Hip Hip Hooray…No. (Part 1)

It was a Monday morning. I got up and got on the subway to go to work as usual. I got up to get off of the train; it was my stop. A sudden and unexpected pain jolted though my left hip.

“I’ll walk it off” I thought.

I continued to limp my way through my building, into the elevator, and to my desk. This ‘walk it off’ plan wasn’t working out well. I worked as best as I could for a few hours, but eventually I gave up and decided to go home for the rest of the day.

Things didn’t seem to be getting better by the following day, so I thought I had better go to the hospital. This is the same hip that I had replaced several years ago, so I was concerned that something was wrong. Went I got to the ER, my heart sank. There were about a kabillion people there. After several hours, I eventually got called in.

The first thing that was done was an x-ray. Nothing there.

I sat in emerg for HOURS, as the team decided what they wanted to do. They were concerned that there might be an infection in my hip, so they encouraged me not to eat anything…just in case they wanted to send me in for surgery. Surgery…? What..?

It was now after midnight. I watched my mom nodding off in her chair. My dad came to pick her up.

My mom got more sleep nodding off in her chair than I did for the whole night. A man in the space beside me obnoxiously played music on his cell phone. At one point, he called the nurse because he wanted pain medication. “Don’t play with my pain.” he said angrily. The nurse shut him down very quickly and told him to correct his attitude. When he realized that she wasn’t going to cower at his rudeness, he attempted to be nice. “How’s your night going?” He asked.

“You know what, I don’t want to talk about it.”  she said. “I don’t like being yelled at at 2 in the morning.” I was scream/cheering on the inside.

The following day came and I was moved to a loud, 4 person room. Hangry-ness was setting in. It had been well over hours and I hadn’t eaten yet…and nobody could tell me for sure when and if I would be able to eat. My nurse had attempted, on a few occasions, to get me to take my medication, including my prednisone. I told her that under no circumstances was I taking prednisone without food. She told the doctor this, and the doctor told her to explain to me “the importance of taking my medication.”

Are you sick? I KNOW that taking my medication is important. I also know that I’m not going to knowingly make myself sick because you all don’t know if i’m having surgery or not.

I was eventually moved to a room upstairs…aka I was admitted.

I didn’t get the private room that I asked for-I got a semi-private room.

Both my mom and Greg were with me for the majority of the day. Around dinner time, the nurse came to me and told me that the doctor said that if I was going to have surgery, it wouldn’t be tonight, so I was now allowed to eat.

…what?

Anyhow, there was nothing that I wanted more than a pizza from Maker Pizza. I threw myself at my phone and into the uber eats app. I ordered pizza and wings. I stared at my phone salivating as the little car showed me how far away the uber driver was with my pizza.

I ate myself sick. And, if in a similar situation in the future, I’d most certainly do exactly the same thing.

The nurse told me that I would be having my hip aspirated the following morning, so nothing to eat or drink after midnight.

My mom and boyfriend soon left, and I began to get tired. The nurse was my room talking to my roommate…when, based on what the nurse was saying and how she was acting, the lady had just had a seizure..!

It eventually passed I guess…and they gave her something to help her fall asleep.

That was the beginning of a long night for me.

I’ve spent many nights in hospital rooms and have had many roommates. Never in my life have I experienced snoring at the decibel any where near what I experienced that night. See, this is why I always ask for private rooms.

I called the nurse.

“Oh, this is actually way better than it has been in the past!”

…what?

“Well, we can’t wake her up. That wouldn’t be fair.”

I didn’t suggest that she be woken up. I asked that I be moved. The floor was full. They said that a private room opened up and they would see if I could be moved there. I knew they wouldn’t do that; they would rather just put a new person in there instead of moving me and then having to clean my side of the room again.

There was nothing they could do.

I grabbed my blanket, pillow, cell phone, and headphones. I went to sleep on the couch in the visitor’s lounge. My nurse tried to convince me to go back to my room and try to sleep there. There was NO WAY.

I obviously didn’t sleep much that night.

In the morning, I mentally prepped myself to have a gigantic needle jabbed into my hip…