The day the drains came out

This is pretty disgusting to explain... but... Coming out of the wounds are two drain tubes. Each tube goes in to a sort of litre-sized plastic jar. I therefore have both the perf and these two jars attached to me wherever I go. When I have to go to the loo I have to carry along all 3 of these with me. It means that each toilet experience requires careful planning and preparation to leave the bed before I need to rather than when I need to which would be too late.

This morning Dr. Hagege came to remove the drains. I didn't know it was going to be a rough experience. I had assumed it was like removing a perf. He was just going to pull a couple of tubes out. However it turned out to be one of the scariest experiences in my life. They push down on the drain to stop it draining which in turn creates a spurt of blood coming from the artery. He tells me to breathe in, hold it, he pulls and I breathe out. I assume the breathing out method is to avoid me screaming and upsetting the other patients. It worked for the first drain. I exhaled and I cried quietly. When he removed the second drain however it was ridiculously painful. It was like someone shot me in the artery above the shoulder. I breathed out and I didn't move... but I did scream.

As soon as the drain was out however things went down hill. I made signs to him that the room was spinning. He could also see that I had gone all white. He knocked the top of my bed down and thrust my legs up in to the air. I was now hanging half upside down while he tried to put the bandages back on. In the mean time I was now sweating buckets and starting to shiver. They took my blood pressure, which didn't look good, and my pulse.

He told the nurse to immediately inject me with atropine. She said she didn't know if she could get any as the pharmacy cabinet on this floor was locked this being Sunday. He yelled at her that this was one of the 5 elements she was supposed to have with her during a drain removal and that it is on the basic checklist. She said that it was so rare that they needed it she didn't think it was going to be necessary. Luckily Dr. Hagege spared me the rest of their argument and told her to run and find some immediately. It was probably about 2 minutes that she was gone but it felt like a few hours for me. The room was spinning by this time and I felt completely out of control. If I had been drinking I would have felt a lot better as at least I would have known why the room was spinning, known it was my own bloody fault and that throwing up would cure everything. This was not that simple.

The nurse finally got back with the atropine and I felt better almost immediately. Dr. Hagege finished up the bandages, stayed with me for a while until my blood pressure got back to normal and re-assured me that I would be released tomorrow morning. When he left with the nurse he started yelling at her in the hallway and I assume it continued much the same down the hall and in to an office somewhere. I basically passed out for the rest of the morning.

Desney and Alexandra came around in the afternoon. I kicked Alexandra out for a bit while I told Desney what happened. She still amazes me how one of her hugs can cure just about any illness I might go through and make me feel strong. Alex came back and we had a pretty good visit.

I spent the night watching the weekly 2 episodes of E.R., which is particularly strange from a hospital bed, and luckily they gave me something to help me sleep.