Home from Hospital

Smokey bunny on the bed.

Home again…ah! Nothing like the feel of one’s own bed! 

Thank you so much for your support and good wishes through your comments. There were lots of useful suggestions about which crochet project to tackle and I will reveal my choice later in this post.

I was in hospital for three days and two nights and survived to tell the tale.  


Medical tests that are routine for most people are anything but routine for me, I’m afraid.  My body doesn’t cope with any type of stress (either physical or emotional) due to hypoadrenalism (also described as adrenal insufficiency or Addison’s Disease) and other aspects of my autoimmune conditions.  While most people can undergo relatively straightforward medical procedures in a ‘day surgery’ setting, I need to have a planned admission due to underlying medical problems.

Very blurry picture of
an IV catheter
from the previous
hospital admission.

My doctors and I have learned from experience that ‘IV (intravenous) support’ is necessary because hypoadrenalism will mess up my fluid balance and blood concentrations. I get dehydrated very easily; if that happens it can be hard to find a good vein for an IV injection. The plan is to have the IV catheter in place from the very start to save problems later.*  

At admission, the nurse on the ward questioned the plan (“We don’t usually do an IV for these procedures”) but I insisted. One needs to remain very assertive to have one’s needs met, especially if they are out of the ordinary, and emotional fortitude is often required 
in the face of the ‘medical machine’.

Don’t be afraid to be your own advocate. I’m glad that I argued my case and that, thankfully, the nursing staff followed the plan despite their doubts. It was just as well too because I became very ill quite rapidly once treatment was underway. What I expected to happen did happen and I have nothing but praise for the care I received. 

When I became very unwell, the nurses raised the alarm and within minutes, I was visited by the MET (Medical Emergency Team). It is a team of doctors and nurses who are emergency medicine specialists, available for ward staff to call upon when needed. It was a bit overwhelming to have such a crowd suddenly appear, seemingly out of nowhere.

They were brilliant. I’m a complex case (you may have guessed) and their close monitoring, cleverness and swift action saved me yet again.  I ended up with two IV lines and plenty of bruises from having blood taken and repeated attempts to insert the second IV catheter (Remember the problem with finding veins on dehydrated people? I did warn them!). They weren’t too gentle because time was of the essence and I’m still very sore now, over a week later. Oh, well, a small price to pay I suppose; a souvenir of my adventures!  What a rebel rouser, hey? Having doctor parties in the wee hours!

In some ways, it was reassuring to know that the symptoms truly did have a physical origin and that my perceptions were not exaggerated.  My life is filled with a collection of symptoms which come and go; often I ignore them and just wait for them to pass because if I sought help for every little thing, I would spend my whole life at the doctor’s office – no ‘quality of life’ points to be gained there! 

Despite shaking the place up a bit, it was as comfortable a hospital stay as possible. Everybody was very kind, understanding and accepting of my individual needs and everyone took extra special care of me. 

My crochet remained untouched until the final day of my stay. My selection of small projects was organised into individual snap-lock bags beforehand; my children were instructed on what they were and where to find them at home, should they be asked to bring one of them in to me. I truly anticipated finishing at least one of the projects during my hospital stay. 

Three 'hospital projects'
Each one is in its own snaplock bag.

Hooked on Crochet! Slippers,
10 comfy pairs of slippers!
(Annie's 2013)

What were the projects?

As suggested in “Packing for Hospital”, bed slippers were the obvious choice (4 votes: from RedSetter, Sarah, Ingrid and me) but I couldn’t choose a suitable yarn. The slipper projects suggested acrylic yarns but I preferred something that included stronger fibres like nylon as found in sock yarn. My sock yarn was too lightweight for the slipper patterns.

Lion Brand Bonbons DK acrylic
colour set 'Pastels' #620

Ingrid K.’s packing list was great: a cape–there was a one-skein cape pattern in the book similar to my Blue “Lacy Cape” made with bulky weight yarn; little things like granny squares and take 3 colours– I was reluctant to take more than one skein or colour unless small ones like the Lion Brand Bonbons; wrist warmers; or a hat; all great ideas. Ingrid suggested packing “a whole bunch of yarn and suitable hooks, a yarn needle to sew ends, and scissors”. She has her priorities straight! [grin]

Blue Lacy Cape, crocheted in 2010

A compact kit

A tiny pencil case, found around the house, was just big enough for a handful of hooks within a small size range, a yarn needle and my thread cutting pendant.  The case had a zip closure and a small fabric loop onto which I clipped a few stitch markers, a row counter and tape measure. A compact kit and I was all set!

