I almost lost my elbow

So Thursday night I noticed this red line running from my bad elbow up my arm into my armpit. Not a good thing. I got up Friday and went into the ER.

As soon as the doctor saw my elbow, he called the Orthopedic surgeon and told him to HURRY UP AND GET DOWN THERE. Not a good sign.

Suddenly I had two doctors, the Orthopedic surgeon and several nurses fussing over me. The surgeon produced a HUGE FUCKING SYRINGE and proceeded to jab it into the elbow joint which almost got him punched the fuck out. The joint was dry, but he looked at me and told me that I wasn't going anywhere for at least a few days. He said I would be lucky if I didn't require an artificial elbow. Not a good sign.

They smelled beer on me, so they made me blow a breathalizer. I had been drinking eight hours prior, but somehow managed to blow a 0.00.

They bagged me and transported me up to the fourth floor, the surgery floor. After the insertion of that HUGE FUCKING SYRINGE, my elbow was hurting quite a bit. "On a scale of one to ten, ten being the worst, how would you rate your pain?" (A question I have been asked about every two hours for the past fifty-six hours). They gave me a couple of Vicodin, which I swallowed with great doubt in my mind.

They started me on some hardcore anti-biotics via my IV. I should mention that the ER nurse put the IV right in the crook of my right arm, so that it hurt like hell to bend my arm at all. So then I couldn't use either arm. Fucking great.

After a few hours of lying there, helpless, the doctor okayed some Percosets, and said if they didn't do the trick, that if the pain was that bad, that he was taking me into surgery immediately, because that would mean that there were other issues other than the infection. Thankfully, they did the trick. So I stayed stoned the whole time, two Percosets every four hours until I was discharged.

The surgeon came in every few hours and jabbed the HUGE FUCKING SYRINGE into my elbow joint to see if any fluid was accumilating from the previous invasive entry of the HUGE FUCKING SYRINGE. Finally, Friday night he said enough, and wanted to see how my elbow healed from the inflammation of having a HUGE FUCKING SYRINGE jabbed into it several times.

They had my elbow in traction and elevated the whole time I was in, so I maybe got like three hours of sleep total the whole weekend. Bag after bag of anti-biotics. Friday night, everytime I fell asleep, I would bend my right arm, pinching off the IV tube in my vein, thus setting the alarm on the IV machine off, and a nurse would come in and would tell me to straighten my arm out and reset the machine.

After bitching and yelling at one nurse, I finally got them to put another IV in on the back of my hand, which was way more tolerable. None of the nurses knew what to make of me. I seemed impervious to the pain, but whenever they asked me to rate my pain on the 1-10 scale, I always answered "six" and kept close track of every four hours, when I knew I could get a couple more Percoset. That and they found my tattoos fascinating. And the lab techs were in awe at my unflinching attitude to getting blood drawn, even when they couldn't find a vein. It was just that HUGE FUCKING SYRINGE that I had the problem with.

The surgeon came in Saturday, took one quick glance at my elbow and told me that I had to stay at the very least another day. He said that if the infection didn't start clearing up, he would have to open up my elbow and clean it out with a scalpel. Not cool.

So I just layed there and watched cable TV the whole time, stoned on Percosets. The food wasn't too bad, though it was hard to eat with one hand (even harder before they relocated my IV, I just didn't eat). The nurses were pretty nice, they would get me whatever I asked for (water, Pepsi, Percosets, Nicotine patches, crackers).

Since I was in traction, I had to piss into a jug (at least they didn't give a catheter) and then they would have to empty it out. That was sort of weird, a few of the nurses were young and cute and the idea of them having to dump my piss out kind of gave me a dominatrix complex).

I watched a bunch of movies on cable TV. Napolean Dynamite was actually pretty funny. I watched a few Clint Eastwood movies, and The Road Warrior. When I watched the Road Warrior at three o'clock Saturday morning, the nurse came in and said I had to turn it down, which I found funny, but then again I was stoned on Percosets.

Wendy and Chris and Sarah came and visisted me on Friday afternoon, and Whalen and Crystal and the kids came and visited me on Saturday. They brought me a balloon that they wrote on that said "Sorry to hear about your Genital Herpes" which the nurses found quite amusing. Thanks, guys.

I started getting pretty depressed Saturday night, because my girl didn't come visit me and I knew she was out partying. "So just how many guys did you fuck while I was lying in the hospital?"

Today I got up, and was bummed out because my pain level was the same as Friday night and I figured that was going to mean surgery. The surgeon had said that as the infection went away, if I still had a lot of pain, then it was likely that there were other issues and that he would have to open my elbow up and see what was going on in there.

He came this morning, took one look at it and told me another day of the hardcore antibiotics. At least he didn't probe me with that HUGE FUCKING SYRINGE. Then he looked at it again, grabbed the sides of it and squeezed and asked me if that had hurt. Amazingly, it did not. He told me that he was releasing me today and putting me on oral antibiotics and Vicodin. Sweet.


So I Whalen and Crystal picked me up at noon and brought me home, after I complained enough to get one last dose of Percosets an hour before I was supposed to. My elbow is really really tender and sore, and I still can't extend my arm all of the way out, but the redness is all gone and it doesn't constantly throb in pain. As long as I don't bump it on anything, I am all good. They gave me my sling and ice pack to bring home, but I don't have any ice, and the sling is sort of funky so I am eschewing not to use them right now.

I have a script for my meds, but have no money to fill them, so I don't know what I'll do about that.

I have to go back Thursday for a follow-up, and if my shit ain't healing, back in I go to have surgery.

I am in a surreal state right now, after being stoned all weekend, in the same bed, and from all of the hardcore antibiotics. And no cigarrettes. They gave me the patch, but as much as I smoke, they should have given me three at once.

I am broke today, which sucks. I could use my meds, some smokes and a shower. (I stank like a fucking bum when I went in, and sweating all weekend in the same bed from alchohol withdraw and pain pills didn't help).

Now I get to go see what kind of mess my girl has her head in. At the very least, grab my backpack from her house and try and procure some tobacco and maybe some cash for my meds before that last dose of Percoset wears off.

I'll just have to take it easy this week, let my shit heal and see what the surgeon says on Thursday. Fun stuff.

How was your weekend?