Seven Quick Takes--Giveaway Winners!!!!

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It has been BUSY here this week! First there was the book giveaway—and the winners are….

Christy Thomas and Rachel Anna!

Congratulations!! I hope you love the book! I I have emailed you to get your information. :)

Thanks to EVERYONE who entered! If you’d like your own signed copy, email me—they are $20 and include a bookmark and prayer card! (And shipping!)

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I also wrote this: No, you cannot cure ALL THE THINGS with diet….

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Speaking of health stuff….this vaccine rollout has been sort of nuts.

First, the state decided that my group of people—people with “congenital” issues, which CF is, but it’s weird to call it that—can begin getting the vaccine on Monday. Ok. Fine.

I talked to my transplant clinic (OSUMC) and they said, well check with the Department of Health.

Oooookay.

So I register with my county’s health department. Fine.

Then I hear that OSUMC is doing a big vaccination clinic for their patients, even turning the basketball arena into a vaccine clinic. Yay!

Oh wait. I’m not eligible for that, because…….health departments are taking care of me? Huh? OSUMC is only doing their elderly patients? (Which makes zero sense given that I am a transplant patient and they see adult CF patients?!)

This makes no sense to me. OSU is doing elderly people, which, OK, obviously they need it. But health departments aren’t getting a ton of vaccines, especially in a county like mine which has a smaller population and is mostly rural. They’re getting a few hundred doses and they have thousands of people signed up.

So. I have no idea when I’m getting the vaccine or where, but I’m really annoyed that the place where I get my healthcare isn’t making an effort to put its patients in their clinic.

This sort of dovetails into something else I’ve been wanting to talk about….

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Adult hospitals really don’t care about making your life easier. They don’t. Children’s hospitals do.

The Resort had everything there. Radiology. Labs. Clinics. ER. Hospital. EVERYTHING. All under one roof. I drove, I parked once, I got everything done. It was easy.

At OSUMC, nope. I have to drive to one building to get my tests done before clinic. Because we can’t use the radiology department in the hospital. And there’s no pulmonary function testing lab at the hospital. REALLY? They do lung transplants. And there isn’t a PFT lab at the hospital itself?

So I have to go to this place, register twice, and then drive to the hospital itself for my appointment.

At the hospital, they do not take you early. They did at the Resort. At the Resort, my day started with an 8:0 lab draw in infusion. I was often out the door by 11 am. I’d seen everyone.

Here? NOPE. I’ve got labs at 9, then PFTs, then X-ray, then I have hours to wait before my 2:00 appt., because they won’t take me early. Seriously?

So I have to find ways to amuse myself between these two things, and I waste an entire day. This annoys the crap out of me.

Ad finally, the free parking is only good for a few hours. So there’s that.

Adult hospitals, quite frankly, suck at this stuff. They’re so awful. And if it wasn’t COVID-tide this would be somewhat better because I could go to cute cafes nearby, or go shopping or something. With COVID, this all becomes a massive pain in the butt because places are either closed to indoor seating, or I’m sitting around wearing a mask in all these places for hours, which is annoying.

ADULT HOSPITALS! DO BETTER.

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OK after that you deserve some Patty. Here you go

She just had her six month check-up and she has gotten taller and heavier so yayyy! And then she got her six month shots, poor bebe. :(

That’s one reason I want the vaccine NOW—I want to see Patty!!!!!!!!! I want to travel!

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This weeknight bolognese recipe is EPIC and you need to make it….I didn’t use ground sirloin, I used regular old ground beef. :) Also left out the cream. But SO GOOD.

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And finally, I read The Lost Man this week and really liked it. If you like mysteries, this is a really good one!

Hospital 101

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in 2020, it’s that an awful lot of people don’t know what “hospitalization” actually means.

So I think it’s time to educate y’all!

There are many reasons why a person might be hospitalized. Here are a few reasons I’ve been “in house” (the hospital term for being in the hospital):

• To receive IV antibiotics, and I basically felt fine.

• To receive surgery and recover from it (or, to receive procedures and recover and go home—these are called “23 hour admits.”).

• Because I’ve needed fluids and pain meds around the clock, and regular labs to verify how things are going in my body.

• Because I felt like crap and needed lots of therapies and needed to be carefully watched.

My first admit for CF, in 1993, was one where I felt pretty good. I mean, I played in the playroom, I did wheelchair races in the hallway, I wasn’t lying in bed. But I needed IV therapies, I needed albuterol therapy, and we had to learn about CF. So I was in the hospital to get that intensive training and therapy. But I felt fine. (Well, as fine as I normally felt!)

Later on, I’d be in the hospital for a few days if I needed IV meds. We’d do them, make sure I was tolerating them OK, and then I’d be sent home—on the IV meds. I went to school with an IV in. I went to work with an IV in. I just did the meds when I needed to do them. (Now, apparently, this doesn’t happen as much, which I think is ridiculous, but….I digress.)

“23 hour admits” are basically admits where I might stay longer, but the plan is to get me out that day. This is how we used to do bronchs, or even things like pH probe tests (AWFULLLL). You’re in for a day or so, and then you go home. When I had my cardiac ablation, I was in for a few days, we did the ablation, and I went home soon after. Again, didn’t feel too crappy. On with life.

