home sweet home

Back at the ward, No neck IV, no leg IV nothing in the mouth. Just the brain drain and the wee-wee tube.

After 3 days the tip of my tongue was numb and with all the tubes in my mouth my vocals was such that I can't speak at a low volume. It only kicked in after a certain volume. I was allowed to eat but only 'soft' foods like jelly, fruits, things that is easily digestible. The nurse said that this is because after the long absence of eating I might vomit. OK. I see what looks like candy with my relative and I ask the wife for a pinch of it just to sweeten the mouth. Then my brother in law S comes across and say he can't eat that, relatively loud. Wonder how many heard it. "HE should eat soft food like jelly, I'll go see downstairs" he says. Ok go I thought jelly is better than nothing. So he goes and comes back with what, nuts and candy! I'm thinking you loudly say no solids so everyone can hear and what did you bring back? Man please let me out of this damn bed so I can get it myself. But the lumbar drain's bag and the urine bag was more than I want to carry around.

Each day I get 4 lollies from the nurses, straight into the IV line. 2 big needles and 2 small. The small is usually painless but the 2 big ones represent a lot more volume into the veins. What I didn't know was that each IV line has a limited life. 3 days is standard but with the 2 big needles wear the veins out faster so 2 days is the best life you get out of 1 IV. The IV on my right hand was 4 days old. On the third day it was already hell on the 4th it was unbearable. The pain was like having someone cut your veins with a knife and your whole forearm was also aching like you wouldn't believe. I couldn't take it I just said I wanted oral tablets and that's it. By this time my lollies had been switched to oral but was told that the antibiotic still had to be injected.Woohoo relief at last, I thought the antibiotic was the small needle but when the nurse came for the injection it was the big one. Let me die... god get me outta here! She didn't even manage to put much in.

I then tried to get my hands on a doctor to change the antibiotic to oral. Alas the doctor said the top 5 antibiotics were only available as injectibles. I said that it hurt like you wouldn't believe. He then tried to flush the line ie inject water or something and I said that yep it hurts bad. Then he said that its time for another line. Damn I hate that thing but it would hurt much less than the traumatised vein that I have now.

Next morning around 6:30 am the nurse came with my lolly. I said let's give it a go on the new line, it should be ok. And it was, just felt the coolness of the liquid pour in, as room temperature was colder than body temperature. Thank almighty god.