We got to the hospital after dinner Wednesday, and we got back home right before dinner on Saturday. I am so glad to be home! I was beginning to think we were never going to actually be able to leave!
I was started on 2 different strong antibiotics--clendamycin and gentamycin. By the time I woke up Thursday, I was already feeling better, and by the end of Thursday, the nasty discharge was gone, as was the headache and general achiness I had been feeling for so long. Of course, feeling better made it really tortuous to have to stay 2 more days in the hospital!
Bob stayed at night with me, but during the day he went in to work, taking the metro from Bethesda. So then it was just Drew and me. The time was definitely a "forced vacation", but I can't think of anywhere else where I would have had so few responsibilities and been needed by so few people. I read some books and magazines, did some crossword puzzles, and watched some useless TV. I was staying in a postpartum room, and that floor gets the weirdest selection of TV channels--no sports ones at all (I conjectured that was so laboring wives didn't complain that their husbands were totally distracted by games . . .), and no HGTV, which is pretty much the only channel I ever watch. Instead, there were a ton of channels with trashy dark cop-type shows, a game-show channel, 2 food channels, the military channel, and a few other random channels that were not that interesting to me. Bob and I watched a few movies in the evenings--"You've Got Mail", "Where the Heart is", "Knocked Up", and some Will Ferrell/Mark Wahlberg cop one. Hard to believe we've lived the past many years of our lives missing out on these gems! By Saturday I had finished my books and crosswords, so TV was the only option--it was then that I really thought I was going stir-crazy! You can only watch so many episodes of "Say Yes to the Dress" without going nuts, LOL.
Another thing that was making me slowly crazy was the food situation. At Bethesda, they have a fixed menu for all the meals posted in each room, and you call 45 minutes before you want a meal and order what you want off the menu. Except that you actually receive whatever they want you to receive, or they have extra of, or whatever! So I would order a garden side salad with balsamic vinegrette, and I would receive a caesar side salad with raspberry vinegrette. Twice I asked for Sunchips with my lunch and got no chips whatsoever. The last day when ordering lunch, I just asked for "chips". The lady asked what kind of chips I wanted. I told her I really wanted Sunchips, but I had asked for them the past 2 days and gotten nothing, so I figured they were out or something. I actually got the Sunchips on Saturday, LOL. Two times my order got lost somewhere, so after waiting an hour and a half, I had to call and reorder. Now of course none of these things are huge issues in and of themselves. But when you feel like you are stuck in your room, bored crazy, these little things are just the straw to break the camel's back!
The reason it took so long for us to go home on Saturday is because something was growing in the blood culture they started on Wednesday night. The lab thought it was probably just a skin contaminant, but they and the doctors wanted to make sure--although, as the doctor said, if I had a systemic blood infection, then you would think I would have been sicker than I was, especially by Saturday! But the lab said they would know by 3:00 Saturday--except even then, they never answered the doctor's call. Eventually she said we could go home, and she would call us if it turned out to be anything. (This was probably when she realized we were getting ready to break out of there, as we quickly lost all remaining patience, LOL.)
So we are happily back home, sleeping in our own bed, with no one bothering us at odd hours throughout the day and night! I have a ton of bruises all over both arms from different IV ports and blood draws. It is so good to be home!!
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