A Sleepy Update

This admission has been a little rough so far.  Up until today, I still felt nauseous most of the time and therefore didn't eat much.  I'm not sleeping well because of coughing during the night so I'm sleeping a lot during the day and am just generally exhausted.  Because of the way I'm coughing, Dr. Hornick said it's sinus related so I'm on 3 different nasal sprays.  My Tobramycin levels are already high so today I was switched to a 24 hour schedule instead of a 12 hour.  But not until I had to get blood tests 4 different times.  

 I'm a tough stick and it's showing more this time.  The first time I got blood was for levels (1, 2, and 3 hours after getting the Tob).  3 draws, 4 sticks.  The rest of them were for troughs (right before a dose).  #1: 1 draw, 1 stick; #2 1 draw, 2 sticks; #3: 1 draw, 1 stick.  This wouldn't sound so bad except for that they've been pretty painful.  The one I just got about 20 minutes ago was, at least, sitting next to a nerve.  I didn't scream, but came darn close.  It was on the knuckle of my pointer finger...there just weren't other veins popping up.  

I'm also on the Meropenem (the one that makes me sick for the first few days) so I had fevers, and it made the nauseousness worse for awhile.  I've had night sweats every night so far, which are miserable.  I've had them several times before and it's just a result of the infection being fought off, but it doesn't make it any more comfortable.  I'm looking forward to those going away!

My third antibiotic is Cipro(floxacin) and thankfully there are no side effects from this one.  I'm very thankful for that.

I started exercise yesterday without incident.  Today, though, the light-headedness/dizziness I've been having since getting the stent out changed that a bit.  I've been having lower blood pressure readings since the kidney stone stuff and when I went to exercise it dropped.  I was told to stop and go back up to the room.  I like to push myself when I'm down there, but I was happy to give it up today.  I've been using a wheelchair to get down there because of the dizziness so I returned safely to my room and have just been hanging out since.

I know this is kind of a jumble of stuff, but I wanted to get out an update and I'm just so tired, this is all I can do for now.  Sorry about that!  Hopefully things will be getting straightened out in the next few days and I'll return to my normal self...well, as normal as I can be :)

Thank you for your continued thoughts and prayers!

P.S. Just had a cool/weird experience...Peoria, ISU, and Bradley were all just mentioned in a news sports story.  Very cool to hear stuff about the hometown area, but weird because nobody ever knows where I live! :-P