I slept not a wink the night going into day 3, so at 4 am I gave up. I asked the nurse if I could have a shower, since I knew she'd be busy later in the day. She disconnected my meds and telemetry monitor and wrapped my PICC line in plastic (it isn't supposed to get wet). Also, you only have 15 minutes before you need to be hooked up to your meds again, so you need to shower quickly. While I was in the (tiny) shower stall, the nurse changed my bedding. After I was done, she decided to change the dressing on my PICC since it had bled some the day before. This occurs in the room, but they try to make it as sterile as possible, so you and the nurse both wear masks. There is little pain when it's changed - the only thing that hurts is when it's cleaned and that only burns a little bit.
A couple of hours later the lab technician came to draw my blood again (they do this every morning to make sure you aren't getting too much lidocaine. They were unable to get a vein so they told me to drink more water and that they would come back later. When they did come back, they were able to get the blood.
Speaking of lidocaine, I realized that I never actually said what other medications I was getting. Here's the list:
DHE (I was getting a very low dose. They tried to increase it but it made me very nauseated, so they lowered it back down again).
Magnesium
Haldol (it has an off label use for migraine treatment)
Benadryl (by mouth)
Cogentin (by mouth, to counteract the side effects of Haldol)
Xanax (by mouth, as needed)
Ambien (by mouth, as needed)
Plus the meds I regularly take on a daily basis.
I also had more classes this day. First was MAPS, which is hard to explain, but it's a good class. And afterward was Nutrition, which I only vaguely remember. My meds had been increased and I hadn't slept so I was very sleepy by that point and spent most of my time trying to stay awake.
Later in the day I requested some miralax. Just a heads up for anyone going into Methodist - you will get constipated. I highly suggest you request miralax and walk as often as you can to prevent this but only request the miralax every other day, other wise you'll get stomach pains. I speak from experience!
Coming soon - Methodist Story Time! I explain about how during my previous stay, a man tried to break into my room!
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