4 posts tagged “hospital”

So of course, it's summer, and holidays have begun.
I'm receiving my dose of pamidronate for these 3 days, as I should be. Bit of a hitch yesterday with it, as I was turned away, but today all is well.

Anyway, I'll be going to stay with my mom and Ken, and also at some point, with my dad and Jeanne. I'm leaving, on Saturday, immediately after my pamidronate treatment has concluded, given all goes well.

Anyway, I got some pictures today, so I'll upload them.

Just figured I'd throw a brief post together.

Anyhow, also like to comment that the nurse, Sheena, is very good at what she does, and makes this a lot easier.

Anyway, that's it. Seeya!

Well, tomorrow's back to school. I'm not really looking forward to that. I don't mind school really, I just wish it was more of an option. I also wish summer were longer. But oh well, right? I may or may not have to make a speech in front of the school addressing my brittle bones. I don't like doing that, it's very scary to speak in front of so many people, but it has to be done. Of course due to new vice principals, they might not call me up, so I don't know if I will wind up doing that this year or not. If I don't do it tomorrow, I'll push for it to be done at the next grade meeting.

Life's been a bit of a bummer last couple days. My grandma (dad's mom who lives in the states) was taken to the hospital on Saturday and found out that she had some internal bleeding in her abdomen. My dad and Jeanne, as well as my sister drove to Quincy where my grandma lives and then went to the hospital to see her. The doctors performed an exploratory surgery on her, to find out where exactly the bleed was, and try to stop it, but when they did that, her heart stopped. She had died. They revived her, and brought her back, and finished the surgery. But they weren't able to stop the bleeding. It looks like she's going to die. She's at the hospital still and has tubes in her throat so she's not able to talk, but she is well aware of everything that's going on around her. I got to call last night and say my good-byes to her on the phone. That was probably the hardest thing I've ever done. I sort of wish she'd been able to respond to me, but I understand why she couldn't. At least I got to tell her I loved her and how much she meant to me. That's important. I know that I'm lucky because I got to do that, and a lot of people never do. That doesn't make it any easier though. The actors on T.V. who have to act out a scene where they're saying good bye to a loved one do not do that justice. It's so much harder. They make it seem pretty emotional, but it's worse than that when you're the one saying good bye.
Anyway, I did some writing last night when I went to bed. I'm not going to post it here just yet, I don't think I'm ready to do that.

A few days ago the lunar eclipse went on. Greg was over when that happened, and we went outside at around 1:00 in the morning to see it happen. Nothing special, and it lasted a long time. We didn't see the whole thing. I tried getting some pictures, but none really showed up very well.

I've also been to get my hair cut today! :) I needed it cut really bad! My hair gets so curly when it's too long, and I hate it! But now it's short so it's not as curly! :D I also took some pictures of myself and what not today. I'll post a picture of the moon as well as a few new ones of me on here.

Well, I've finished day 2 of the 3 days I have to go to the hospital in the morning for pamidronate. I've also gone to school in the afternoon so that I don't fall too far behind. Nothing really terribly eventful going on at either, but today something new happened that's never happened before. The IV that was left in my left wrist which always is, got plugged this morning when they tried to start the pump. So, they had to try and find a new vein. Well they found one in the back of my left hand which was preferable to my right hand because I'm right handed, but when the nurse tried to get the needle in, the vein rolled out of the way. That KILLED! It hurt so bad. I've been poked plenty of times, but in all the times I remember, this hurt the worst. Anyway, she tried at it again, and this time my vein blew. It burst so they couldn't use that vein anymore. So finally, they had to get it to go into my other hand which is where the nurse finally got it. My left hand is now nicely bruised. Anyway nothing else has really happened today, but yesterday something funny happened.
Well, first of all you need to know the nurse I had yesterday is also married to my drama teacher and they live just up the street from us, so we know them well enough. Anyway, yesterday just as we were leaving, my mom opened her mouth saying that I should babysit for them. (They have a little boy about 7 years old who's disabled.) My nurse replied "Yeah! That'd be great! Are you really interested?" I said that I might be and that I'd think about it. She seemed very enthusiastic about it, and told me to ask my drama teacher about it if I were interested. Well, I had his class yesterday in the afternoon, but I didn't ask him about it yet. I did however tell him his wife said hi which he found humorous - she'd asked me to say hi and jokingly said that she was going to write a love note for me to pass on to him too. - Why is it always me getting picked on to be messenger boy? Haha. Anyway, I've given it some thought and I do think I'm going to babysit for them, so I'll talk to my drama teacher on Monday, or if his wife is at work again tomorrow perhaps then. I would need to go over to their house and see their child of course beforehand, and find out what special needs he has since he's disabled, but I don't have any problems with that really, just as long as I DO know beforehand.
Well, I'm going to stop talking for now, I'll post more tomorrow perhaps.
-David
Edit: I added some more pictures to my blog, but am not actually posting them. Check em out and comment on them.

Well, the time has come yet again for me to get my quarterly dose of Pamidronate. I'm sure you'll wonder what that is so I'll explain. As is mentioned in my profile and perhaps in another blog post farther down the page I'm not sure, I have Osteogenesis Imperfecta. That translates to Brittle Bones. Anyway, there is no known cure for the bone disorder, but there are drugs that can be taken to help with it. The one that I've come across is known as Pamidronate. To understand how it works you must know, that your body always gets rid of old dead bone and what not and regenerates it with new and stronger bone. Well so does mine, but that makes my bones thinner and having an already weak bone AND a thin bone is a bad idea for me. So what pamidronate basically does is it keeps my body from getting rid of the old bone as much, therefore letting my bones become thicker and denser. They're just as weak as always, but they're thicker. Anyway I started this treatment the day after my 13th birthday. I get the treatment every 3 months for 3 days. It's an IV drip just in case you wondered about that. Anyway, the drip takes about 3 hours each day to complete once it actually starts. So I guess the magic number in this case is 3 eh? Well, anyway, I'm getting the treatment this week on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. It doesn't really have any negative side effects on me that we can see - well it did on my first treatment but it usually does the same thing to some extent to anyone who's on the drug. It made me very tired like so tired I slept for about 18 hours straight. However, after the first 6 months (2 treatments) of being on pamidronate the bone density in my spine increased by 37% which was excellent since I'd broken my spine twice in like a year (not good lucky I'm not paralyzed) and I grew several inches. My bone density has since decreased a bit but that is easily attributed to my increase in growth speed. Anyway, since the first time it hasn't really negatively effected me, except that it stresses me out so that I DO get kind of overtired for the 3 days I'm getting it. I hate missing school especially being in two grade 10 courses when I'm actually in grade 9. I'm almost done with school for the year though. This week and next week are my last weeks of school. Then I've got exams on the 19th I believe as well as the 25th and 26th.  That will be fun I'm sure...
Oh before I leave, I've discovered another band which I seem to like thanks to a kid I was talking to at my bus stop this morning. The band is called Stone Sour, it's got the lead singer of Slipknot and other members of Slipknot in it.
Anyway, now I'm going to end my post so I'll talk to you all later!