Category: Family

ICU

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The next four days were spent in UCI at SCU3. I could not get out of bed. I had a catheter, wasn’t eating anything anyway, but had a ton of fluids going through me to flush out any access blood in my system. That blood was the main concern. If I had a spasm or a possible stroke, it could have been far more dangerous, so I was constantly monitored.

Since I was able to do nothing to but sit and think, I THEN started to think about what had just happened to me. Emotions take over quickly as I even have the slightest thought of the life/death issue. My family, my friends, my co-workers and of course Dave. How lucky I was to be here at all. It was almost too much to take, so I’d try to quickly avoid it. I think it WILL hit me the second I get home though.

Emotional issues are also a problem with recovering from a brain injury. Strange things happen, either because of the type of injury or other things. I had strange things happen in the ICU. I knew one room in the ICU was being used to administer last rights to someone during one day and perhaps that made me think of the following.

Considering I’m very isolated in one glass-walled room, it can be quite lonely at night and perhaps my mind just played tricks on me. I saw my co-worker Di. At least I could have sworn it was her. Then I heard, what I believed were, body bags being opened up for people in that room to identify. I heard someone say “Di just threw up”. Then I heard crying, then I heard someone say “what do we do about the wedding ring”? and I heard Di say very strongly, “I’ll take care of the damn ring!”. I heard a woman crying, then when it was all over, the “bodies” were taken away out a back door, the curtains were opened and all was done.

I was so upset. I knew Di’s only daughter was getting married this month. Not that there was anything I could do about it. I was bedridden, but I just really needed to know. I called in the nurse and asked her about it. I was having an anxiety attack for sure. I told her what I thought had happened to my co-worker. She assured me there were no bodies being identified there that night. Of course, I didn’t believe her and the mystery continued. I had no contact with anyone at Johnny’s to ask if something had happened to Di’s family. Frustrating.

It wasn’t until a week later when I finally asked someone at work, that I found out nothing had occurred with Di’s family. THANK GOD it didn’t, but that meant I imagined the entire thing. I still cannot believe that. Very, very odd and very, very real.

Surgery

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I don’t recall much about the day of the surgery. I remember being wheeled down the hallway to surgery mostly because it is painted with giant flowers. I remember being shaved in the groin and getting a shot there and that’s it.

Dori and Dave comforted each other during the surgery which lasted 2 hours. They visited the chapel and prayed for me and were greatly relieved to see Dr. Kwan come out of surgery with a smile on his face saying things went well, then to see me being wheeled out of surgery with my hand on my chin already complaining about the tape gunk on my chin from the feeding/air tube they had to insert for surgery.

Apparently, my post-anesthesia comedy show was a hit. I complained that Ashley from the ‘Dancing With The Stars’ television show was losing her microphone. Which is odd because they don’t sing anyway!

Then I said “The Care Bears are drowning”. Dori asked me if I wanted her to save the Care Bears, or if I wanted to do it? I then said with great disdain “Screw the Care Bears!”.  Comic relief. I was told nurses laughed as well. I’m glad I entertained! LOL I don’t recall a moment of it.

I vaguely recall the rest of that day and night because I got pretty sick. I could not stomach morphine, then they wanted me to swallow these massive horse pills called Nimodipin which were vital pills for me to take as they prevent vasospasms.