Every morning I make a phone call to my home care nursing agency. If they don't hear from me, they call me. It reminds me a bit of being in the old folks home where if you don't turn on the light switch they come find you.
Each day they want to know how I am doing and need specific information from me. The big three that I can guarantee they want to know is how much do I weigh (yup, I get on the scale every morning), are my ketones negative and what my temperature is (which could possibly be a sign of an infection in my PICC line). Depending on the day I will get asked other questions like how many times did you vomit and dry heave? How many hours were you nauseated? How many times did you pee? To that question I would like to respond with something a bit sarcastic along the lines of really, with the 100 oz of fluid I get every day and the person who lives on my bladder, how many times do you think I pee? Anyway, some days are different as Monday is inventory day. I have a list of info and give them how many medications I have of each kind along with number of batteries, tubings, flushes, IV bags and dressing change kits. Tuesday is of course delivery day.
Most of the time I talk to the same nurse, Stephanie, but she doesn't work 7 days a week so sometimes I get someone different. Depending on the day this is no big deal but sometimes it makes me crazy because I have to explain my world again. With Stephanie the conversation is great and with some others it is painful. If it is Monday and I get someone different I have to make sure they know what kind of tubing I use or I get something goofy in the mail or they don't send me enough IV fluids. The rest of the chat goes something like this. I sigh, take a deep breath and listen. No, I don't drink. Yes, it makes me vomit. Yes, I tried a slushie, popsicle and every other type of frozen liquid you can imagine. Yes, I've heard that lemon helps. Yes, I know that a bland diet could help. Yes, I tried the other 55 things you are going to recommend over the next 6 minutes and I've been doing this since October so can we cut the BS and end this lovely phone call (now I don't quite say that but man would I like to sometimes).
Overall I really like my home nursing agency and I know the nurses I speak with everyday obviously care about my well being and that of the baby which is all I can ask for.
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