What more could a girl need?
Clockwise from top left: pendant thread cutter, row counter & stitch markers attached to pink loop of case,
tape measure in crocheted case which can be buttoned onto the pink loop, yarn needle,
pencil case with more stitch markers attached to zipper pull tag,
steel and aluminium crochet hooks sizes 2.5–4.5 mm 

The library haul was a good idea. So many portable projects; can’t go wrong! Not only that, for a year and a half, I had been searching for the perfect scarf pattern for someone and there it was, in the One-skein Wonders book. 

Crochet One-Skein Wonders: 101 Projects from Crocheters Around the World
(Storey Publishing 2013)

You know how it is; you decide on the perfect colour, and know in your mind the style you want, but finding that style is hard. I would find a pattern with a suitable style and not have the right yarn, or I would have a few suitable skeins to spare for it but none of the patterns were the right fibre, weight or amount.  This time, the stars must have aligned because it all matched up and the decision for a hospital project was made!

I’m almost finished the Red Lacy Scarf and hope to give it to the recipient for Christmas this year.

Here’s progress so far…

Diamond-Strike Banded Scarf by Kristen Stolzfus
Crochet One-Skein Wonders: 101 Projects from Crocheters Around the World

Some cooler days at home allowed time to work on the Belcarra Cardigan too. Not long to go now!

Belcarra Cardigan: all that's left to do is to complete the cuffs and weave in ends.

It took at least a week to recover, most of it spent sleeping. I feared that my body was slipping back to the bad old days of severe fatigue where “resistance was useless”, sleeping away the days for only a few functional hours in return.  My stupid brain remembered that ‘post-anaesthetic fatigue’ can last for 6 months and I desperately hoped it was not the case in this instance. It’s too close to Christmas for that! 

And on the Seventh Day… I woke up feeling okay!  I could get out of bed and had energy to get some jobs done around my home to make a start on tidying up the chaos of a week doing barely anything. Hooray!

Relief.

Gratitude!

Watch out world, crocheter on the mend…

* Post scriptum: I found out after the fact that Scleroderma Australia Inc. has published a brochure which is available for download: Helpful Tips When Having Blood Taken. Links are provided in the text above and in the list below.

Links & References

Annie's, Hooked on Crochet! Slippers, 10 comfy pairs of slippers! Book #878542, ISBN 978-1-59635-226-1, Annie's Crochet [series], Annie's, AnniesCatalog.com,  306 East Parr Road, Berne, IN 46711, USA, 2012,2013.

Belcarra Cardigan, designed by Robyn Chachula, Interweave Crochet, magazine, Winter 2010:

• Interweave Store: http://www.interweavestore.com/belcarra-cardigan?utm_source=ls&utm_medium=affiliate&cid=05t1rdpCdm4&siteID=05t1rdpCdm4-D3I5nwqeVwa6n_w5wKwdvQ
• Ravelry project page:  http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/belcarra-cardigan

Durant, Judith & Eckman, Edie, editors, Crochet One-Skein Wonders: 101 Projects from Crocheters Around the World, 1st printing, ISBN 978-1-61212-042-3, www.storey.com, Storey Publishing LLC, 210 MASS MoCA Way, North Adams, MA 01247, USA, 2013.

Lion Brand Yarn, "Bonbons" DK acrylic, colour set 'Pastels' #620: http://www.lionbrand.com/yarns/bonbons.html

Lupey Loops, "Library Haul",blog post, 9 December 2014: http://lupeyloops.blogspot.com.au/2014/12/library-haul.html

Lupey Loops, "Packing for Hospital",blog post, 7 December 2014: http://lupeyloops.blogspot.com.au/2014/12/packing-for-hospital.html

Scleroderma Australia Inc., Helpful Tips When Having Blood Taken: Scleroderma Patients, brochure, download link: http://www.sclerodermaaustralia.com.au/27-publications/112-blood-taking-tips