OK. These are just not fun at all.
First off, my mother-in-law had a massive stroke last Thursday. My wife and daughter flew out first thing the next morning.
I arrived two days ago to lend a hand and support.
After having a fairly simple cafeteria lunch at UCLA Medical Center, I wound up with another intestinal blockage. It was some chinese style sliced beef with mushrooms and other veggies with rice.
Since I had one of these in January, I knew exactly what it was when it started to hit me a few hours later. I walked around the block a few times to see if that would help and the pain subsided a bit but then came back hard later. Wound up going to Los Robles Hospital in Thousand Oaks, CA emergency room. If you can, avoid this emergency room!
The triage nurse didn't know what a neobladder was and after I explained exactly what my relevant history and current symptoms were he asked if my bladder was removed because of colon cancer! I politely explained that I had my bladder removed because of bladder cancer and most likely, if I had colon cancer, the surgery would have been there!
Even though the blockage can cause some pretty intense pain, apparently if the triage nurse doesn't fully understand that, you don't get seen until they run out of all other patients.
Sure enough, when I finally got seen and got a cat scan 9 hours later, my self diagnosis was confirmed. While this is only a partial obstruction, it sure did hurt for a while.
Now I'm on pain meds and Regalin and an antibiotic because my white cell count was up.
This is just crazy. I'm supposed to be helping my wife and her family but instead my sister-in-law brought me to the emergency room and stayed until they finally admitted me. That was around 7:45AM this morning and we arrived at 10PM last night. My wife was spending the night with her mom at UCLA medical center and had her phone off.
Told my wife it's nothing to worry about because we know what it is and that it will pass. She's stopping by on her way home in an hour or so.
I felt so bad about this because in comparison to the stroke this is trivial and I don't want folks worrying about me.
I know this will pass in a day or two but IV and meds are required.
Just needed write this down...I suppose.
Mike
