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        They have to slap me on the infusion schedule again.  I didn’t even have an appointment scheduled for Friday, which I thought was so confusing.  Obviously I would need an appointment to remove this thing–I can’t do it myself.  Nobody explained to me that each appointment that was booked meant a new antibiotic bag, which means another night plugged into this pump.  I thought the final booked appointment meant unplugging.  That’s not the case.

        The infusion center closes early on Fridays, so at 10 AM I have to suddenly rearrange my schedule in order to catch the last appointment at 1 PM.  When I get there, the nurses all look confused.  

        “I thought you were finished?” 

        “The doctor wants me to stay on until my drain is removed.”

        I sit in one of the infusion chairs and wait patiently.  I’ve absolutely told several nurses that “I’m a patient patient.” I can’t help it.  It’s like a compulsion to spew a pun or two every once in a while.  You could call it a com-pun-sion.  See?  There I go again.

        I hear the nurses from behind the counter, “she was an add-on. Yea, she was an add-on.”  I know they’re talking about me.  I’m the add-on.

        The nurse comes over to take my blood pressure.  “117/72,” she says.  The little old lady sitting next to me exclaims, “That was my blood pressure too! Isn’t that something!  How strange!”  She can’t get over it.

        They get me my new bag.  As I’m sitting there, I realize they’ve booked me for the farther-away hospital on Saturday and Sunday instead of the closer hospital that I’m used to.  I have no idea where to go or where to park at that hospital.  I tell the nurse.

        “You’d better call.  They leave early on Fridays.  Call now.”

        Thank goodness she told me to call right then and there.  They were able to add me to the weekend schedule at the hospital that I’m used to.  

        Friday night I discovered what the difference is between upstream occlusion and downstream occlusion.  Upstream means it’s down close to the pump.  Downstream means it’s up close to my body.  Go figure.  So when this baby started beeping at me about a downstream occlusion, I figured out that I just needed to adjust my body.  Thankfully I mentioned this to the weekend nurse.  

        “I’m going to pack you some saline syringes so that you can flush your port if needed.”  She packed me some syringes, caps, and alcohol wipes, just in case I had to do my own downstream-occlusion flush.

        Monday night, this thing started beeping at me.  I unpacked the whole apparatus.  I repositioned the antibiotic bag.  It soothed itself somehow.  

        Tuesday morning they removed my drain.  My doctor had told me he wanted it to basically have dust (minimal drainage) to remove it, and I was below 5 mL daily.  Hopefully my incision doesn’t start to leak…

        Tuesday afternoon, this pump baby started beeping AGAIN.  It of course waited until 5 PM to start wailing, which is after-hours.  I had to tutor and kept having to push the silence button.  Every 5 minutes.

        When I got home, I took the whole thing apart again.  I was going to find the kink in the tubing.  I was sure of it.  I unscrewed the part that was close to my port.  Nothing worked.  I flushed my port.  Nope.  I was beside myself–how in the HELL would I be able to sleep pushing the snooze button every 5 minutes?

        It was going to be impossible.  So I detached the pump, attached one of the saline syringes, and I put that puppy out in the car.  What else do you do with a crying baby?  I was worried that if I put it in the basement, I’d still hear it.

        The next morning, I warned my twins there’s a crying baby in the car.  They weren’t sure how to react to that, until they realized it was my beeping pump.

        After I dropped them off at school, I tried to reconnect the pump, but this time the message on the screen was a little scary: “batteries depleted.” Then why are you still beeping?!  I tried to replace the batteries, but it kept right on beeping. I put the old batteries back in (I wasn’t going to waste my own batteries), and put the obviously possessed pump back in my car until my 2 PM appointment.

        When I got to the infusion center, I thought they were going to yell at me.  I’d disconnected my pump and didn’t get a drop of the antibiotic.  When Nikki the nurse saw me, she said, “what happened?”  I showed her the syringe hanging from my port.  She said, “I meant why are you still coming?  Now I got to hear this story!”

        I told her about the Infectious Disease doctor wanting me to stay plugged into the antibiotics until my drain came out.  And then I told her that pump is possessed and needs an exorcism right away.

        “Not in the car!” she laughed as I told her the story.  I told her I was ready to hand everything over.          “Not yet,” she said, and brought over another bag of antibiotics.  

        “I thought I was finished!  The ID doctor said until the drain is out, and the drain it out!  It’s Wednesday!”  

        “Nope, the doctor ordered another bag.”

        “Then I want a new pump.  I’m not taking that one.”

        “I would too!” Nikki said as she went behind the counter to find me a new pump. “Do you think it’s your electro-magnetic field?  I’ve NEVER heard of someone having as much trouble with one of these pumps!”

        I started thinking about that.  “You know, you may be right.  There was a time in my life that Toshiba kept having to send me a brand new DVD player every year because they would only last 11 months in my house.  And that’s before I had kids.  It was like my electro-magnetic field just kept killing the electronics.  I’ll never forget that Toshiba guy telling me that this never happens.”

        “Yep–only you. Man, by now, you’re an expert at these pumps though.  We’re going to start calling you if we need troubleshooting. ‘Um, hi Melissa, Mrs Brown’s pump is beeping and we need you to troubleshoot what’s wrong with it.”  It’s still a joke at the infusion center.  They’ve literally never seen someone have so many problems with a pump.  I still think the thing just needed some holy water.

        I was finally able to give up the pump on Thursday.  So they gave me a brand-new pump for just one day.  But I wasn’t about to walk out with that possessed one.  I hope they threw that one right in the trash.  It’s not like I got it wet or banged it against something.  Just the longer that I had it, the more it hated me.  Good riddance!