Released from the hospital yesterday afternoon, still rather weak. Last night I got a sound sleep, but the night before got only an hour or so. The usual hospital noises, awakenings for blood draws and vital checks, plus a special disturbance.... patients in the next room over who listened to the TV or talked loudly until 2 AM, and thereafter faked moans of pain and begged for help. They stopped the moans of pain after another patient mocked them by groaning in chorus. I don't know if they were drunk, had mental problems, or were just jackasses.
Doc said he was initially concerned that I was going septic, but that had been avoided.
All I have left is exhaustion, some aches from sleeping on that bed, and some bruising where the IV went in and more where I got all the blood sticks in the other arm. I even got four injections to the belly; I'd only heard of those for rabies (and that might be history, or a legend).
The original rabies vaccine developed by Pasteur and Émile Roux, and first used before they thought they it was ready, was based on dried nerve tissue infected with an attenuated strain and entailed 21 injections into the abdomen. I came across a report that the following duck cell derived vaccine also required abdomen injections. Now they use a human cell derived one and inject elsewhere.
Using Google just now, I found two explanations for why this was done: the Pasteur approach went on long enough an immune system reaction developed and the abdomen is big enough that you'll still probably be able to find a spot for the last injections.
The other sounded more relevant: the abdomen was used to get the material into fat, where it would last longer.
"I even got four injections to the belly"
That was heparin, a blood thinner. It is used to prevent blood clots in your legs which can travel to your lungs. When that happens it is called a pulmonary embolism, which will kill you.
Blood clots form in people who are lying down for more than a day or so, aka hospital patients.
Glad to hear you're back home. That sounds like quite the interesting hospital. Did you go to a VA?
I'm glad you're out! Get sleep and healthy please!
People addicted to opiates sometimes go to the emergency room and fake pain in an attempt to get some morphine if they don't have the money to get on the street what they need to prevent withdrawals. If they can't trick the staff out of the morphine, then they may be genuinely moaning in pain from the withdrawals. One big problem with this is that when people who are not addicts are genuinely in pain and beg for pain killers, they may be refused if the staff can't find a clear reason for the pain and suspect they're an addict. Thus innocent people also suffer pain from the addicts behavior. If you are begging for pain killers, you might want to show them you have plenty of cash in your wallet so they know you're not there just because you don't have the money to buy it on the street.