Dizzy=G-tube Drainage Bag?

I had barely finished the IV antibiotics for the UTI when I started to feel really dizzy and lightheaded all the time. I would never in a million years have connected feeling dizzy and lightheaded with my g-tube drainage bag.

“Your lips look so dry,” Jeff kept telling me, “Do you need Chapstick?”

“I’ve been putting tons of it on,” I told him, showing him the Chapstick I carried in the purse that I kept clipped to the arm of my wheelchair.

My lips were so dry anyway though, and my mouth was salty and sticky with lots of gunk in it, even after Melody or Lauren would dip one of those spongy swabs on a stick into cold water and swab out my mouth.

Draining My Drinks Out My G-tube Drainage Bag

It wasn’t something that I could fix by just drinking more, because anything I drank immediately drained out into my G-tube drainage bag and gave me no hydration. 

Mid-November I was feeling so dizzy and lightheaded it was making me nauseated.

I figured I’d call Dr. Rose the next morning and talk to him about possibly increasing the rate of my intravenous normal saline bag that I used for my hydration. For some reason emergencies always happen at night when your doctors aren’t on call.

Just Your Normal Shower

That evening, Melody taped my Port-a-Cath with Shower Shield. I paused my IV fluids and tube feedings and Melody pushed my wheelchair into the bathroom. She turned on the shower and adjusted the water to the perfect temperature. Then she lifted me out of my wheelchair and put me on the shower chair to bathe me. The only tube or bag I had not disconnected from was my G-tube drainage bag which we had hanging over the side of the tub.

 After Melody finished rinsing off all the Dove body wash, and Loreal Elvive Shampoo and Conditioner she turned the water off. Once she dried me off, she lifted me back off my shower chair and back into my wheelchair. While i was sitting in my wheelchair on a soaker pad we removed the “Shower Shield”. Then we hooked my IV fluids and tube feeding back up and grabbed the G-tube drainage bag. After that, she pushed me in the wheelchair out of the bathroom and down the hall toward my room.

Passing Out From Dehydration

I was just about to transfer into bed, when I felt it. It was like a powerful wave of dizziness so strong that it literally knocked me off my feet.   All I remember is feeling like I’d been sleeping and then waking up on the floor. All I had covering my naked body was a towel. Melody and Jeff were staring down at me.  Everything was kind of fuzzy and blurred together. My half-conscious brain attempted to put the events of the last few minutes together in my head.

“Becca?” Jeff asked. I looked over at him and forced a smile.

“You passed out,” Melody told me.  “I had to lower you to the ground.  There’s an ambulance on the way.”

Suddenly, I registered the fact that I was completely naked except for the small towel barely covering me. “Wait Ii need to put some clothes on,” I insisted.  “They can’t come in and see me lying on the floor naked.”

“I don’t think I should really move you,” Melody hesitated.  “The 911 dispatcher told me not to.”

“They always say that,” I argued.

Dressing Barbie With a G-Tube Drainage bag, 2 Central Lines, and a J tube

“It’s true,” Jeff agreed. He was already heading over to my dresser to pick out clothes.  Honestly, I think he had an issue with them seeing me naked as well. He was probably afraid they would fall in love with my body and steal me away from him. This would never ever, in a million years happen.

“Do you like this shirt?” he asked me. Holding up a blue graphic T-shirt with different little kittens playing video games on it.

I immediately nodded, desperate to get clothes on before EMS arrived.

Then he opened the pants drawer and pulled out a blue pair of leggings with silver stars on them.

“These match.  Do you like these?” he asked.

I nodded again, in too much of a hurry to notice his extreme advancement in the ability to pick out cute clothes. He then proceed to grab a purple sports bra and a pair of days of the week unicorn underwear, (he did grab the wrong day). Once the outfit was assembled, Jeff and Melody proceeded to get me dressed in record time.

“You’re like dressing a Barbie doll,” he told me once. “I always wanted to play with my sister’s barbies as a kid, but they never let me, so I would twist their heads off instead.”

Draining More Liquid Out The G-tube Drainage Bag Than I Take In

Almost as soon as they had finished dressing me, we heard a knock on the door.  EMS had arrived.  It was déjà vu all over again.

This time I was only in the hospital for a couple of days. The diagnosis was severe dehydration.

“When you drink by mouth, it signals the digestive tract to start producing bile.  The more drinks you drink by mouth, the more bile you produce. Then you drain out all that bile into your G-tube drainage bag.  You need to start being very careful about how much you drink by mouth because that’s how you dehydrate yourself.” Dr. Rose explained to me.

“Wait, what?” I asked.

“If you drink more, you produce more bile, then you drain it all out into your drainage bag and end up with less fluid in your body than you would if you hadn’t drank anything.” He explained again.  “I’m not asking you to give up drinking your sugar-free clear liquids for the rest of your life. I’m just asking you to slow down on them.”

Another Check Mark On My Growing List

I nodded sadly.

My life was being reduced to less and less.

“Maybe we can put more swabs in drinks you like?” suggested Jeff.  “Like you could put swabs in Gatorade or iced tea or Crystal Light? That way you can’t drain as much bile out of your G-tube drainage bag.

Jeff had been lying in bed with me when Dr. Rose had come in, and Dr. Rose hadn’t chastised him for it, so he had stayed there.

“That sounds like a great idea,” encouraged Dr. Rose.

I agreed, but in the back of my head, I had a little checklist of things my small fiber autonomic polyneuropathy had stolen from me. Silently I made another check on that list.