Sometimes yes, I do feel like crap, and I need to be admitted! But even then, this doesn’t equal DEATH. When I have pancreatitis, 99% of the time I will be admitted, because the “cure” for pancreatitis is pain meds and fluids, along with regular blood draws to check certain enzyme levels which show how the pancreas is doing. Now, being in pain isn’t fun and being hungry isn’t fun, so these aren’t the most fun admits, but generally, they’re not EMERGENCY LEVEL PANIC admits.

Then we get to the last category, which is, “Yes, Emily is very sick and needs to be in the hospital to make sure bad things don’t happen.” These are not fun. The upside is that you get to sleep a lot (or I did anyway.).

Being in the hospital does not mean “WOW SO SICK” just like being in the ICU doesn’t mean “DEATH!” It just means that you need a certain level of nursing care and medication. Whenever I needed cardiac cardioversion (aka the paddles), I was always admitted to the ICU, for monitoring. I felt OK once the pain meds were on board and I had stopped vomiting. :) But I was in the ICU because things could go south and then we’d need to work fast. But I was a pretty easy patient for the nurses on those nights!

Sometimes, yes, the “hospital census” (aka, in patient number) is high. Sometimes you have a lot of people in the hospital, like….during cold and flu season. Hospitalizations tend to go up then, because people get things like pneumonia (which I was hospitalized for a few years ago), or other things like that. Sometimes you might need to be in house but aren’t admitted like the one time my doctor had me deal with pancreatitis at home (which was….weird, but anyway). Sometimes, yes, I have waited in the ER while a room was made ready upstairs.

Some hospitals have observation rooms in or off the ER, and some don’t. These can also be used to “hold” patients until a room on the floor is ready. In January that’s where I stayed when my BGLs were wacky and endo finally….gave me insulin. (Sigh.)

That’s not to say that hospitals can’t be overwhelmed—they can be. (See, OSU ER trip in January where we waited for eight hours which has never happened in my life.)

But what I want you to take away from this is the idea that hospitalizations or ICU usage means a lot of people are at death’s door.

Also remember that people are in hospitals every day for a lot of things (see above), and are in the ICU for a lot of things every day. I’ve done three (four???) ICU stints now and I’d prefer to not to do it again because it’s sort of un-fun but I was in the “census” as an ICU patient, even though I wasn’t really at the level of an ICU person (see cardioversions above!)

All a census number really shows is how many people are in the beds at the moment. That can change based on a lot of factors. For example, NCH used to try to discharge a lot of people before the holidays. If you could go home, they wanted you to go home because who wants to spend Christmas in house? NO ONE, REALLY.

So I hope this gives you a slightly better insight into what a hospitalization can be, if you’ve never really experienced one yourself!

Hospital Hair Salons, Part II: Troubleshooting Superbugs!

You may recall last week's post about Hospital Hair Salons. I got a lot of positive feedback on Facebook and in the comments here about this, so I think it's safe to say that this is an idea whose time has come!

That being said, it's also an idea that requires a wee bit of troubleshooting. Even if it's a great idea (which we all think it is!), there are things that need to be worked out in order for it to be really feasible in a hospital setting.

One of the things we need to consider is the ever present threat of germs. If you're in the hospital, you're....sick. So we have to make sure that people who are sick don't get other people sick, and that people with similar illnesses are separated from each other, if needed (i.e., CF patients. We're not allowed to be within six feet of each other. I'm not kidding. I'm not sure how this works in homes where there is more than one person with CF, but....) 

So, inspired by Piper, I began to dig around on the Internet and found....

portable shampoo bowls!!

Is this not awesome? Adjustable height, so everyone can use it! You have to supply your own water source, but just about every hospital room has a sink, so there you go. Fill up a bucket for the water, drains into the sink. Bazinga! The bowl is tilt-able, so you can use just about any chair with it. Grab one from the nurse's station, or even the ones that are in the room, and there you go (My hospital has chairs that recline in the rooms. I realize this might not be the case in every hospital.). 

This model is $300, but on Amazon, it's $74. That's right. SEVENTY FOUR DOLLARS. 

Add a spray so you can wet and rinse the hair--$5 more. 

Another option: This guy, which is for people in wheelchairs or with limited mobility. I'm not sure if this would be my first choice, but hey, this would work for those in wheelchairs and it's better than nothing. 

To protect the patient and keep water from getting on those areas that can't get wet, add a salon cape: $9.18

So, for the bowl, the sprayer, the cape--$88.18. That's for one "set". Two of them? Less than $180. 

With the portable set up, you eliminate worries about infection spreading among patient populations. Someone can go into the patient's room and wash the hair--or even a parent or friend can do it, if one's available. I wouldn't want my brother to wash my hair NOW, but with a setup like this? I could totally teach him how to wash girl hair. :) Patient privacy is preserved, and everything you need is right there, able to be brought into the room and easily connected. (I'm hoping it's easy. If it's not, then we'd need another system. But it looks pretty simple.)

A patient could request this the same way she requests the Nintendo cart (yes, my hospital used to have a Nintendo cart), or a massage therapist, or the child life people, or whatever. You just ask the nurse to call for it, and someone brings it up.  Easy peasy. 

The hospital doesn't have to build a room or install any equipment, like with the previous idea. This is totally portable, easy to take apart and sterilize, when necessary, and can go anywhere. 

What do you guys think?