Did you miss me . . . again?
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You guessed it. I just got back from yet another unexpected and unwanted vacation. This time it was because of an unexpected 5-day stay in the hospital. This time I can probably thank my gall bladder - or, more accuratly, my lack thereof.
Because I had to have it removed four or five years ago, there are certain foods that I just can’t eat any more because they’re just too hard to digest. Anything with a lot of pork fat or pork grease - such as cheapo hams or pork chops - is at the top of the list. The latest addition to the list of things I should avoid is the El Cheapo sloppy joe mix (a generic ‘Manwich wannabe’) that I ate on an empty stomach. That stuff is made with an unbelievable amount of vinegar that just sat in my stomach eating away at an ulcer that had just nicely healed over.
Forgive the imagery, but after I had spent two days throwing up blood and I had gotten to the point where I couldn’t even walk across the house without almost falling over, we decided it was time to call an ambulance.
By the time the ambulance crew got me into the meat wagon, my blood pressure was something close to 74/38. (My personal record was a couple of years ago when I had a staph infection and my blood pressure got down to about 60/29.)
They got me to the hospital and the first thing they did was discontinue all my oral medications I take at home every day and replace some of them with an intravenous equivalent. The one they did not bother to replace was the Lasix I take because of my heart trouble. That one is designed to remove excess fluid from my system and, since they were trying to add fluids to get my blood pressure back up, it would have been rather counter-productive.
Their next step was to pump me full of protonix (a stomach acid reducer) and prilosec (another one) and an antibiotic (because I was also fighting an upper respiratory infection on top of all this :~ ). After two days in ICU and three days in a regular patient room, they finally let me go today. Right now, however, my biggest problem is due to the 5 days without the Lasix pills. See, when I don’t take those, I retain water like you wouldn’t believe (You ladies don’t have a monopoly on that ability - men retain water also) and I look like the Michelin Man right now. In all seriousness, I must have put on 20 pounds in the last week. I feel like I need to go out and buy a few dozen bottles of hoodia but actually all I need to do is start taking the Lasix again. Then I can spend half of each of the next 4 days standing in the bathroom, after which time I’ll be back to looking overweight instead of looking like I just ate an entire Subway - train, tracks, platforms, and all.
Technorati Tags: gall+bladder, ulcer, health, protonix, prilosec, hospital, lasix, hoodia, antibiotic, infection, ambulance
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