While Everyone Else Enjoys the Olympics, I Try Not to Die in this Stupid Hospital
This may take a while to write - it's difficult for me to think about it and it was a looooong journey to get out of this hospital.
It's January 2010. I am admitted to hospital. Not the one that my specialist works at because that's too far away. Besides, it's easier to just come to this hospital for my family to visit.
Within a few days I think I am feeling better. My boss comes to visit and I tell him I'll be back at work in a couple of days. My cousin, who is a nurse, has flown in from Edmonton. She isn't so positive. She thinks something is really wrong with me and is pushing the doctors to check me out. They are thinking of discharging me. I want to get out but a doctor witnesses me almost passing out on the way back from the bathroom. OK, maybe there is something wrong.
My best friend from Winnipeg flies in. Why are all of these people flying in? I'm OK. My husband picks her up at the airport and I say hi to her. They head back home later in the evening to unpack and unwind. Then my husband gets a call that they need to intubate me and they rush back to the hospital. I do not clearly remember any of this. I go into a coma and do not see my buddy again, though she stays and visits me for a while. Other people fly in. I do not remember them, of course. I am told my son stands at the foot of my bed in his Cadet uniform and tells me all about his day and begs me to wake up. This is heartbreaking even now. They put me on a dialysis machine to keep my heart and kidneys working and an oscillating ventilator to keep my lungs working and to help clear the pneumonia. I am told it makes the whole bed shake and is unpleasant to watch.
They try to wake me up a few times, I am told, but I shake uncontrollably and so they have to put me out again. On the third try the shaking is not so bad so I wake up. This is the first 'waking' that I remember. My parents are there. They tell me the date. I am confused and I have tubes down my throat and my nose. I want them out. I try to communicate but of course I can't talk and for some reason I can't write. My hands are shaking so bad I can't do anything with them. I use a letterboard to point at letters and try to make sense to them. It's like charades and I'm bad at games.
I am so grateful when I get the OK to have the breathing tube removed and then the feeding tube. They put an oxygen mask on me for a while and it's scented and I love it. The nurse wants me to look after myself and so she gives me some water and my shaky hands just spill it all over the bed. She says to keep trying and I just throw ice all over the place. Man, I'm thirsty. Then she hands me juice and I throw juice all over the place. Now I'm just wet and thirsty. It's almost my birthday - will I get out for my birthday? No one seems to think so.
The next day when I wake up I want to head to the shower but the bars are up. I call the nurse and she asks if physio has cleared me for that. I am confused. Why can't I get up and go to the shower? For one thing, there isn't a shower in the ICU. When physio comes by later I understand why she asks. It turns out I can no longer stand on my own. They get me up using the overhead lift and plop me into a wheelchair. I have recently had a muscle biopsy in my leg and something is wrong and the pressure from the left hurts a lot. I need painkillers. I am crying because I can't even get up on my own and it hurts to sit with my leg and the 'tubes' attached to my body.
They are feeding me but all I'm really interested in is the juice. I am trying to eat but I'm not eating much. People bring me food but I get sick easily. Why is this still happening?
I have a lot of hallucinations from the after-effects of the drugs used to keep me in a coma. They are scary and weird and I am convinced they are real. I am scared to leave the ICU as I believe I got a couple of nurses fired. I tell this story to my mother-in-law and she relays it to my parents. It was not true. I also believed I hit my niece and I feel so ashamed when my brother comes to visit that I can barely talk to him and keep apologizing. I did not hit my niece. I mention to a nurse that the hospital is OK but I can't stand the 'virtual reality room'. She looks at me like I have four heads and says it doesn't exist. I am starting to wonder what else isn't true!!!
I like the ICU. You have your own nurse. I had one of them removed from my care as she creeped me out and my husband and my parents. There was something weird about her. One night I kept clicking my call button for her and she was looking at me through the glass but would walk away. I can only assume I was not seeing things. At the end I had a nurse named John a lot. That was comforting as that's my husband's name. One day he spent the entire day with me having tests done. My muscle biopsy went wrong because of the blood thinners and I have large hematomas in my leg. They need to drain them after I have an ultrasound on my leg. This is a miserable experience. It is the first time I have heard a doctor swear. He was trying to drain the blood and get a sample but it shot out at him. I guess there was a lot of pressure. Anyway, after that my nurse John said he thought I didn't need to be in ICU anymore and I didn't need an ICU nurse. I am still scared about getting those nurses fired as I didn't know that wasn't true yet. I don't know if that precipitated what happened next or if it was a drug reaction all by itself. Maybe both. It was my husband's birthday. He and my kids were heading to his parents for dinner. They shot me full of something and I'm talking to Nurse John and I start to shake. He asks me why I'm moving my feet like that. I say I'm not. He asks me why I'm moving my hands like that. I say I'm not. A whole bunch of nurses rush in at once and they say they're going to call my husband. I say it's his birthday, he's going to have his birthday dinner, leave him alone. They say they have to call him. A bunch of nurses try to stick IVs in me at once. I am a hard stick. This is very painful and they're not getting anywhere. Some of them are pushing others aside saying they are better at it. They are freaking me out. They reach my poor husband, he shoves some food in his mouth and rushes back to the hospital. It was just a violent drug reaction. I am eventually just fine.
