Saturday, July 15, 2006

Fear ... Oh yeah, I recognize this feeling

Okay, so I think I know what the deal is with post-traumatic stress, now.

Day before yesterday, I couldn't remember what that all-consuming fear felt like. I mean, I remembered I had it, but it's like remembering pain. Thankfully, you can't summon up that feeling as a memory.

Yesterday, I could.

We got there, and after the normal long wait, the nurse began accessing her port, then was pushing saline and Little Warrior was screaming. I thought maybe it was just that her EMLA (numbing) cream had rubbed off. Then, suddenly, I saw a big BULGE in her neck.

Me: Stop, Stop!!! There's a bulge!
Nurse: Where??? Where???
Me: Her neck, her neck!!!

Things got dicey for a couple of minutes, someone raced off to get the radiologist, and the nurse was looking very worried. Sez I, 'What's going on? Is this serious? We're very scared right now, tell me what's going on!'

That seemed to 'snap her out of it,' and she said no, it wasn't dangerous because it was just saline, but that they needed to see what was going on.

Well, the radiologist thinks that there was a blockage in her line and the nursed pushed too hard, so, it perhaps ripped a hole in her line. On Monday they'll tell us what they see in the CT of her chest/neck. If the CT/MRI are clean, they had planned on removing her port anyway, so this may just speed things up.

Whew ... those 2 minutes of total fear took about 10 years off my life. And The Husband was ready to rip someone limb by limb.

Amazing how many thoughts you can jam in 120 seconds.

oh my god is this going to be it? are the people going to rush in here and rush her off to the OR for emergency surgery after all this are we going to lose her to a stupid human error is this an embolism what does this mean this can't be happening ....

But this morning, she seems fine. Ravenous, of course. But crawling and getting into stuff, just like normal.

AND ...

Some initial good news -- we chatted with the radiologist after Little Warrior's CT/MRI and he said that he didn't see anything. Of course, they still have to go over them with a fine tooth comb, but it was an initial 'good.'

2 comments:

Random Musings said...

My thoughts and prayers are with you.
I have been reading at a distance for a while now.

Kelli said...

How scary for you..that just stinks LE. My fingers are crossed and hopefully the news will be for real good...