ICU trip number 1

Sorry if I don't remember dates, everything has been such a blur the past two weeks.

I believe it was three Saturdays ago, I ended up taking Hubbins in to the ER. I had to call an ambulance for him and I had to fly my mom in to take care of the kids.

Hubbins is taking vicodin for pain and baclofen to relax his muscles because of his spasms. Because of the yeast infection he had for so long (I don't know if I told that story but making a note to myself because it definitely needs to be told) he was having terrible spasms for weeks on end that would not let up for hours. We are talking leg, bladder and stomach spasms that were wretching him from his bed from like midnight to 6am at times. This caused him to take more of the above drugs to try and lessen the pain and spasms, which in turn ended up causing a bowel obstruction which unfortunately wasn't detected because of the diflucan he was taking for the yeast infection. Not to get too graphic but somehow he became constipated while having diarrhea and they ended up having to insert an NG tube in the ER to remove the obstruction.

From there everything is kinda blurry. First, he had colitis, then c-diff, then sepsis. At one point they thought he was having a heart attack.

In a previous post, I had suspected he was in respiratory depression and I was correct. They had overdosed him on Morphine and vicodin. Then they gave him something called norcam or norcan (sp?) to reverse it. But in doing so, they reversed all the narcotics and sent him in to vicodin withdrawals. He was sweaty and hallucinating, he was screaming nonsense, he thought he was going to die.

I asked a nurse about it and he told me "not to baby him". He said he was sick and he felt lousy and what was happening was normal. During this time Hubbins was also being given zosyn

(sp?) and flagyl for the c-diff bacteria he supposedly had. Every time they gave him those antibiotics Hubbins would go into fits and tell them he didn't want it and that there was something wrong. He was ignored, he was told that he had to have it because the doctor said, he was told his symptoms were not any that these drugs would cause and none of the nurses ever told the doctor.

I can't remember which day it was but the doctor had come in and told me things were good with Hubbins and they were going to move him down. But the next thing I know, they had an EKG hooked up to him and no one was saying anything to me. I asked the lady doing the EKG what was going on and she showed me the printout with a bunch of wavy lines and something that started with an M and tachy something on it. I had no idea. This is when they suspected a heart attack. They drew blood for cardiac enzymes and it all came back normal. They had also drawn blood to check his blood gases or something like that and it showed that his levels of potassium where so low it was coming across as a heart attack.

Hubbins did not have a heart attack. Neither did he have c-diff AND it turned out he was very allergic to the antibiotics they had now been giving him for 5 DAYS.

One nurse listened to me. I had noted all his symptoms and complaints, I had noted times when things would start and what had changed or had been given to him. This nurse called in the caseworker for the hospital and he in turn called in the doctor and the night shift supervisor for the nurses. I let loose. I told everything, details, down to who stood where and what they said.

Nurses were going to be in trouble because not one had reported what Hubbin's and I had been telling them to about the antibiotics. The doctor ordered the antibiotics to be discontinued on the spot.

Then miracles of miracles. The very next morning, Hubbins just had low phosphate and he was going to be discharged and all was good according to them. Hubbins and I were skeptical but we wondered if he wouldn't be better off at home anyway considering what they had done to him the past 5 days.

Hubbins was discharged and high as a kite on ativan. He slept through the night in his bed but the next morning the nightmare was to begin all over again.

PS. I know I am forgetting things and I will try to add them as I remember.