Me and You and a dog named Boo: Wake up! It's time for your sleeping pill!

Hospitals or as I like to call them my second home. There is no sleeping in these facilities. I mean seriously the doctors and nurses tell you to get sleep but they come in every two hours to check your vital signs and then there is the constant beeping of all the monitors. In my family we have this little inside joke thanks to John Bytheway. In one of his stories he talks about how hard it is to sleep in hospitals. He had donated his kidney to his brother and he made a joke that my family and I now use all the time. He says how the nurse came in and woke him up from his sleep to take his sleeping pill. This does happen from time to time I am not going to lie. My parents and I are always kidding around about this. If you couldn't tell by now I am in the hospital a lot.

The waiting and the procedures done there are nothing new to my family. At one point a majority of the ER nurses at Primary Children's Hospital knew me and my parents by name. When I was about 9 years old I had a surgery for my acid reflux disease. It was called a nissian and what the do is they take a part of your stomach and the tie a knot around the esophagus making it impossible to throw up and to reflex. For those who don't know what happens when you reflex this is what happens. When someone reflexes the acid in your stomach makes its way up to the back of the throat and then back down. Its very uncomfortable because the acid burns the esophagus. If it goes on to long with out treatment it can cause esophageal cancer. Because of this surgery when I get the stomach flu I must go to the hospital to receive fluids and medications to stop the nausea.

With the P.O.T.S I become dehydrated very easily even if I drink enough water. Its just something that happens and I have to go into the hospital and receive fluids to rehydrate me. This happens about three to four times a year, and it takes just a couple of hours each trip. My most recent hospital visit was because I had an allergic reaction to one of the many medications that I was on. Thankfully I have a fast acting family and we got to the hospital in a timely manner but lets just say that the night crew at Alta View Hospital could drink a little more coffee or an energy drink to wake them up a little more. Not only were they very slow in getting me the treatments that I needed they also gave me FOUR liters of fluid in the amount of three hours! I had to pee every twenty minutes. I got very puffy because of all the fluid that was in me and it was not fun. I was then transported by ambulance to Primary Children's so my cardiologist could take over. She wasn't to happy to hear about how much fluid they pushed through my body.

The ambulance ride was way cool. Oh fyi I want to be a surgeon so I love anything and everything about hospitals, they are very interesting to me. We spent three days in the hospital and got about 10 hours total of sleep for those three days. My mom and dad always make hospital visits fun. We watch movies all day long and just "relax". Even though its not the most exciting thing to do in the world it most definitely is the most boring. My parents and I have a pretty good time talking and joking around with the nurses. I usually get to know them pretty well while I am in there. Well unless its in the middle of the night and we've gone to Alta View's ER. Like I said earlier their night crew isn't the liveliest of the bunch. Their day crew are much nicer and more efficient. I have only been exposed to the day crew once or twice but those visits were much better than the ones that were late at night. Don't get me wrong I give them props for working such long hours at such a late time at night and early in the morning but it really shouldn't take three hours to get the medication that I need.

I am not a big fan of their work. This one nurse... I can't remember his name but he was a piece of work. He just went on and on about how BYU was better than the U at medical stuff. This all started because I had a Utes sweater on, my Utes fleece, and my favorite Utes slippers. If my memory serves me right it was the weekend after the big game between the two. Me and my dad think that he was still bitter about how the game turned out. Anyways back to my story, so he was going on and on about the Y and what not and me and my dad were joking around and having a merry ol' time. Well when he put in my IV he wasn't as gentle as he should have been, and the dope didn't secure the thing to my hand before he took my blood. So naturally when he let go of it to put the three vials of blood on the counter it starts to slip out of my vain. So what does he do? He shoves the thing back in! Let me tell ya it was quite painful and because of it I had a big bruise for about a week and a half. I am an easy bruiser and I usually get small bruises that last a couple of days but usually not the big dark ones that hurt to the touch. I wasn't the happiest of patients after that to be honest. I hope I never get that nurse again.

Oh and a heads up if you are going to go to Alta View they normally put the IV's in the elbow. I don't know about you but I like them in the hand better. I know that the medicine and fluids get into the blood stream faster through the elbow but it's so much more uncomfortable. At least with the hand one you can use your arm. Its a pain to wash your hands but having the ability to use you arm is more of plus to me. I guess that is something that you need to decide. I hope that you never have to make that decision, hopefully you'll just have to take my word for it. :) OH! One more thing! always bring your own pillow to the hospital their pillows are really flimsy and don't have a lot of padding in them. Also if you have an electric heating blanket that you can plug into the wall or something like that I advise you to bring that along as well. Hospitals run unusually cold and they have those blankets that sit in the hot oven but those don't last very long. Those are just some of my hospital tips to you. They might come in handy some day, but hopefully you will only need them when you are experiencing the wonderful day of bringing a child into the family. Weather its you bringing the child and doing all the hard work or it's your wife.
WARNING: I have some pictures below and some of them if you are queasy at the sight of broken limbs or needles don't look. Other wise enjoy!