Hyperbaric Oxygen Treatment - Day Seven

By phoebe marie -
**This post was transferred from the now defunct "The Long Ease" blog.**

Treatment Day:  7

Arrival Time at Lutheran Hospital Wound Healing Center:  7:47am

Number of old friends I haven't seen in years that I ran into as I was coming in and she was getting off work: 1. Sarah Morgan. Awesome girl.

Appointment Time:  8:00am 

Things I learned while waiting for the doctor to arrive:  The nurse helping today has three dogs.  

Distressing/upsetting things overheard while waiting for the doctor to arrive:  Other nurse talking to bladder guy about whether they will have to do the surgery where they build him a new bladder... he said he was hopeful that the treatments were going to prevent that from happening.  I hope so, too.  I want GOOD NEWS ONLY about this stuff.

Doctor arrived:  8:30am

Reason Doctor was late:  She thought the first "dive" wasn't until 8:30.  

Other things I learned today:  They refer to our time in the tanks as "dives".  Because the pressure is like deep sea diving.  Hadn't heard them say that before, but have noticed they say they are "taking me down" and "bringing me back up".

Treatment actually started: About 8:35am

Notable things:  Same two dudes are in there with me today.  Spanish guy and bladder guy.

Notable things about self today:  Still sinus-y.  Wondering if I have a sinus infection.  Their response to this was to give me a bottle of prescription Afrin-type stuff.

Treatment length:  2.5 hours

Physical things noted during treatment:  Had some twinges of pain in the bladder area.  This is new.

TV station the nurse put on for me:  They now have HGTV listed as "my channel" on my chart.  I'm sure I could request a change, but at this point I have sort of given in.

Things happening on HGTV today:  Marathon of "House Hunters" - not the International version.

Espiodes watched:  
1. White dude whose name escapes me and wife McKenzie are looking for a house in Nashville that has plenty of space... for their PET TURTLES.  No, really.  
2. Painfully annoying couple of lawyers from DC both have grating voices and a goldendoodle named Barksdale.  I want to punch all three of them in their throats.  Fucking BARKSDALE??  You guys suck.
3. Super-dull couple with a fat Frenchie refuse to compromise on living in an uber-boring "planned community" despite the fact that the only house that didn't suck was not in said ticky-tacky Ryan Homes-esque garbage development.
4. White lady with ponytail hairpiece and Chinese guy named Charlie looking for a weekend apartment in Philadelphia (which she repeatedly needs to refer to as a "pied a terre") because they are such total "foodies" that they don't want to stay at their weekday home in New Jersey on the weekends because they are too into eating chicken feet and pig ears and brain tacos in Philly to not be able to just stay there all weekend long.  
5. Deke and Joseph own a salon in Florida and buy a million dollar condo on short sale for half a million and do all sorts of renovations to de-tacky it.  

Things I thought about other than TV:  Honestly... about 3/4 of the way into the "pied a fucking terre" episode, I realized my mind has been a complete blank. This is why I don't watch TV.

Most difficult moment:  They put my "air-break" mask onto hose gizmo upside down and I got all flustered trying to figure out how to use it that way until she told me I could just twist the mask part so it was facing the right way.  

Time Left Lutheran Hospital: 11:20am

Arrival Time at Work:  11:40am. 

Noteworthy After-Effects:  Prescription Afrin-type nose spray works better than Afrin.  I wonder if I get to keep it after this is over.

Treatments Left:  33

Number of times I had to pee between end of treatment yesterday and leaving for the treatment this morning:  8

Tired.  Goodnight.
Xxo, Phoebe Marie

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