Salt Lake.. One of the best hospitals for head trauma and so I was very thankful they picked that hospital.
After I had been moved to a room, I was not allowed to have anything by mouth...no water, no food.
I was dehydrated and very hungry but they wouldn't do open heart surgery with a full stomach so I waited. They had a really tough time keeping an IV in my veins and finally at two am they called in a specialist. My arms, hands, and feet were full of bruises and I was officially tired of being pocked.
At 8 am they rolled my downstairs to have a camera put down my throat and to view my heart. I figured this would be a simple procedure but I was very wrong. The nurses prepared my and numbed my mouth and throat and they half sedated me. My parents couldn't be in the room when this was happening and that was the worst part of the whole procedure. I woke up half way through the procedure with the scope still down my throat and started gaging.
After they brought my parents in and we talked about the infection on my valve, we had to wait a few hours to know if I needed open heart surgery. I was wheeled back to my room, they same in a few hours later and told me I didn't need surgery! Thank the Lord.
I was still having issues with my IV so they decided to put a pik line in my arm. It's similar to a full time IV that go in my upper arm and through the vein and ends right above my heart. The point on a pik line is so we can shower the heart with antibiotic.
I spent the next three or four days, just receiving antibiotics and sleeping. Christmas was a few days away so the rush to get me home for the holiday was apparent. My mother was taught how to give my antibiotics through my pik line, as I had 6 weeks to take antibiotics. Two days before Christmas we were released and we headed home!
Until next time, within a week of being home I was back in the ER.
