This tale begins last Friday, when I had a liver biopsy to attempt to determine why a bile duct is/was being compressed from the outside. As I type this, I still do not know what the pathology turned up; my money is on a combination of scarring from the gall bladder attacks and fatty liver disease, which is prevalent among old fat diabetics like myself. The actual procedure went OK, but I had an episode of nausea, fever, and uncontrollable shaking not related to body temperature. The same thing would happen a few hours after a gall bladder attack, and the assumption is that this is my liver reacting to injury.
As the fever and shaking subsided, the nursing staff was concerned about my blood pressure, which was low. They kept me in the post-op area until it came up a bit, then sent me home. I was dopey and had a head full of cobwebs. VWife went to the local Wally*World for groceries. I could not help her carry them in, but with the use of a desk chair, I was able to clean out the fridge and put the cold stuff away. It was very difficult for me to hold my head up, and I went back to napping soon after.
I woke up in the evening somewhat rested and went through my bedtime routine, which includes taking medications for high blood pressure. Discharge orders were to resume my usual medications after I got home, so I did, then I went back to bed for the night.
It was roughly 3:30 AM when I woke up to answer the call of nature. I got up and headed 8 feet to the bathroom, and realized that I was weak in the knees and had no sense of balance. It took superhuman effort to get there without falling onto my face. Then, while on the john, it struck me that I was profoundly deaf. Ru-roh, the EMT in me went into action. I determined my BP was low. I got VWife up.
The conversation was quick: “Wake up. I’m deaf and have no balance.”
“Ooooh shit!”
She dug out my cuff and stethoscope, then between the two of us we could not get a reading. I couldn’t hear well enough to do the job, and I couldn’t explain to her in 30 seconds what to listen for. She got me dressed, then called 911. The crew got a reading of 80/40, and were surprised I was even conscious. Of all the times I’ve been in an ambulance, that was the first that I was an emergency patient.
The ER staff went nuts. I soon had 3 IV lines in me with big bore catheters (OUCH!), and bags of fluid on all three. My bed was set so my feet were over my head, and I had to hang on to keep from rolling backwards. After about an hour of that, my pressure slowly increased a bit, so the deafness faded to be replaced by tinnitus.
The doctor came in, and gave me bad news, then worse news. “We’re going to put in a central line and a Foley catheter. You’re not going anywhere soon.” Y’all know what a Foley is; a central line like I had is done by making an incision at the top of a leg, them putting a specialized IV catheter directly into the femoral return vein. They did this to give me norepinephrine to constrict my blood vessels, thereby raising my pressure even more.
When he finally started on the central line, he said to me, “You’re tense, and there’s no reason to be.”
“Well, Doc, it makes me nervous to know there’s sharp stuff that close to my wedding tackle.” This got a good chuckle out of him.
After about another hour, it was determined that I was stable enough for a CAT scan. The big concern and assumption was my BP was low because my biopsy punctures were bleeding into my abdomen. I didn’t think so, because I had no pain, and I gave myself an abdominal exam and felt no hard spots. Yet, Occam’s Razor dictated that the obvious be eliminated first, and off I went.
While I had a gown on and was covered by bed linens, I was essentially nekkid. They loaded me onto the slide table, and moved me into the machine to start. The linens snagged while I was headed in, and I was being undressed by machine. I hollered, and they stopped to unjam me. After a couple of passes, I was moving in for another pass, and my central line them snagged. I really hollered about that because it hurt. I was freed once more, with a big sigh of relief, and the scan resumed. Next pass, and my Foley snagged. I was certain I was going to have my crank ripped out by the root, but I survived.
The imaging showed no loose blood. I was admitted to ICU, but had to wait through the afternoon for a room. With all the time to kill, I tried to be playful. A sheriff’s deputy was at the nurse’s station talking about Chik-Fil-A. “Hey deputy, if you’re going, I’ll take a Spicy Chicken and lemonade…” I finally was in a room around 5 PM, and spent a day there. Sunday night, they moved me to a medical ward. From the move Saturday night to the time I went home Tuesday, there’s not much that is remarkable.
Nobody has a definitive answer to what made me crash. There was talk of various infections, which were all negative. My theory is that my BP was low coming out of the biopsy through a combination of anesthesia aftereffects and my liver reacting to having 3 holes punched in it. Taking the BP meds the same night pushed me over the edge, and the indicator for this is my pressure went back to normal Sunday morning, just about the time you would expect the drugs to wear off.
I want this crap to end, dammit.
