December 15th weekend-

While I was at my Mom's house I was on a lot of pain medications. I had to call my doctor because I was out of pain meds and still in a lot of pain. I had an infection in one of the incisions which delayed my healing and had to add additional  medications given to me to transition from one med to another. Well this change from Percocet to Vicodin and 800 mg of  ibuprofen every 8 hours . This change in my system made me have a very rapid heart beat. Even while laying as still as I could the heart rate just continued to get faster. I didn't sleep all night. This went on from about 2am till 8am that morning. I called my doctor first thing in the morning. After speaking with Dr. Kamelle's office they felt that I also needed to check with my primary doctor as well. So I called Dr. Nolan and she advised that with the change in meds but also the recent surgery that we need to play it save and I was to go into the nearest Urgent Care facility to rule out a Pulmonary Embolism (PE) 

Since I was in Elkhart Lake at my Mom's house, we drove into Plymouth to the Urgent Care. After explaining to the doctors why I was there...yeah this took a while. They decided to run some test, draw blood, start and IV and do a CT Scan. Well they take me all the way to the radiation department and ask me what I weight. Turns out that there machine has a 350 limit and they can't do my CT Scan. So they try chest X-Ray, EKG and take more blood for a D Dimer test. Which is a general lab test to tell you either it comes back negative and nothing at all is wrong in my whole body or it comes back elevated and something is wrong... Well anyone just looking at me should know that is not coming back negative. I have just been through major surgery, I have an infection in one of the incisions and my heart rate is in no way normal. They tell me that if this test comes back elevated in anyway that they are going to send me to St. Luke's in Milwaukee to have my CT Scan where they have a machine that I can get one in.

Let's keep in mind that I got to the Urgent care around 10am on Friday the 15th of December. I have not eaten at all. It's now after 5pm and I haven't been allowed anything but a little juice. Finally the D Dimer results come back and just like I thought it came back elevated. So I am to be transported from Plymouth Urgent Care to St. Luke's Milwaukee. Plymouth Ambulance transported me, nice crew. But it had already been a very long day without my normal pain meds and laying on an uncomfortable cot in the urgent care and now in the rig. So they gave me Fentanyl 100 mg with 10 mg at a time. (yeah I know it's a lot...but I was in a lot of pain for a very long time.) Thank you Plymouth Ambulance for helping me.

I arrived at St. Luke's Emergency Room and was admitted right away to my ER room. After re- explaining everything to them they tried to have somewhat of a plan. They did several test, took more blood. They weren't really sure what to do with me, so they called Dr. Kamelle (who already knew that I was there) and he told them I want a CT Scan, and EKG, Ultra Sound of legs and Cardio Ultra Sound, did blood test on me every couple hours to look for any changes. Dr. Kamelle also told them to continue my pain meds, let me eat, and admit me for observation to make sure that there are not any other changes and make sure that I don't have a PE.

Around 3am I was taken from the ER to a room on the 5th floor in the Cardiac wing. Where I was admitted to the floor went threw a lot of the same test again. Took the normal thing like Blood pressure, temperature, pulse, weigh. Drew more blood, did yet another EKG (third one for the day). And then we played 1000 questions. Needed all of my history etc. let me tell you I know this is there job but by 4am I was so tiered and hungry that all I wanted to do was sleep.

The morning of the 16th my breakfast came, first real meal since Thursday night dinner. It was awful, zero flavor. muffin was the only thing okay on there. the rest was cream of wheat, decaff coffee and milk. It SUCKED!!!

I wanted to get showered and a clean gown on. I asked the CNA if I could shower and they said no because I had a heart monitor on. At the same time I asked for help because at this point I couldn't bend enough to be able to shower by myself. The CNA gave me an attitude and even with explaining that I just had major surgery that I needed help. I asked for a clean gown and towels and wash clothes so that I could clean up and they brought me a gown that was to small and said they didn't have linens. This is such a basic thing why cant you provide this. The CNA told me that she would be back and ring the bell when I needed her but it was said in a way that she was annoyed with me and didn't want to help. So I cleaned everything that I could by myself and called it quits. I am not going to have this girl with an attitude about helping me cleaning my privates. I was very upset about it that it brought me to tears.

I asked my nurse and CNA that morning several times when I was going to get to see the doctor no one ever had a answer for me. Finally after asking 5 or 6 times they finally paged a doctor. It was now dinner time, so after 5pm. The physicians assistant came in and said that all my labs and test were good and that they were going to check with the doctor and if i didn't hear from her within an hour that I would get to go home. About and hour later the doctor finally came in and asked me several times are you feeling ok? After saying yes every time he asked he finally agreed that I could go home. about another 45 minutes later I finally was allowed to leave.

I still had to be taken all the way back to my moms house since I was still under original restrictions from the surgery. So my sister Amanda had to drive me back to my moms house before the night was even done. It was after 11pm when I got back.