Guess where I am. Go on, guess. If you guessed “hospital”, then you’d be correct. I’d give you a cookie as a prize, but eh, it was just too obvious of an answer to warrant a prize.

    Anyway, I can’t spend much time typing, but I wanted to post an update so no one would think I’d disappeared. Of course, I don’t think many people noticed anyway – after getting Internet access back for the first time in a week, I checked my mail and found only one email from a friend wondering where I’d gone. I’m so special.

    So yeah, I’m in the hospital, have been since last Sunday (as in June 18). I had surgery as planned, but unfortunately the hospital I was recovering in didn’t properly manage my pain medication. Again. The Doc operated on my inner thighs, hips, butt, lower back, and stomach, so naturally there was quite a bit of pain involved. Since my doctor is only a plastic surgeon, he isn’t exactly fully trained in hefty narcotic pain management, so prescribing my pain meds was left to the geniuses at Washington Hospital Center. They really, really botched it. They sent me home on Friday with little more pain medication than I usually take just for the day to day pain from the Dercum’s Disease. All weekend I tried just gritting my teeth and struggling through it. But the meds just weren’t working, the pain was just excruciating. And on top of that, I kept having to run back and forth to the bathroom – my intestines had been going mad all week in the hospital and hadn’t let up at all over the weekend at home. I just couldn’t take it. Several times as I either laid in bed or sat huddled in the bathroom I just wanted to give up. The pain was terrible, just as bad if not worse than the pain from my toe amputation. And it wasn’t getting any better.

    Sunday night I totally cracked. The pain had me hobbling around hunched over like Quasimodo, I couldn’t rest for the constant motion in my intestines, and it was all just too much. I started crying my eyes out and gave in – I called an ambulance and went on my way to a different hospital closer to home. A week on and I’m still here. They’ve been working hard to try and find the right drugs to treat the post-surgical pain and they’ve been treating me for something else we discovered. Turns out all that intestinal pain was an intestinal infection. Great job, Washington Hospital Center! Send home a girl with rampant bacteria in her guts! Brilliant!!

    So my tummy is on the mend and the pain is finally easing up a bit. I’ve also finally gotten some proper sleep. Ever since surgery I’d only been able to doze off for a few minutes here and there because the pain was so bad. I hadn’t had a good night’s rest for over ten days and it was driving me mad. But things are turning around now and it looks like I might get to go home on Monday. Maybe. Ugh, what a mess.

    Sorry if this entry is a bit garbled or whatever; I’m pretty well doped up. I just wanted to get something up before it got any later. I’m off to sleep now.