I’m home after one of the least eventful hospital stays in a long time. Other than having to ask for a different nurse after the first one tanked a port-needle change, my prison days rolled by with minimal pain and little to talk to the doctors about, other than why my lung function has dropped and is not improving.
I know most people have one-time, short stays in the hospital, but after dozens of visits, I can’t take the food anymore.
That is the worrisome part. Or, the part I don’t want to talk about right now.
I pounded out a decent amount of work while in captivity. Sometimes even I wonder why I do it, but I’m just programmed that way.
And perhaps that was the most stressful part of the jail time – work.
Our 8-person group is coming under fire from new management for reasons unknown. It’s a little like elementary school when the entire class loses their recess because of the actions of a few. I just saved anyone reading this the details, but it created a lot of stress for me not just in the way work stress does. Instead it made me realize I can’t put up with some of this bullshit anymore as my life comes to an end. It’s not worth it and my time is too valuable.
I will say this: If it weren’t for my wife and daughter, I might give up. Yes, I know I’m the luckiest man in the world, but even with that in mind, getting painted into a corner in life, or feeling trapped, can make one feel hopeless.
It’s always the total load, trying to work, make money, avoid jail time, keep my lung function up, and float on top of the cloud of trivial bullshit some people live in.
Some days it feels overwhelming and I wish I were pushing a basket around downtown Los Angeles with my black lab and IV machine in tow, which may be happening soon the way work is going these days.
So, with a heavy mind, I spent a lot of time escaping into videoland at night, watching movies or runs of TV episodes, like House of Games (awesome), and Justified (pretty good; I wish I was either the actor that plays Raylan Givens, or Givens himself. There is something to be said for being cool in life).
So, life goes on as I complete the IVs at home, Inipenem every six hours with a 3-hour drip, and Tobra once a day for 60 minutes.
I’ll have plenty of time to think about my next move before others make it for me.
The Unknown Cystic 
Glad to hear you are home, I’m doing everything I can to stay off antibotics now. Thank You for the blog, it helps me so much, just knowing that there are other CFers that have to deal will all of the normal everyday life bunch of crap makes my crap easier to deal with.
Thanks again
P.S. any reason you are doing the Tobra over 30 min instead of a hour. My doc says there is some evidence that it is more effective if ran over 1 hour or more. And the every 6 hours for the Inipenem sucks, I’m sorry.
Colin,
What a nice thing to write. I never think of my blog helping anyone other than me from writing this stuff down. That’s helped a lot. I’m glad you shared how it’s helping you. I sometimes think twice about sharing some of the “down” thoughts, but they happen. So, I do. But I pick myself up and get back to life.
Regarding the Tobra, thanks for mentioning that. They did give me 30-min drips of Tobra in the hospital. However, and I didn’t notice this at first at home, they’re running tobra over an hour. So, I’m confused at to what they were doing in the hospital. I’m going to email my CF clinic tomorrow and ask what’s up. Thanks again for that. I updated the post.
The 3-hours of Inipenem is a drag, but they say it works best to keep the antibiotic in the bloodstream for a longer period of time. And they really believe in it that way, as I tried to get out of it and they said “no.” So, I’m grinding it out.
Best to you and thanks for writing. Are you married yet?
UC
Yeah, got married of Cinco de Mayo(because of mexican food primarily). Tomorrow is my wife’s 31st birthday last year I was locked up but the nurses on my floor had a party for her. I’m pretty lucky to have a great bunch of CF “friendly” nurses here at UCD in Sacramento. The Gen Med doc’s always have some to learn but know that 1/2 the CFers know what is best for them.
Have a good day, I’m gonna watch weird documentrys on netflix today.