I will write more later. The ICU adventure was just the beginning.
It's January 2010. I am admitted to hospital. Not the one that my specialist works at because that's too far away. Besides, it's easier to just come to this hospital for my family to visit.
Within a few days I think I am feeling better. My boss comes to visit and I tell him I'll be back at work in a couple of days. My cousin, who is a nurse, has flown in from Edmonton. She isn't so positive. She thinks something is really wrong with me and is pushing the doctors to check me out. They are thinking of discharging me. I want to get out but a doctor witnesses me almost passing out on the way back from the bathroom. OK, maybe there is something wrong.
My best friend from Winnipeg flies in. Why are all of these people flying in? I'm OK. My husband picks her up at the airport and I say hi to her. They head back home later in the evening to unpack and unwind. Then my husband gets a call that they need to intubate me and they rush back to the hospital. I do not clearly remember any of this. I go into a coma and do not see my buddy again, though she stays and visits me for a while. Other people fly in. I do not remember them, of course. I am told my son stands at the foot of my bed in his Cadet uniform and tells me all about his day and begs me to wake up. This is heartbreaking even now. They put me on a dialysis machine to keep my heart and kidneys working and an oscillating ventilator to keep my lungs working and to help clear the pneumonia. I am told it makes the whole bed shake and is unpleasant to watch.
They try to wake me up a few times, I am told, but I shake uncontrollably and so they have to put me out again. On the third try the shaking is not so bad so I wake up. This is the first 'waking' that I remember. My parents are there. They tell me the date. I am confused and I have tubes down my throat and my nose. I want them out. I try to communicate but of course I can't talk and for some reason I can't write. My hands are shaking so bad I can't do anything with them. I use a letterboard to point at letters and try to make sense to them. It's like charades and I'm bad at games.
I am so grateful when I get the OK to have the breathing tube removed and then the feeding tube. They put an oxygen mask on me for a while and it's scented and I love it. The nurse wants me to look after myself and so she gives me some water and my shaky hands just spill it all over the bed. She says to keep trying and I just throw ice all over the place. Man, I'm thirsty. Then she hands me juice and I throw juice all over the place. Now I'm just wet and thirsty. It's almost my birthday - will I get out for my birthday? No one seems to think so.
The next day when I wake up I want to head to the shower but the bars are up. I call the nurse and she asks if physio has cleared me for that. I am confused. Why can't I get up and go to the shower? For one thing, there isn't a shower in the ICU. When physio comes by later I understand why she asks. It turns out I can no longer stand on my own. They get me up using the overhead lift and plop me into a wheelchair. I have recently had a muscle biopsy in my leg and something is wrong and the pressure from the left hurts a lot. I need painkillers. I am crying because I can't even get up on my own and it hurts to sit with my leg and the 'tubes' attached to my body.
They are feeding me but all I'm really interested in is the juice. I am trying to eat but I'm not eating much. People bring me food but I get sick easily. Why is this still happening?
I have a lot of hallucinations from the after-effects of the drugs used to keep me in a coma. They are scary and weird and I am convinced they are real. I am scared to leave the ICU as I believe I got a couple of nurses fired. I tell this story to my mother-in-law and she relays it to my parents. It was not true. I also believed I hit my niece and I feel so ashamed when my brother comes to visit that I can barely talk to him and keep apologizing. I did not hit my niece. I mention to a nurse that the hospital is OK but I can't stand the 'virtual reality room'. She looks at me like I have four heads and says it doesn't exist. I am starting to wonder what else isn't true!!!
I like the ICU. You have your own nurse. I had one of them removed from my care as she creeped me out and my husband and my parents. There was something weird about her. One night I kept clicking my call button for her and she was looking at me through the glass but would walk away. I can only assume I was not seeing things. At the end I had a nurse named John a lot. That was comforting as that's my husband's name. One day he spent the entire day with me having tests done. My muscle biopsy went wrong because of the blood thinners and I have large hematomas in my leg. They need to drain them after I have an ultrasound on my leg. This is a miserable experience. It is the first time I have heard a doctor swear. He was trying to drain the blood and get a sample but it shot out at him. I guess there was a lot of pressure. Anyway, after that my nurse John said he thought I didn't need to be in ICU anymore and I didn't need an ICU nurse. I am still scared about getting those nurses fired as I didn't know that wasn't true yet. I don't know if that precipitated what happened next or if it was a drug reaction all by itself. Maybe both. It was my husband's birthday. He and my kids were heading to his parents for dinner. They shot me full of something and I'm talking to Nurse John and I start to shake. He asks me why I'm moving my feet like that. I say I'm not. He asks me why I'm moving my hands like that. I say I'm not. A whole bunch of nurses rush in at once and they say they're going to call my husband. I say it's his birthday, he's going to have his birthday dinner, leave him alone. They say they have to call him. A bunch of nurses try to stick IVs in me at once. I am a hard stick. This is very painful and they're not getting anywhere. Some of them are pushing others aside saying they are better at it. They are freaking me out. They reach my poor husband, he shoves some food in his mouth and rushes back to the hospital. It was just a violent drug reaction. I am eventually just fine.
I will write more later. The ICU adventure was just the beginning.
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