Cancer – This Nurse’s Nightmare P2
Most patients hate being in the hospital but nurses hate it even more. Yea!!! After 5 days I was going home. No more hospital food. No more hearing patients call out through my medically induced sleep and trying to answer them. I went home with my right arm anchored to my body by a very large sling. Trying to get comfortable in bed just didn’t happen. One morning while trying to fix my breakfast I was reduced to tears. Lillie, the independent nurse who was always caring for someone else, couldn’t even make a bowl of cercal for herself. This was a big deal for me. Little did I know that the worst was yet to come. While getting ready for my first doctors visit after the surgery, I tore my new parts a loose. Oh no, there goes what I loving called my” bag of bones.” I forgot to tell you they repaired my arm with cadaver bone from a hospital in Florida . Before they could set up the surgery to repair the damage, my body started to reject the bones. Three weeks in the hospital on the Oncology ward.
There, I had nurses berate me for not being the routine patient. I was weak as hell. Remember, this was a 10 hour surgery. I fought to bathe, comb my hair put on lipstick and perfume and my own gowns everyday. My kids even brought me jewelry to match my gowns. I had to endure more surgeries over the next eighteen months. Seven operations while both of my doctors tried to prepare me for retirement. No, I can’t just “not work.” I have kids to support and QVC will go broke if I don’t shop there. The doctors would just smile as if to say you will find out on your own you can’t work. A year and a half went by. All the time I was being hounded by my job’s HR Director to come back to work. You would have thought I was staying home for a hang nail. Finally I went back to work. I was warned by both of my doctors to take it easy on my new hardware. The arm truthfully looked like that of the Terminator. Back to work I went. My life was settled all was well. right?
Oh no it wasn’t. Stay tuned and I will tell you why.