best of luck ASM.

jeez man... good luck... and screw murphy, you'll be fine... i feel it

shh do not taunt him. :winkwink:

See problem is I will be fine. The whole Murphy running joke is that he puts obstacle in my way to give me extra stress, cost me more money, and generally fuck with me day in and day out.

Very hardcore! Good luck with your recovery ASM.

Good luck ASM!

Seriously, why do you think people give a shit?

This is not your personal blog.

You're a cripple, we get it. Now stop attention whoring and just off yourself.

Sweet, now just stop reading my threads.
Even my business ones are almost like blog entries.

Or put me on ignore.

oh my previous CT found something.

how does internet access work out for you there? do they have ethernet to the rooms, or wifi for patients? or do you have an evdo "stick"?

Well keep in mind Stanford is in Palo Alto. Which also means as the bird flies I am about 7 miles from Google which is in Mountain View.

Besides that Stanford is also a major university with access everywhere. It also seems next to impossible to not find a wireless hot spot anywhere around here. It is almost scary to tell your device to connect to another network with show all selected.

Guess simple answer is yes there is wifi and also wifi for patients.

cool, internet beats having to stock up on a bunch of magazines or something

A 2 hour MRI is tough! I did a *psychic channel* asking if you'd ever walk again, got some mixed news. The word I got was "supports". (motorised?)

Then as to whether you would walk again yourself
"won't be any time soon"

Some hope atleast

I honestly have no desire to walk again. Motorized or not. I not only wrote that off long ago, I had it physically written off when I had both of the balls of my femurs surgically removed so that they were no longer attached to my hip in any way. This was done as an experment since one of them got infected and needed to be removed anyways. We decided to leave them off and just capped. Theory would be that by having my legs no longer attached would assist in the prevention of breaking a hip while transferring between a chair and something else.

Not really concerned with it happening either. Thanks for the thoughts, even if I do not believe in them myself.

ASM is one nice guy, some of us do care whats going on with him and he can post anything he want's this is a public place ya know!

No real need to even pay much attention to such people. Nobody forces others to read peoples posts. I make my thread titles pretty clear most of the time when they are of personal nature. Plus there always is the ignore button around here.

Lately there has been a whole slew of people trying to see who can come off as the biggest douche on this board it seems. At times they will even come out and even do a hostile gang bang on a given user.

Damn brain is getting fucked up and going on other thoughts. gotta run. While I am thinking about it. Tammy said on some other boards people talk about me and my length of posts - can someone email me which board if they know.